Incoming links error message?

I’m getting that exact same error on my blog:
RSS Error: A feed could not be found at https://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch_feeds?hl=en&scoring=d&ie=utf-8&num=10&output=rss&partner=wordpress&q=link:https://weblog.probablynot.com/. A feed with an invalid mime type may fall victim to this error, or SimplePie was unable to auto-discover it.. Use force_feed() if you are certain this URL is a real feed.

If I go to that feed, it exists and has items. Where exactly would I go to use force_feed()?

I”ve actually had that same erro for a while myself, but forgot to try to do anything about it… If I figure anything out, I’ll report back

The error is correct. That feed does not validate.

How long has this been an issue? Was it pre-WordPress 3.4?

I only noticed it after the 3.4 update, but it could have been there before. I don’t know for certain.

It’s working fine on all of my live sites. I wonder if this could be hosts or server specific?

Mine was definitely pre-3.4

It’s all sites, including bare bones testing site.

All on the same host – bluehost (for comparison)

Unfortunatley I didn’t notice it immediately, so I can’t be sure if it happened upon a certain update.

But I do know that it worked at for a while after transferring to that host

I’ve been with the same host for several years (Dreamhost) and I know it has worked in the past, so if anything it had to be within the last 2 or 3 updates that it stopped, but a while back I shifted my dashboard around and the incoming links got moved to the bottom where I don’t see if I don’t scroll down, and I don’t often scroll down on the dashboard.

Add me to the list. Not sure what’s going on with this. I will do some digging and see what’s going on.

I just noticed this after the wordpress 3.4 update. But I can’t be sure that was the cause.

It is happening on three of my sites, all using different themes, widgets, etc. Two are with HostGator and one with GreenGeeks.

Could a few of you validate these feeds and post links to the validator results? Let’s see if they are all failing for the same reason.

The odd part is that in the validation for my feed, the invalid characters marked in red are coming from WordPress blogs – some of which are on WordPress.com. So either those people are using feed making plugins that are altering html codes to the invalid characters, or WordPress itself is generating the invalid characters in their feeds.

VoodooPress

Personal Blog

Test Site

So mine’s failing whether or not I have incoming… (1 and 3 have no incoming, 2 has em)

Feed url?

@rev: Two of your feeds (the first and the 3rd) are valid – which makes sense since they’re empty. so it looks like it’s down to the content within the feed (ie other people’s content). Looks like most of the problems are related to invalid characters in the content. If any of that was coming from wordpress.com sites, it would need looking into. But if it’s all coming from self-hosted sites, there’s not a lot that core can do about it. We’ve all seen how the wrong plugin in a WPORG site can wreck outgoing content, yes?

Not sure if the force_feed() is going to help in these cases. I’ll have a look into it.

OK – that was quick.

Use force_feed() if you are certain this URL is a real feed.

is coming directly from SimplePie (which is built into core). So it’s part of core but not part of core IYKWIM. Not sure if there’s any hooks or filters in core that can help but I’ll try asking around.

Hmm… my first and third feeds are coming up as the feed error though (as is the second), rather than just empty.

We used to get that fancy message that said something like – no content has been found, don’t worry…blah blah….