My blog is reporting new posts on RSS when there aren't new posts

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  ericzimmerman · Member · Aug 6, 2014 at 8:08 pm

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  This is the report I am getting from a reader. This problem has been happing for the last several months:

  “This is in the Thunderbird RSS reader. Every week or so it just says you have 10 new articles in your feed, but they’re the same as the old ones (even the dates are the same). It’s like wordpress’s RSS feed for your blog is updating some unique ID or something it shouldn’t. I don’t have the problem with other blogs.”

  The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

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  jeremeylduvall · Member · Aug 6, 2014 at 8:25 pm

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  Hey Eric,

  Can you ask the user what feed URL they’re inputting into Thunderbird? Also, could you ask them if they experience the same issue if they follow your blog in another RSS reader?

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  ericzimmerman · Member · Aug 6, 2014 at 9:21 pm

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  Jeremey,
  Thanks for the message. Here’s the response from my reader:

  “I use this url: http://ericzimmerman.wordpress.com/feed/. I’m not going to try another rss reader to repro. However, I follow other wordpress blogs (including http://spyparty.com/feed) and they don’t have the same issue. I’m not sure I follow any other wordpress.com blogs, though. I do follow http://wordpress.org/news/feed/ for updates, and that doesn’t have the issue, but that’s not wordpress.com either.”

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  jeremeylduvall · Member · Aug 7, 2014 at 3:44 pm

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  Hey Eric,

  Thanks for passing along the additional info. I’ve downloaded Thunderbird and followed your feed. Initially, the reader did pop up with a “10” next to your feed and displayed your 10 latest blog posts. I’ve “read” them all so that number disappeared. I’ll see if it pops back up again on my side!

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  ericzimmerman · Member · Aug 8, 2014 at 6:46 pm

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  Jeremy, thanks for the reply.
  How did it turn out? Do you have any new information for me?
  -e

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  jeremeylduvall · Member · Aug 12, 2014 at 3:53 pm

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  Hey Eric,

  I opened Thunderbird again today, and when I clicked “Get New Messages” to refresh my RSS feeds, I only saw a “1” next to your blog with your latest post “How I Teach Game Design. (Lesson 2: Broken games and meaningful play)”. So, I’m unable to recreate what the user is experiencing.

  Can you ask them to right-click on your blog within Thunderbird and click “Properties” -> “Repair Folder”? It looks like Thunderbird has a built-in repair of sorts for these types of issues.