Matt Ingenthron's Stream of Consciousness

Tuesday July 18, 2006

Trackback problems due to failed verification with JRoller?

Okay, I admit I don't always read the directions. Lately though, when working with my blog, attempts at posting a trackback would give me something like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<response>
<error>1</error>
<message>ERROR: REJECTED: trackback failed verification</message>
</response>

Target blog returned HTTP response code 200 

I'd looked into the problem once, and John Clingan and I even did some basic testing to see why, but couldn't make sense of it. So tonight, I tried it again with the Scott Jolly post, and had a similar issue. After a minute or two of research, I came across a note in an email from Allen:
trackback verification ensures that the entry you are sending the trackback from has an actual link to the entry you are sending the trackback to. So if you want to send a trackback from entry1 to entry2 then entry1 must have a link to entry2

Ah ha! Well, sorta, I had a link to Scott's blog already. Hmmmmm.... Well, let me give it another shot-- I'd not posted the blog entry yet when I tried to set the track back I don't think. Hey, it worked!

Dave, if you're listening, that trackback verification error message could be a bit more specific about what a verification is.... :)