google podcasts “Something went wrong”

  • Resolved anotherstuart

    (@anotherstuart)


    5 years ago

    Hello

    I have been having a few problems with getting everything from the plugin compliant with google podcasts. @psykro was very helpful with page and feed tags over at github, but this problem, I think, would best be discussed here.

    So I am now listed on google podcasts, but I have a problem a lot like the one discussed at https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/google-podcasts-app-problem/

    Whenever I try to play the audio from an episode at my podcast here I get the error on the browser “Something went wrong” with the message “This episode couldn;t be played, Please try again later”

    I get the same error on the app.

    I have a clue: in the webpage when I do ‘inspect’ on the bottom frame (which is the player) there is this
    <audio autoplay="" preload="auto" src="https://www.strategyandevidence.com/podcast-download/255/seven-steps-to-understanding-performance.mp3" title="Seven Steps to Understanding Performance - Strategy and Evidence"></audio>

    which calls an https version of the plugin generated redirect to my mp3 file (which is on the same host in a completely separate directory to all the wordpress stuff)

    All my website is http – I don’t have SSL

    BUT if I take the link from that pre-load and paste it directly into the browser, and go through the accepting an ‘unsafe’ website stuff then let the audio play a bit, when I come back to the ‘google podcast’ page then my audio plays.

    I can reproduce this on chrome and firefox and reproduce it repeatedly using an incognito window.

    I have tried this on the android phone – to accept the unsafe page in a browser then use the app – but that still gives the error whatever I do.

    So, this simplifies all the discussion in the thread I linked to above. It’s not a mix of http and https and it is nothing to do (I think) with where the actual mp3 is hosted but where the google preloads the plugin redirect from.

    I think it just means that google podcasts preloads audio using an https call to the plugin redirect – and therefore anyone that isn;t on ssl hosting will get this failure – unless someone does the fiddling around in the browser to circumvent the lack of certificate.

    Can you guys test this? I think if it is the case that google podcasts can only work with the plugin hosted on https then it needs to be a known restriction (albeit not one that is imposed by you!!!)

    Thanks

    Stuart

    The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • kimstuart

    (@kimstuart)

    We were one of the sites in the other thread with the problem, and we found the solution. As a refresher –

    iFrame (or other code using similar setup) from https site will not display a non-secure element, which is the reason that we found Google Podcasts refusing to play our audio from the absolute path that is default in the episode data.

    We host our podcast on a multisite where the SSL certificate is issued to the master site URL in the admin, although each site has its own SSL on the front end. This is why using the relative path for the episode – /wp-content/uploads/podcastepisode – cured the problem, since Google was able to pull the audio from the secure location RSS feed.

    On a side note, you really should switch to SSL for your website, including your audio feed, there are some other changes coming to Chrome over the next couple of iterations that will create a ton of mixed content warnings for your site and will cause you to have issues getting traffic from Google.

    Plugin Contributor Jonathan Bossenger

    (@psykro)

    @anotherstuart as @kimstuart has pointed out, the web is moving towards requiring all resources be hosted behind SSL security.

    Services like Google and Apple are assuming that any content being requested by them will be available via the https protocol, and so it’s more of a “general web best practice” than something we can explicitly state is required for the plugin use.

    But thank you for listing your findings here. While we can’t issue a fix for the plugin to resolve this, unless we start restricting folks from using the plugin who don’t have an SSL certificate, we can update our documentation and readme’s to include the relevant information. I’ll ask the team to look into adding this content so that folks are more aware of it.

    Thread Starter anotherstuart

    (@anotherstuart)

    Thanks everyone.

    This is clear now – I am in the process of moving my hosting.

    I think that it is certainly worth documenting the fact that google podcasts will not play if the redirect link (and the media?) are not served from https/ssl sites. If only because that could save people a lot of time messing around to try and diagnose the reason!

    PS your plugin is fantastic
    Thanks

    Stuart

    Eileen Violini

    (@itsjusteileen)

    @anotherstuart thanks for that feedback and we are updating our current documentation with these changes.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
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