Feed Descriptions Using the Same Excerpt for All Episodes From Latest Blog Post

Hi @kaplunkiigirl, What version of SSP are you running? Have you made any other customizations? To start, I would first undo any customizations that were done. With a fresh install, this shouldn’t be happening, so it’s best to work backward here in the event a customization has gone awry.

I would run a plugin conflict test by deactivating all plugins to see if that doesn’t help, then activate one by one. Also maybe pause that episode redirect as well, to check that.

Hi Kelly,

I’m using SSP 2.7.2, which I believe is the latest version.

I inactivated all customisations, deactivated all plugins including the redirections (apart from SSP) and switched to the Twenty Twenty One theme all at the same time, and the problem persists.

We do have a subdomain for an old podcast website at podcast.networkmarketingaustralia.com.au, could this be confusing the plugin at all?

That’s the only other explanation that I can think of, so I’d really appreciate your help to figure out what’s going on.

Thanks,

Nikki

• This reply was modified 3 years, 5 months ago by kaplunkiigirl. Reason: Fixed typo

I also just noticed that when I switch to using the post content it works as expected, pulling in the content from the correct episode post.

So the issue seems limited to when I use the post excerpt.

Hi @kaplunkiigirl – I’m trying to recreate the issue, but so far, I can’t. When you go into the editor for each episode and check the excerpt meta box, do you see that excerpt written there by chance? https://www.ads-software.com/support/article/excerpt/
Also, you’re not using a post-duplicator to create each new episode, correct?

Yes, I’m using the manual excerpt field to customise the excerpt for each episode. The except is unique for each episode and is not what is being displayed in the feed. That is coming from the latest blog post excerpt, and when I edit the excerpt for that blog post, it changes the description for all episodes in the feed.

I am using Yoast’s Duplicate Post tool to clone the episodes, but then I am editing the page content and the excerpt to suit the post.

What else can I try?

I fixed the bug.

The issue is that the code for the feed description does not have access to the post ID at the point where it is run, probably because of the Episode Content code above it.

I did not thoroughly debug this code to identify exactly what’s going on, just enough to figure out that when the the_excerpt_rss() function runs, it does not have the correct post ID value available to it, and so uses a “blank” value, hence why it was returning the lastest post excerpt. It’s just the last entry in the array of posts.

My fix was simply, in file:
seriously-simple-podcasting/templates/feed/feed-item.php

to move lines 127 to 139 i.e.

// Description is set based on feed setting
if ( $episode_description_uses_excerpt ) {
	ob_start();
	the_excerpt_rss();
	$description = ob_get_clean();
} else {
	$description = $content;
	if ( isset( $turbo_post_count ) && $turbo_post_count > 10 ) {
		// If turbo is on, limit the full html description to 4000 chars
		$description = mb_substr( $description, 0, 3999 );
	}
}
$description = apply_filters( 'ssp_feed_item_description', $description, get_the_ID() );

to above lines 121 to 125 i.e.

// Episode content (with shortcodes and iframes removed)
$content = get_the_content_feed( 'rss2' );
$content = strip_shortcodes( $content );
$content = preg_replace( '/<\/?iframe(.|\s)*?>/', '', $content );
$content = apply_filters( 'ssp_feed_item_content', $content, get_the_ID() );

and the excerpt displays correctly.

This should help you figure out what’s going on and release a fix for it.

In the meantime, I’ll keep using my hacked plugin to get my RSS feed to display correctly.

I am using Yoast’s Duplicate Post tool to clone the episodes, but then I am editing the page content and the excerpt to suit the post.

This is why you’re having this problem. It’s not recommended to duplicate/clone episodes as what should be unique episode IDs that are assigned by the plugin also get duplicated and assigned to the subsequent episodes, which results in undesirable behavior by the plugin. Updating the episode content does not update those episode IDs that are used behind the scenes. Always create new episodes by either Podcast -> Add New (or Posts -> Add New if you’re using the Posts post type)

Can you please explain exactly where this episode ID is stored against the episode? Is it in the postmeta table in the database? I want to go and find these IDs for each of my episodes, confirm that they are and the same and then make them unique to confirm that it does actually fix the problem.

We are going to want to keep duplicating our episodes to avoid having to set up the page content each time, so I need a way to make these unique that doesn’t require starting from scratch each time.

@kaplunkiigirl

So, I downloaded and installed Yoast Duplicate Post in my test environment and I still, unfortunately, can’t recreate your issue. After cloning an episode and writing a new custom excerpt, that custom excerpt is shown on the feed. ??

What items do you have selected to copy over in the Settings for the plugin?

Post/page elements to copy
Title*
Date
Status
Slug
Excerpt*
Content*
Featured Image*
Template*
Post format*
Author
Password
Attachments (you probably want this unchecked, unless you have very special requirements)
Children
Comments (except pingbacks and trackbacks)
Menu order*

The items with a * are what I had selected for my test clone, so even having the excerpt duplicated, I was able to update it.

Hi @kaplunkiigirl!
First of all, thank you for bringing it to our attention. I don’t think the issue could be related to the duplication process. Besides, we already made fixes for some old duplication bugs, so it shouldn’t make any problem now. From what you’re describing, it looks like your global post id is being changed on line 125 (apply_filters( 'ssp_feed_item_content' ..).
Could I ask you to temporarily revert your changes and replace the_excerpt_rss(); on line 130 with echo get_the_excerpt( $post_id ) and check if it fixes your issue?

• This reply was modified 3 years, 5 months ago by Serhiy Zakharchenko.

Hi Sergey,

Thank you for your helpful response.

I have made the changes you requested and can confirm that the feed works correctly when the changes are made.

In other words, when I replace the_excerpt_ss() with echo get_the_excert( $post_id) each episode displays its own unique excerpt in the feed, which is the correct expected behaviour.

I have also switched back and forth between the two versions of the code a couple of times to make 100% sure that it has the desired effect, which it does.

Here’s my modified code for reference for lines 127 to 139:

// Description is set based on feed setting
if ( $episode_description_uses_excerpt ) {
	ob_start();
	//the_excerpt_rss();
	echo get_the_excerpt( $post_id );
	$description = ob_get_clean();
} else {
	$description = $content;
	if ( isset( $turbo_post_count ) && $turbo_post_count > 10 ) {
		// If turbo is on, limit the full html description to 4000 chars
		$description = mb_substr( $description, 0, 3999 );
	}
}
$description = apply_filters( 'ssp_feed_item_description', $description, get_the_ID() );

I went looking for uses of the ssp_feed_item_content filter in my site files, as I suspected that may have been connected to the issue, but I could not find any obvious references to it.

I didn’t go through my entire site with a fine-tooth comb to be 100% sure, but I can confirm that I have not made use of this filter myself.

Thank you for your help with this. Please let me know what else I can do to assist you in narrowing down the problem.

Nikki

• This reply was modified 3 years, 5 months ago by kaplunkiigirl. Reason: Added code backticks