I am unable to contact Weebly

[diggingahole]

I have a Weebly account with a free Weebly subdomain.  I edited the site last week but was unable to publish it.  I tried to contact Weebly but everything goes to Square.  Contacted Square who say it is Weebly's fault.  They cannot find my email address, try and log into Weebly - no address recognised.  The site goes to a 404 which is not helpful.  If I click a certain log in on Google I can get the website up - but not re-publish.  I have gone round in circles and no on is accepting responsibility.  I cannot however get in touch with Weebly themselves other than by phone and I am in the UK.  Please can anyone advise as it is detrimental my being off line.

[Donnie-M]

@diggingahole Sorry you're stuck in this loop. Here's what I think is actually happening.

Square acquired Weebly in 2018 and the free tier has been in slow wind-down ever since. Paid accounts got migrated to Square Online; free accounts are effectively unsupported. That's why every path routes back to a Square rep pointing at Weebly, and Weebly has no staffed support channel anymore.

Your symptoms (no email on file, direct login failing, Google SSO still working) suggest your account got caught in a backend migration sweep. Orphaned credentials nobody owns.

Honest advice: while the Google SSO login still works, treat it as a side door that could close any time. Get in, export or screenshot everything you want to keep, and plan your move. Even if the auth gets fixed tomorrow, you're building in a wasteland.

Free is great until it isn't.  I am not saying you get what you pay for, but you don't have any leverage in these situations.  Getting a proper domain with a registrar and a paid domain name hosting is the way to go.  Especially if it negatively impacting business or your work.

Not the answer you were hoping for, but the platform is abandoning you, not the other way around. Protect your work while the side door is still open.  Weebly really doesn't exist anymore like what you are remembering.

[diggingahole]

Many thanks for that. Unfortunately I am the dogsbody for a small charitable society in our village and they have little money and are not prepared to pay out annually a sum for domain name and hosting. They have been warned that if this matter isn’t solved they will lose their web presence.  Whilst it has been very successful giving information and gaining interest they are proving ‘blinkered’ in their approach. 

What you have told me is what I had worked out and that unfortunately there is nothing in it for them. Ah well so be it.  As I am 91 I probably won’t have many web designing years left anyway and they will then have to sort the problem. A shame really as I have been doing it for them for 20 years and will miss it.  Off to do my screenshots now. Thanks.

[Donnie-M]

@diggingahole  Appreciate the info, and sorry it goes like this sometimes. I appreciate honesty, and don't ever count time out, you might have more days left designing than I do. We never know, memento mori.

One thought before you pack it in: Google Sites and WordPress.com are both free, no hosting fees, no domain renewal if you accept a .wordpress.com or .google.site address. Might be worth passing along to a younger volunteer in the village who could take it on. Even an hour walking them through it would save them weeks of figuring it out from scratch, and you'd be leaving them something tidy rather than a pile of screenshots.

Either way, get your export done today while that Google login still works. Twenty years of keeping a village connected is no small thing.

[diggingahole]

Thank you, you are being really helpful.  I have looked at both Wordpress and Google not sure about either. I really would like to go back to html but that would land them with costs and me with a lot of head scratching dragging all the knowledge back to the fore. As the current situation has a gmail address I will look at Google further. Incidentally finding someone prepared to take it on will give me a headache, they all look at me as if I have two heads. I thought a student might take it on as a project but I have to live in hope!

[diggingahole]

I have dis covered that Square has been taken over by Block so add that into the mix us minnows have little hope.