Blog’s feeds are never found

Currently, https://blog.patriciafoy.com/feed is directing to feedburner – without any apparent problems.

Yes, I tried using feedburner to see if it would fix the problem. But it hasn’t. You say no apparent problems but here are some specifics. I would very much appreciate if you would answer one by one so I can understand because I think there are at least TWO problems. Thank you.

– Why does feedburner not accept the

url of my blog

? That’s what it asks for but I had to give it the

url to my feed

instead to get it to work, as I explained above. Why?

– This is true in other places too where it asks for the url to my blog but gives an error saying it can’t find a feed. (Go to blogger dashboard and try it. You’ll get an error). Why?

– Why does the feed validator https://feedvalidator.org say “It looks like this is a web page, not a feed. I looked for a feed associated with this page, but couldn’t find one.” when I give it the url of my blog?

– Why does my blog url not show as a feed when it’s in the browser address bar (i.e. there is no rss icon there)? This is a problem.

– Why do my post images not show up in blog lists when everyone else’s do? a) The blog owner gives blog urls for her blogroll. b) My blog url returns an error. c) So she put in my feed url. d) It doesn’t give an error anymore but the most recent post image is missing. Here is an example, go to https://silkepowers.blogspot.com and on the right hand side my blog is listed without a post thumbnail even tho her setting is set to show thumbnails and everyone else’s thumbnails are there. This is a problem!

– Can this problem be due to my theme?

I feel like I’m repeating myself but hopefully I am being more clear this time that things are not working right and what I need to know. Thanks.

I just discovered yet another problem. In order to have my url accepted as having a feed, I have to give my feed url (with /feed appended) instead of my blog url. So it works, and it updates fine, but then the link that is SUPPOSED to be to my blog is to my feed so it just brings up a live bookmark dialog instead of taking people to my blog.

When people enter my blog url to follow me, they get errors. Most of them do not know they have to type “/feed” at the end to get it to work. This is a WORKAROUND at best. I really want to use WP but this is ridiculous. My blogger blogs don’t misbehave this way. For them, I type in the blog url and the feeds are found.

Please help, I have spent DAYS trying to fix this.

1. Stop using relative urls. Use only full absolute urls for links & images.

2. You’ve been pasting content in from elsewhere. Perhaps via the Visual Editor’s view of another page or post. The pasted text includes unwanted CSS:

<div id="_mcePaste" style="overflow: hidden; position: absolute;

I just discovered yet another problem. In order to have my url accepted as having a feed, I have to give my feed url (with /feed appended) instead of my blog url. So it works, and it updates fine, but then the link that is SUPPOSED to be to my blog is to my feed so it just brings up a live bookmark dialog instead of taking people to my blog.

That’s exactly how RSS feeds are supposed to work. They are not meant to be viewed in a web browser but via a feed reader.

Thank you for your reply but I’m afraid we are getting nowhere.

First, I do use absolute urls.

Second, I have no idea where you got that line of code which I’ve never seen before and didn’t paste in from anywhere. All I did is do a standard WP installation and install a theme I found from within my dashboard. I didn’t do anything to any code. Are you saying that I have to go rewrite your installation to get feeds to work correctly on WP? If so, can you please not be so cryptic?

Third, I understand that is how RSS feeds are supposed to work, but that is not how blog urls are supposed to work. >>>>>>> My blog url is not recognized as a blog because no one can FIND my feed so it’s treated like a regular website! <<<<<<< This is the whole problem I am trying to solve.

——————–
Let’s do it this way, one by one, please:

QUESTION: Go to https://feedvalidator.org. Enter https://blog.patriciafoy.com. Press enter. It comes back with “It looks like this is a web page, not a feed. I looked for a feed associated with this page, but couldn’t find one.” Isn’t it supposed to find my feed and know I am a blog, not a website? (Put in any OTHER blog url and it finds a feed. But not with mine!)

Thank you.

P.S. FYI I found that offensive code you mentioned and removed it. (You’re right, the visual editor in my dashboard inserted it when I pasted into my post.) However, that was minor and had nothing to do with this feed issue as far as I can tell. So… please just address the “QUESTION” area above toward the end of my previous reply. Thank you.

The relative url in the feed was one of invalid issues in your feed file. So it had everything to do with why your feed file was being rejected. Now you need to go through all of your posts and remove the CSS code that I highlighted in point 2.

Finally, when you visit the feed validator, you’re supposed to enter your feed url – not your site url.

OK, thanks, I found similar code one other place and removed it. But hmm, my feed is still not found.

So, as I look into this further, I’m understanding that any kind of error, even syntax, inside the feed file will make it unrecognizable as a feed — is that right? Thanks for noticing what you did notice, but I imagine there are other errors and I should somehow try to find them myself (agh!) and not take any more of your time. Unfortunately, I am not a coder anymore so I wouldn’t recognize if statements that get put in there are valid or not.

So, what do you recommend?

Also:
1) Is it still true that feeds are problematic and need modifications when you have your blog in a subdirectory rather than in the root directory?
2) Is it possible the theme file/s are incorrectly written for feeds and that by switching to a new theme my problem might go away?
3) Is it common to have to get down to this level of code/knowledge to use WordPress? I’m not even doing anything fancy.

Thanks so much for your help.

I’m understanding that any kind of error, even syntax, inside the feed file will make it unrecognizable as a feed — is that right?

Correct. Unlike web browsers that are incredibly forgiving, feed readers demand absolute perfect validation. Most of the common problems in WordPress feeds are down to:

– bad plugins
– template files with leading blank lines
– “invisible” formatting pasted in with Post or Page content

As to your other questions:

1. No. I have quite few sites in sub-folders and the feeds are all valid.

2. See above – although I don’t think that’s the problem in your case. The usual giveaway is 1 or more blank lines at the top of the feed file (which you don’t have). However, the acid test is to try switching temporarily to the default theme and see if this affects the feed validation.

3. Given the sheer number of WordPress users, I wouldn’t call this a common thing. However, it is a bit like owning a car. Whilst it’s working, all you need to know is how to drive it and where to put the fuel in. But if it develops a fault, you can need some specialised knowledge to fix it.

Thank you for your thorough answers. Much appreciated!

I thought I would let you/everyone know that the issue was indeed the theme I was using (FreeDream 1.3). I swapped it out and all the other themes I’ve tried are fine. Problem solved!