Using Blogger.com Blogs On Windows Live Writer in 2014

I’ve just tried to pick up my blogging again and tried to get in a million different ways but ultimately kept seeing the error message “The username or password is incorrect. Please try again.” Here’s how I solved it.

IMPORTANT UPDATE #4

If you are arriving here in 2016 then it’s time to move on from Windows Live Writer. It was open sourced as a new project Open Live Writer. You should use this moving forward.

Google made special provisions to allow the old login methods to continue to work while this project was organised but moving forward you won’t be able to use Windows Live Writer with Blogger any more.

Their is a download link on the official website but here is a direct link that was working at the time of publication.

IMPORTANT UPDATE #3

01-June-2015 Scott has just tweeted to me that Windows Live Writer is working with Blogger again!

@rtpHarry fixed

— Scott Hanselman (@shanselman) June 1, 2015

It looks like Google has re-enabled ClientLogin which is their proprietary auth mechanism and the only one that Windows Live Writer currently supports. My guess is that this is a temporary reprieve while Microsoft sort out the updated / OSS version Scott has been teasing.

I’ve tested it and at the moment you still need to follow the original tutorial which is below these updates to enable access for less secure apps. When I turned it off in Google Accounts and restarted WLW it stopped working for me.

IMPORTANT UPDATE #2

01-June-2015 At the moment you still cannot use Windows Live Writer with Blogger but it looks like we will get an updated build real soon:

Having issues with Windows Live Writer and Google’s Blogger? Google and Microsoft are working together for quick resolution. More info soon.

— Scott Hanselman (@shanselman) May 29, 2015

IMPORTANT UPDATE

28-May-2015 At the moment you cannot use Windows Live Writer with Blogger.

Scott Hanselman has confirmed that Google have removed the ClientLogin endpoint which is what Windows Live Writer depended on to auth with:

@JasonBSteele Yep, we noticed. Google removed the ClientLogin endpoint. We'll need to add in OAuth. It's on the list. @robdolin

— Scott Hanselman (@shanselman) May 27, 2015

The only good news I can give out at the moment is that Scott has been working with the team behind it in hopes to get the project open sourced. This would mean the community could fix issues like these. Hopefully the complete breakage of the application will push them into releasing a fix of some kind. I'll update here when I hear any more.

As it stands today any attempts to open, edit or publish posts via WLW will display this error message:

Problem

No matter what I did I kept getting the same error message:

“The username or password is incorrect. Please try again.”

Because I haven’t used blogger for a long time I had a vague memory that there was some kind of trick I had to do to get this working but Google searches were not helping me.

• Adding https at the start? Got me to the next screen but then the same error.
• Typing and retyping my password, checking it worked online, unticking the remember password box? Fruitless.
• Selecting MetaWeblog API and then trying various feed URLs gleamed from my view source of the blog? Not a scratch.
• Checking I didn’t have two factor authentication turned on? I didn’t according to my account.
• Enabling and then disabling two factor authentication? Still got me nowhere.
• Growling at the computer screen? Apparently pointless.
• Attempting to uninstall but at the last minute choosing a the repair option? No change

I was about to uninstall the whole thing, give it one last install and then lower myself to using the blogger.com web interface when…

Solution

In the end it turned out that all I had to do was enable access for “less secure apps” to my Google account.

After the myriad attempts above to login an email popped up in my inbox. Apparently Google had been helpfully protecting my account from being accessed by what it considers “less secure apps”.

If you haven’t received your email yet after try this then just go to this page:

• https://www.google.com/settings/security/lesssecureapps

Log in, select Enable and click Done:

I then had my blogger account set up in Windows Live Writer 2012 within minutes and wrote this post.

Now, I applaud Google for implementing protection like this but if there isn’t a way to make the error message returned actually helpful in diagnosing the problem then please can you get the email out to me tout suite next time! :)