If you’re trying to connect to your WordPress blog from Windows Live Writer desktop client, you may get this dreaded error message:

Invalid Server Response – The response to the blogger.getUsersBlogs method received from the blog server was invalid: Invalid response document returned from XmlRpc Server

This means that instead of expected XML response your blog sent back plain html or text message which is most likely some kind of error message. To see actual message you can either trace request response in an HTTP sniffer like Fiddler or simple enter endpoint url for your blog remote access (e.g. http://your.site.com/wordpress/xmlrpc.php) into your browser address bar.

There’re several possible messages you could see, but in the majority of cases it will be something like:

The requested URL was rejected. If you think this is an error, please contact the webmaster. Your support ID is: 5068797262012007641

This means that your host intentionally disabled access to xmlrpc.php. Reason being that a while ago vulnerability was discovered in WordPress remote access that would allow a DDoS attack. But this happened many years ago and the bug was since rectified. But if your host still refuses to open access to the file, there’s a quick workaround: Just create a copy of xmlrpc.php under a different name, say xmlrpc2.php and point your Live Writer to that address:

Bingo! No more rejections, and now what’s limiting your posting is only your imagination.