• Resolved davems81

    (@davems81)


    The feed for my podcast is https://everyfridaypodcast.com/feed/podcast, but when I published my new podcast today, Itunes returned the message “The URL https://everyfridaypodcast.com/feed/podcast” could not be found on the server. Going to the address on my desktop I get the message “ERROR: This is not a valid feed.” To my knowledge no other changes have been made on the site, and updating the podcast was working fine before this. The last update I made was one week ago, adding a new episode, and there were no problems.

    Is it possible that this is related to the plugin, or do you see something else going on?

    Thanks!

Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 27 total)
  • I am having some similar issues as well, I suspect it could possible be the new WordPress Update that is causing the issue. Really do want to find if the problem isn’t the WordPress Update.

    Thanks – James.

    Same here – https://www.chimpions.co.ukhttps://www.chimpions.co.uk/feed/podcast/chimpions

    invalid feed after update

    • This reply was modified 7 years, 11 months ago by chimpions.
    Plugin Contributor Hugh Lashbrooke

    (@hlashbrooke)

    While this has not happened to me in any of my testing, it seems to be affecting more than a few people. Luckily, however, there’s an easy fix that has worked for everyone who has tried it so far:

    1. Deactivate Seriously Simple Podcasting
    2. Re-activate Seriously Simple Podcasting
    3. Re-save your site’s permalinks by going to Settings > Permalinks and hitting the save button

    You won’t lose any data when you deactivate the plugin, so this won’t cause you any issues.

    This process should sort out the invalid feed problem for you – I’m not 100% sure why it’s happening for a few people, but that seems to be a good fix for it.

    Cheers,
    Hugh

    Hi Hugh,

    I’m using the the ‘Post Name’ permalink type.
    If I change to ‘Plain’ I can then see the feed:
    https://chimpions.co.uk/?feed=podcast&podcast_series=chimpions

    If I change it back to ‘Post Name’ it still shows as invalid:
    https://chimpions.co.uk/feed/podcast/chimpions

    Plugin Contributor Hugh Lashbrooke

    (@hlashbrooke)

    Did you deactivate and then reactivate SSP?

    Thread Starter davems81

    (@davems81)

    Hi Hugh,

    Thanks for your help, but I’m still getting the same error messages. I also deactivated all my other plugins to see if they were causing interference, but no luck :/

    Hi Hugh, same with me, tried deactivated and reactivating plugin and changing permalinks, no luck.

    – James.

    Hi Hugh,

    Yes followed your instructions and there was no change.
    So then tried changing the permalink.

    Cheers

    I also tried deactivating then reactivating the plugin and re-saving permalinks but no joy.
    I also had permalinks set to ‘Post Name’.
    Nothing in the apache error.log
    What I found is that the Plain link format for the podcast feed – e.g. https://worstcasescenario.ie/?feed=podcast – works even if Permalinks are set to “Post Name”.
    As a temporary workaround I have just resubmitted the Plain link format for the feed to iTunes. That keeps our links working correctly, and ensures that iTunes has a valid feed.

    I also experienced this issue. I also followed the steps as outlined by Hugh in a previous post in this thread to no avail.

    I can still get a basic feed by swapping the post type and the “feed” reference in the URL:

    OLD – Now not functioning feed set up by SSP
    https://domain.com/feed/podcast

    OTHER
    https://domain.com/podcast/feed

    However, iTunes will not accept the second of those two, as it doesn’t include the necessary artwork and category meta, items required by Apple for a valid feed.

    • This reply was modified 7 years, 11 months ago by dstagg.
    • This reply was modified 7 years, 11 months ago by dstagg.

    can we reopen this as it is clearly not resolved

    using /?feed=podcast instead of /feed/podcast fixes the issue (at least for me)

    Plugin Contributor Hugh Lashbrooke

    (@hlashbrooke)

    This seems to be an issue related to WordPress core. In the past, the problem would be that if you did not have any regular posts in your site then any custom feed (such as the podcast feed) would return a 404 error, but the feed would still display. I managed to find a work around for that inside the plugin by forcing the HTTP status code to not be 404, however, it seems that the issue inside WordPress core has graduated to the point where it just doesn’t show the feed at all anymore.

    Finding a fix for this is going to be difficult and might ultimately mean patching core, but in the mean time the only way to fix this is to add at least one regular post to your site. It can be a blank post with no title, but it needs to be published in order for custom feeds to be shown.

    A potential method of getting around this for most people (might not work for everyone) is to use the raw feed URL, which will be this: https://example.com/?feed=podcast – that URL will bypass WordPress’ custom feed mechanism and just return the feed content in the correct format. iTunes allows you to change your feed URL, as do most other podcasting services, so I recommend you give that a shot for now.

    As a side note, don’t use the podcast/feed URL as that is WordPress built-in URL for the podcast custom post type – it does not contain all the tags that iTunes requires. You need to use the podcast/feed URL that this plugin provides.

    I hope this helps!

    Cheers,
    Hugh

    Plugin Contributor Hugh Lashbrooke

    (@hlashbrooke)

    FWIW, it looks like a patch has been submitted that will potentially fix this issue in WordPress core: https://core.trac.www.ads-software.com/ticket/39157

    Fantastic, Hugh. Thank you. That worked. I added an empty post to the default “Post” post type and it rectified the 404 error on the podcast feed.

Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 27 total)
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