Another Blogger Bug: In order to select an item from your on-line storage, please sign in

In a comment on my previous Blogger-mess-related post, Blogger Error "You have logged out from another location...", Blogger user Miyaka reported another "curious behavior" of the world's most popular blogging platform operated by the world's largest Internet company. Less than two days later, I was experiencing the same problem myself.

I must say that these Blogger glitches are getting really annoying.

Here is what happens. When you try to insert an image into a blog post, instead of showing you the image picker, it shows a dialog box with the message "In order to select an item from your on-line storage, please sign in." and a "Sign in" button (see Screenshot 1 below) even though you are logged in.

Screenshot 1

If you click the red "Sign in" button, it displays the Google account sign in page (in a pop-up), but after you sign in, you get a "There was an error! Details: The feature you requested is currently unavailable. Please try again later." message (see Screenshot 2 below).

Screenshot 2

Extremely informative!


My gut feeling immediately told me that this bug had to be related to the one I wrote about before. It is. And, just like the other one, this has something to do with cookies (specifically, third-party cookies).


So, until I figure out a more elegant solution, here is ugly workaround #1:

1. Log on to your Google account (it doesn't matter how: you can log on to GMail and then open Blogger or you can log on to Blogger directly). Remember to access Blogger via https - not http (see my earlier post).
2. Before uploading and/or inserting images into your blog post go to your browser settings and allow third-party cookies.
3. Continue working normally. You need to keep that setting enabled until you finish using Blogger (or at least until you finish uploading/inserting images).
4. When done using Blogger (or, at least, working with images), go back to your browser settings and disallow third-party cookies (this is optional, of course, but bear in mind that by allowing third-party cookies you may COMPROMISE your PRIVACY). Next time you create/edit a blog post with images, you will have to repeat the above all over again.

Workaround #2 (not extremely elegant either, but EASIER and SAFER):

In your browser settings, keep third-party cookies blocked, but make an exception only for docs.google.com and set it to "Allow".

I don't really like either of these much, but Workaround #2 seems easy and harmless enough to be considered an acceptable "fix".


P.S.
I have found reports of this bug as old as October 2012. The best reply a Google employee by the name Brett could come up with was that they did not see "system-wide issues", suggested cleaning browser cache and cookies (it seems to be their remedy for everything) and closed the topic.