RSS Feed rendering error
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The RSS XML seems to be sending <embed> and <object> html tags which had previously been stripped out. and converted to the rss <enclosure> tag,
From what I can tell this error started in late September.
This is causing rendering errors in iTunes and other readers. The rss <enclosure> tags continue to appear as expected, so the feed still works on some readers.
Feedburner does not offer a way to strip out those tags.
see for yourself:
http://bangwave.org/feed/
http://feeds.feedburner.com/bangwave/
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/bangwave-radio-podcasts/id511192879At the moment, iTunes is getting the feed directly from WordPress, and not from feedburner. When I first set this up, your help pages said to do it this way. Since then you have added the recommendation to use feedburner. I do not want to introduce another layer of complexity if possible, and certainly not until this issue is resolved.
-Alex V
(email visible only to moderators and staff)
(email visible only to moderators and staff)
(email visible only to moderators and staff) (note .net not .org for email)The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Hi Alex – For podcasting, it has always been necessary to use Feedburner from WordPress.com. WordPress.com is a multi-user blogging platform, and since all of our blogs share a common architecture, users are not able to access or edit the feed metadata, so you can’t modify the iTunes meta tags.
As we do listen to our users, please add a suggestion to our Ideas forum asking WordPress.com to add iTunes support for podcasters: https://en.forums.wordpress.com/forum/ideas
Meanwhile, can you please try setting this up through Feedburner as described here?
http://en.support.wordpress.com/audio/podcasting/You’ll just need to contact iTunes for them to change his source feed.
In the Feedburner settings, please also check that in Optimize -> SmartCast -> Create podcast enclosure from links to is set to “audio files only” not “any rich media file.”
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let me reiterate. I started the podcast 3 years ago. there was NOT recomendation then to use feedburner in the documentation then.
The unaltered WordPress feed DID work with iTunes fairly well until only the end of last month.
The <object> and <embed> tags were stripped out until only recently. THIS IS A NEW PROBLEM. Furthermore, there is no reason that those tags should remain in the RSS feed FOR ANY REASON, podcast or not! You do not leave them in for youtube. why leave them in for mp3 audio?
I do have a feedburner set up. But WordPress does not allow me a away to add in the special iTunes RSS tags to redirect the feed to my feedburner URL, NOR does it offer a way to simply redirect the source of the URL bangwave.org/feed
RSS stands for REALLY SIMPLE Syndication. WordPress and Apple surely do not make this simple.
So you are basically asking all of my subscribers to manually change their feed addresses unless I migrate the entire site to a private host and install the feedburner plug-in.
How is this REALLY SIMPLE? Three or more layers of complexity only sets us up for more possibilities for error and even longer troubleshooting processes.
Why do you tech support folks always assume that we are just making stuff up or do not really understand what is going on and not actually look into the complaint before responding with a typical “buzz off idiot” type of response?
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FURTHERMORE your Docs give bad advice.
Sure lets go back to:
http://en.support.wordpress.com/audio/podcasting/In the docs you say to:
Create a category for your podcasts; you can name this anything you like. For these instructions we’re going to call ours “Podcasts”.
Create a new post and assign it to the Podcasts category.Sure easy enough. Then a little while down you say:
Make a note of the address now appearing in your address bar.
Guess what. That links IS NOT AN XML RSS DATA FEED. In the feedburner instructions you say to:
Paste in the address you noted/saved in step 7 above.
Guess what happens? AN ERROR! Why? Because as I said, that URL does NOT take you to a XML FEED. Feedburner will not accept that kind of link.
Why don’t you try this yourself. Go ahead and submit a category link to feedburner and see what happens. for instance: http://bangwave.org/category/syndicated/
Doesn’t work. does it?
When I tried that, Feedburner complained that it was not a valid XML file. And of course it is not.
Maybe you just didn’t reads the docs closely enough. go back and re-read and try again. It doesn’t feel nice to be told that and ignored does it.
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And another thing your podcasts docs leave out is the simple fact that iTunes will only grab the first MP3 listed in the enclosures for the post. So if you are doing a set of files or a play-list it will not function that way iTunes.
I had put a short station ID mp3 before a podcast. While on WordPress the player simply plays each mp3 one after another and in order, iTunes would only play that station ID and never get to the actual content. lame.
I found this out with trial and error. I never saw a word about this in WordPress nor iTunes infallible documentation.
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My itunes users find me here:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/bangwave-radio-podcasts/id511192879Notice only 3 podcasts show up. This is unacceptable. iTunes is pointing directly to the wordpress feed. This was not a problem for the last three years. I am not doing anything different today.
Sure I can get feedburner to send itunes an xml feed that works. But I can not get iTunes to switch to that feed.
Here’s a fun suggestion. Try getting itunes to change the URL of your feed.
First they ignore you when you click “report an issue”.
Then they freeze your feed all together when you attempt to submit a new version of your feed (ie feedburner) through itunes.
WordPress does not give me any option to tell iTunes to do that.
Just to update a feed you are basically asking me to remap my domain to a private server with a /feed/ folder and a hand-written xml file ready with the itunes redirect tag. charming. And a great way for wordpress to collect another 13 dollars when it is all said and done to remap the domain.
So on the interim I am forced to ask my itunes users to enter all this in manually.
If you can’t be bothered to check thinks out and see if they work, I am sure my listeners will not be willing to either.
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Sorry for the confusion – I’ll try to make this more clear.
We didn’t have any podcasting documentation on WordPress.com until July 2012, so I’m not sure what documentation you are referring to when you initially set up your podcast three years ago.
Again, as WordPress.com is a shared hosting environment, the ability to modify the feed is not available. However, you are able to contact iTunes and request they change the source feed for your podcast from your WordPress.com feed to your Feedburner feed. It’s a simple process: you email them and they should update it within a few days. People subscribed to your podcast via iTunes won’t see any disruption in service. You would contact iTunes support here: http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/contact/
If people are subscribed directly to your feed through WordPress.com, they would need to switch to your Feedburner feed as there’s no way to ping a general RSS reader for a feed redirect without modifying the feed, which is not possible as I mentioned earlier.
With regards to the feed you’re submitting to Feedburner, the link is not working because you’re trying to use the category archive page for your syndicated posts, which is not an XML file. You instead need to use the XML feed for that page, which is http://bangwave.org/category/syndicated/feed/
And another thing your podcasts docs leave out is the simple fact that iTunes will only grab the first MP3 listed in the enclosures for the post. So if you are doing a set of files or a play-list it will not function that way iTunes. I had put a short station ID mp3 before a podcast. While on WordPress the player simply plays each mp3 one after another and in order, iTunes would only play that station ID and never get to the actual content. lame.
That is correct. iTunes will only recognize the first media file in your show post – this is a limitation that Apple has set for iTunes podcast feeds, not WordPress.com. Other podcatchers will display multiple media files in a feed, but iTunes will not.
Notice only 3 podcasts show up. This is unacceptable. iTunes is pointing directly to the wordpress feed. This was not a problem for the last three years. I am not doing anything different today.
I think the problem you’re seeing with your feed is more with the fact you’re hosting your .mp3 files on Dropbox rather than WordPress.com or a podcast file host like Libsyn. I found this thread on the Apple support forums that might explain things better: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4758695?start=0&tstart=0
As you can see, using Dropbox files is quite problematic for having a valid podcast feed as iTunes will ignore anything that doesn’t have the ability to provide byte range requests, which Dropbox doesn’t seem to have. To get around this you can host your files on WordPress.com by purchasing the 10GB space upgrade for $20/yr or use a service like Libsyn or Soundcloud, which are all compatible with iTunes feed requirements.
If you’re truly unhappy with the limitations on WordPress.com, you can always set up a self-hosted version of WordPress on your own server, import your WordPress.com blog, and use plugins like PowerPress, Podlove Podcast Publisher, or Seriously Simple Podcasting to have the control you want.
I hope that clarifies things!
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your documentation does NOT say too use http://bangwave.org/category/syndicated/feed/
it actually says to use http://bangwave.org/category/syndicated/
Please update the documentation with a more explicit example.My point was just to show how incomplete and misleading your documentation was.
As for finding docs before 2012, I admit I may have found them off site and that’s not your fault but if you had comprehensive documentation available back then, or even now, people would not have to look to google to find answers that are really just speculation and misinfomation.
Also, if dropbox is a problem, why has it worked just fine until last month? And of the three programs that do show up today in iTunes, all of them are hosted on dropbox.
Furthermore, if you follow the instructions I put up on my site for users to manually subscribe using the feedburner url, all of the podcasts show up and work correctly in itunes, even though they are all on dropbox. I find this to be true as long as I use http instead of https. If this is a known issue, why has it worked for me for at least the last 2 years when I switched to dropbox?
I have been in contact with iTunes support, and of course they give me the run around as well. They have been quick to point out all of the problems with the wordpress xml feed. They have not however, changed the url of my feed to feedburner, as requested. The of course urge me to use the itunes redirect tag, which WordPress does not allow me to do.
If I had money to throw at this problem of course I would have it all on commercial host. But I am disabled with a tiny income. That is why I try to use free services and why I picked WordPress to begin with. And yes I do appreciate that it’s free.
But I have also read horror stories of people downloading their site from wordpress host and then uploading it to a new host. One of my clients tried that and it was a big pain for them. they ended up switching back to the original wordpress hosted site.
One would think it would be REALLY SIMPLE as in REALLY SIMPLE SYNDICATION, but of course all these layers of corporate bureaucracy and technical snobbery have created an environment of cascading errors, incompatibilities, inconsistency and needless complication. This is not what they had in mind when RSS was released.
You would think that iTunes and WordPress would have put their heads together by now to make this whole nightmare go away.
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Hi Alex,
your documentation does NOT say too use http://bangwave.org/category/syndicated/feed/
it actually says to use http://bangwave.org/category/syndicated/
Please update the documentation with a more explicit example.You’re right, I see that that was unclear. I’ve made a couple of edits to the support doc that will hopefully clarify this.
I’m sorry this is frustrating. We do realize the process for podcasting on WordPress.com right now isn’t as simple for our users as we’d like it to be. We do have it on our radar as something we’d like to improve in future. But for right now, the way to do it is to go through Feedburner.
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