Incoming links error message?

@esmi: Fair assumption, sorry my apologies for not explaining clearly.

Although they were valid for us (checking from our own IPs/server IPs), the response Josh’s server received was a HTML document containing a warning, (as his server IP was triggering the Google Captcha) rather than a valid RSS feed.

So in effect, SimplePie was correct in it’s warning that the feed was invalid. We just need to handle this better for use-cases where it always fails. ??

I really don’t think an IP ban is appropriate in this case. For example and from what I can recall, one feed had perhaps 2 invalid characters. Nothing that actually stopped the feed being rendered.

Part of the problem might be Google’s Blog feed itself. There seems to be an ongoing problem with the quality of the feed that it produces rather than the actual items from 3rd party sites. nor is this an issue with malware or anything else on the receiving site. It’s to do with the feeds themselves at Google’s end or further back.

Josh’s continuous fail was definitely down to a Google limitation put down on his server IP, the CURL request confirms this.

As for the general / intermittent issues seen by other users, I agree fully the feed can be temperamental. Spent some time investigating alternative feeds, but have a feeling we’re stuck with this (without requiring users to have an API key). Arguably force feed could fix this, but it could also break things further when a feed actually is broken.

If the feed is invalid, let SimplePie catch it, and inform the user in a nice error message – otherwise, load ’em up.

Either way, if a feed is invalid it’s up to the feed provider to fix, and not an adaptation we should make to core, imho.

Either way, if a feed is invalid it’s up to the feed provider to fix, and not an adaptation we should make to core, imho.

The more I find out about this, the more I believe it’s a Google filter on any sites belonging to a network they have “flagged”. Which would explain why I have it on all my sites, regardless of themes, widgets, host, etc.

@devgav,

I will go through the procedure you outlined above. Thank you for taking the initiative to not only explain how this issue “mingles” with wp core, but for also providing resources to address this issue from an end-user perspective.

EDIT: I filled out the Google support ticket. I will post back with anything I hear from them.

the more I believe it’s a Google filter

It does seem to be a Google issue but the force_feed() message that is currently being displayed is not appropriate within a WordPress site. Hopefully, that will be modified and force_feed() will be applied automatically – which is all that WP core can do.

@josh are these network of sites on the same IP range / subnet? That would be my best guess. And you’re very welcome, no problem at all.

@esmi patch in ticket changes force_feed error to something more general as per 21017#comment:3

As for force_feed() … still reluctant, it’s really meant as a way of accepting feeds with the wrong mime type, and not a way to handle broken, incorrect or incomplete feeds, which should fail by design.

https://simplepie.org/wiki/reference/simplepie/force_feed

I think we will have to agree to disagree on this part! ?? Thanks for your help though!

Mine seems to have fixed itself. I’m no longer getting that message on the site I originally saw it on. Not sure what that means.

Well that’s cool @tina!

Mine have all been errored out for months now. It doesn’t hurt my feelings any, just one of those things it’d be cool to have fixed if a solution wandered by

@josh are these network of sites on the same IP range / subnet? That would be my best guess.

That is correct. The link to the Google Page you sent looks promising. I will eagerly be awaiting their response.

@esmi patch in ticket changes force_feed error to something more general as per 21017#comment:3

I think a new message will be much more “cleaner” looking… but if this Google submission “fixes” the link problem… perhaps a link could be placed if the error is generated??

I don’t think force_feed should be used as a workaround… I would much rather find the source of the error in the first place. (Hoping on Google)

Don’t get your hopes up. Google is probably having to deal with some pretty dire incoming content when it collates these link feeds.

i’ve had it for a while.. but i don’t know what it means. is it serious? what exactly is the effect of it?

I have the same issue going on. I’ve just noticed it after the latest updgrade, 3.4.1

So far no fix, eh? How bad of a problem could this be for someone?

and….its back. and i’m seeing it on just about all my wordpress sites now. did anyone ever figure out a fix? it seems like the conversation here went round and round (and most of it i couldn’t follow), but i don’t see a solution. or even whether its a wordpress or a google problem or what.

what exactly does this error even mean? i mean, is it affecting people subscribed to my feed?

is it affecting people subscribed to my feed?

No. Please post any further questions ion your own topics.

Hi,

I don’t know if you still want people to add to this if they are having the same problem or to open a new question. I am going to go with the former and apologise if it is the latter. I have noticed this problem for the last few months.

Here is the link that is causing the same error message to be displayed on my site A Life Not Quite Perplexed

https://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch_feeds?scoring=d&ie=utf-8&num=10&output=rss&partner=wordpress&q=link%3Ahttp%3A//penbleth.co.uk/