RSS Doesn’t Work – XML Parsing Error

OMG this is the most frustrating error ever!!!

2 days and counting…
After going through every PHP file in the root and WP_Content folder removing all space from the few files that did have a blank line at the end it is still not fixed.

Wiping out the installation uploading a new zipped version of WP2.6.2 to the server, unarchive fresh installation……….still does not work. (wp-config file configured on server)
Turn off all plugins………..still does not work
Use default or classic theme…..still does not work
Turn off fancy permalinks…….. still does not work

However my partner’s old blog (boohickey.com) which is an older version of WP v2.2 (I think) which also has never had a Feedburner feed burned does work.

So my guess is that it is either WP 2.6.2 or Feedburner F!*%*ing up the feed or something. I swear to FSM I am going to pull my hair out. grumble

Allimaple,

I am having the same trouble with Feedburner and WP 2.6.2. I cannot figure it out. No matter which “original feed” I enter, Feedburner WILL NOT recognize it, it’s killing me. What is going on?

UPDATE: Grumble grumble, my other domain on the same server political-soapbox.com (WP 2.5.1 – mysql db 4.1) works fine, even after reburning the FeedBurner feed.

However completely wiping out the smargus directory on the server uploading a zipped fresh version of WP 2.5.1 (mysql db 4.1) smargus.com still delivers the same XML error.

It is beyond my expertise, and even though a search for this problem will show multiple people having this problem, no solution has been given.

One individual suggested that it might be .htaccess, however all the solutions tried have failed to remedy the error.

Where are the experts????? Solving this problem will heap gobs and gobs of cool points for them to put on their resume.

I must now return to thinking it is somehow related to my host GoDaddy.

What, exactly, are you talking about? Your feed is fine:
https://smargus.com/?feed=rss2

We can’t fix what is not broken.

I am speaking of having the feed parsed through the CommentLuv reader it keeps telling me the XML document is invalid which makes me think that the feed has formatting issues within the itself.

Which is bothering me immensely.

Well, we can’t help you with the comment luv reader, but there is nothing wrong with your feed at all. Even the FeedValidator agrees:

https://feedvalidator.org/check.cgi?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsmargus.com%2F%3Ffeed%3Drss2

Holy Flying Spaghetti Monster, i just figured it out DAMN IT!!

This is the second time a script would not work….

Okay, the original site we registered for a client’s potential project was:

theloupe.tv registered and hosted by GoDaddy (dedicated linux PHP 4.1)

While their project never received the green light we kept the GoDaddy account and hosted our own blogs on the server.

Earlier when we were setting up “The Smoking Argus” our theme makes use of the “tomThumb_Image_Resizer”.

Whenever we plugged in the URL to the custom field, the image would not show.

Finally just putzing around it occurred to me to try the URL

theloupe.tv/smargus/images/sample.jpg and bingo it worked

Same thing here:

While smargus.com with a feed hard coded as SmArgus.com/?feed=rss2 would not work, changing the feed to:

theloupe.tv/smargus/?feed=rss2 does.

WTF

Any clue as to why this would be the case?

I seem to have a slightly different version of this problem than I’ve seen described so far, here or elsewhere. I’m getting the same error on both of my RSS feeds (https://rickbelden.com/blog/feed and https://rickbelden.com/blog/comments/feed). Here’s the error msg for the posts RSS:

XML Parsing Error: xml declaration not at start of external entity
Location: https://rickbelden.com/blog/feed/
Line Number 2, Column 1:

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>
^

What’s different, I think, in my case is that the error comes and goes. I don’t get it consistently and I haven’t been able to discern a pattern. I see it more often from the comments feed than from the posts feed. Sometimes I get a clean validation at Feed Validator and sometimes I don’t. Right now I’m getting the error when I click the RSS link at the top of my blog but Feed Validator is telling me in the adjacent browser tab that “This is a valid RSS feed.”

Has anyone else seen this sporadic behavior with the error message above coming and going at apparently random intervals? I’ve taken the suggested path and removed trailing blank and empty lines from the usual suspect files per https://validator.w3.org/feed/docs/error/WPBlankLine.html but so far I see no change in the problem behavior. The fact that it is sporadic means it’s impossible to reproduce reliably and therefore testing possible fixes is very difficult.

Any suggestions as to what the problem might be or how to diagnose it would be appreciated. I’m tearing my hair out here. I work all day debugging and fixing software problems, and it’s the last thing I need or want to be doing with the little bit of time I have in the evening to write.

My blog address is:
https://blog.rickbelden.com

Thanks.

I was having the same error:

XML Parsing Error: XML or text declaration not at start of entity

so I followed all your suggestions (clear blank lines, disable plugins, etc) and it still wasn’t working.

The feed was working fine before I changed my permalinks to a Custom Structure (/show/%postname%/) so I figured it had something to do with that.

The feed produces an error at the feed-URL generated by WordPress.
The feed works fine if I add the feed parameters to the URL.
So:
https://beetik.com/feed/ (doesnt work)
https://beetik.com/feed/?feed=rss2 (works !)

I’m using that quick-fix as a resource… but I had to hard code it, so I hope there’s a better fix in the long run.

I have the same problem, and there is no blank spaces out of PHP script. What to do is to say that WordPress is one of the biggest poorly codded system.

This is the error message:

XML Parsing Error: XML or text declaration not at start of entity
Location: https://mozillazine-tr.org/?feed=rss2
Line Number 3, Column 1:<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
^

What is responsible of these 2 blank lines? I have checked all files you have suggested and I see that everything is okay. But still the same error.

blank
blank
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss version="2.0"
	xmlns:content="https://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"

feed-rss2.php

<?php
/**
 * RSS2 Feed Template for displaying RSS2 Posts feed.
 *
 * @package WordPress
 */

header('Content-Type: text/xml; charset=' . get_option('blog_charset'), true);
$more = 1;
?><?php echo '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="'.get_option('blog_charset').'"?'.'>'; ?><rss version="2.0"
	xmlns:content="https://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"

I had this venerable blankline problem with one of my heavily modified theme based on some well-known theme-designer, using wp 2.3.3 engine. Harvesting every single line of my template-files was no use.
I realized that I dont actually need my functions.php, so I replaced it with a blank one with a dummy “function” <?php /*-*/ ?>, and the feed was back online! Wooww!!

Maybe I was just lucky. One thing I know for sure, that the problem doesn’t lie in WP core.
I installed the theme on wp 2.6.3 and the problem existed. Replacing functions.php did the thing. Maybe I should rewrite the whole theme a bit more concentrated…

If this is any help?

I have read through every single post and many other similar topics for everyone is different. Same error issue but different solution for each.

The blank issue is the most common one which I am having problems as well. I looked through all the suggested php even ones that are not, deleted blank spaces, deactivated plug-ins, reset perm links and nothing seems to work.

my feed:
https://imzenko.com/feed

validation feed:
https://feedvalidator.org/check.cgi?url=http%3A%2F%2Fimzenko.com%2Ffeed

I like how the error is so simple yet is really hard to fix.

Everyone will have different solutions not all will be the same but if you do solve your issue please post it so others can give it a try.

I am going to try and fix this and will post back with some results.

quick info:
I imported my blog from my https://localhost if that matters anyway lol

Alright guys, I fix my issue. This is MY solution:

Quick info about my blog: I worked on my blog under localhost then I uploaded live to my web host. I transferred all the MySQL and files which I manually change a few things to make it work on my web server.
I am wordpress 2.7 beta(3) and before I found my solution I did this:
https://feedvalidator.org/docs/error/WPBlankLine.html
and keep checking with:
https://feedvalidator.org

Solution:
There was indeed a blank space in one of the php files. It was my plug-ins (cformsII) php.

Now this doesn’t mean that is going to be the same for you but surely you can check all your plug-in php files under WordPress>plug-ins>editor but make sure all your plug-in files are writable first.

But if the validation gives you a parse error and tells you is a space then you must check your wp-name.php files, plug-ins files and your themes files. Is a hassle to check all the files for blank spaces but it will work.

hope my post helped.

thanks everyone for your post as well.

I had the same problem. Deleted space at the end of the ?> code in my wp-config.php file did the trick. Everything works great now!

Just went through the same problem where I was getting the XML Parsing Error: XML or text declaration not at start of entity error on my feeds (I have 3 WP blogs either ver 2.6.5 or 2.7b3) and I was able to solve the problem on all the blogs’ feeds by deleting space at the end of the wp-config.php file. Hopefully that will save someone else the headache of troubleshooting.