ITunes detected a technical issue

I’ve asked the Blubrry dev team to look at your post. A response will be posted here as soon as they have a chance to do so.

Hello,

Unfortunately, we have always seen issues with CloudFlare, and they are usually random. What I mean is that you can go for 2-3 months using CloudFlare and not have an issue then for a full year of 2017 for example, they blocked all of Apple Podcasts IP addresses. Their competitor Encapsula, has the same problems. They are primary focused on security and they can get get aggressive on what they block, and they block based on user agents that are not web browsers. Unfortunately for podcasting, podcast apps including Apple podcasts do not use browser user agents which is where most of the problems come in.

As for the SSL cert, Apple is picky on which SSL certs it accepts. I see looking at the SSL cert it is now signed by CloudFlare themselves, it may be that their root certificate is not in the list of 9 top root certificates that Apple accepts. CloudFlare’s CErts are signed by DigiCert. DigiCert is not signed by any root certificates. A quick look at Apples documentation you can see DigiCert is not on their list: https://itunespartner.apple.com/en/podcasts/news/19855810

DigiCert is not a root certificate, its root certificate is Symantec, which is on Apple’s list. The problem is CloudFlare is not including the root Symantec certificate. You can point them to this link for details how this is achieved: https://knowledge.digicert.com/generalinformation/INFO4033.html

Continuing to use CloudFlare even if you get them to fix the SSL issue does not solve all of the other issues we have seen with CloudFlare and podcasting. Continue to use CloudFlare and you will continue to have random issues. You may think that you did not have issues in the past, but I guarantee you have had problems and may just not have known about them. We have consulted with hundreds of customers over the years who had CloudFlare. Just be aware that CloudFlare makes no claim to be compatible with podcasting or that they take podcasting into consideration when they make security changes with their platform.

We recommend using a service such as Blubrry’s free PodcastMirror.com service or if you do not want to trust Blubrry, you could use FeedBurner to achieve the same goal. A mirror/copy of your podcast feed will be hosted on a service that is known not to have issues with podcasting apps and more specifically Podcast Mirror is designed to work for podcasting.

As for your media on Amazon s3, if you are using their signed certificates, they are also not compatible with Apple podcasts. You can solve this by using a combination of features at AWS including Route53 + CloudFront + S3 and bringing your own signed certificate.

It is important to note that the SSL certificate problem is specifically with Apple podcasts directory. The technical problem is due to the fact that they use Java for their feed pulling system, they are dependent on what certificates Java itself has packaged with in the version of Java they are using. Once someone is subscribed, you should not have an issue as all traffic is then between that listeners’ device (iPhone/ipad) and your web services. It is possible you could ignore issues with the audio files, but you do need to fix the feed issue otherwise Apple will not be able to maintain your listing on Apple’s podcast directory. I hope this makes sense.

Thanks,
Angelo

Also we have a complete write up on SSL and podcasting. I encourage you to take a moment and give it a quick read as well: https://create.blubrry.com/manual/your-web-site/secure-ssl-podcast-website/

Thank you very much for your info.
I am considering using your podcast mirror. If I do, do I replace my feed url on iTunes with the mirror url?
Do I need to do this in my Blubrry account or via the power press plugin? I do have your hosting setup.

Thanks again for your help

Cheers

John

Podcast Mirror was designed in part to help with situations exactly like yours. Moving to Mirror should decrease traffic to your website by a significant amount but still give you a reliable podcast feed. Since you’re already using PowerPress, switching to Mirror is pretty easy. Just log in with your existing Blubrry account at https://podcastmirror.com/ and create your Mirror feed. Then, follow the instructions to update a setting in your PowerPress settings on your WordPress site:
1.) Log in to your WordPress site
2.) Go to PowerPress >> Settings, Advanced Mode >> Feeds tab and copy/paste your new Mirror feed URL into the PodcastMirror feed URL field and click the Save Changes button at the bottom of the page
3.) Clear any site caches, if applicable

You shouldn’t need to do anything else, as this operation creates a 301 redirect that will be picked up by most podcasting apps/platforms, and they’ll automatically update your listings to start using the Mirror feed URL instead of the old feed URL.

Thanks, Shawn,

all done.
When testing it all I also tested the links provided in the Blubrry Directory Listing.
Something strange happened. When selecting the button “Subscribe on Apple Podcast”, iTunes opened on my Mac, just to tell me that the show is not available in Belgium, but in the Italian store. After changing the store, it tells me that it’s not available either. Is there a distinction by countries?
If I check my own Podcast Library in iTunes my podcast is there and can be downloaded and played without issues.
Am I missing something?

Thanks again.

I was able to load your Apple Podcasts listing here:
https://itunes.apple.com/be/podcast/entrepreneur-academy-podcast/id1140040279

Using desktop iTunes on my Mac without any trouble. My default store is the US store. Not sure if that makes a difference. It’s clear that Apple is doing backend work on Apple Podcasts this weekend, and that often causes unexplainable things to happen.

If you continue to have trouble loading your Apple Podcasts listing in different regional stores, the best thing to do is to check with Apple support by clicking the Contact Us link at the bottom of this page:
https://itunespartner.apple.com/en/podcasts/overview