Does Patch Look Weird Today? It's Not Your Fault

When the San Andreas really cuts loose and the Big One becomes reality, California is supposed to fall into the ocean.

Well, that's what Patch looks like today for many people, although it has to do with the website's east coast.

An update of the site, which takes place routinely every few days in the wee hours, had a glitch that made the third column disappear.

Poof!

The column that includes ads, as well as the Shout Out box—the area where recent comments appear so that readers can see which stories are attracting discussion—is located below columns 1 and 2. So, really, California didn't disappear into the sea, but it is now part of South America.

Engineers are working on the issue and have apparently discovered a workaround; the third column rights itself if the zoom feature is used in order to make the type appear bigger.

Here's the message from a person on Patch's internal Help Desk:

Yes, we've been getting a large number of complaints related to what you've mentioned and then some-- bad deploy it seems. We will notify our engineers of the following issues.

-ads and comments are now below all other content when the zoom is not standard
-the scroll function in the edit article view Chrome is broken
-it is taking an unusually long time to approve articles

oh boy...

So, Patch respectfully requests your patience as we move things back to where they belong. And, for what it's worth, if you're interested in some oceanfront property in Nevada, have we got a deal for you.