Submitting to iTunes and Feed Validation Error

Hello @beermoney,

I ran a few tests and it appears your podcast feed is hosted through CloudFlare. There are known issues with CloudFlare not being compatible with iTunes (e.g. cloudflare blocks HEAD requests and randomly will block iTunes servers). I suspect the problem started after you implemented CloudFlare.

You can either stop using CloudFlare for your website or you could move your feeds to a service such as PodcastMirror.com or FeedValidator.com.

Thanks,
Angelo

Alrighty…so I set up a Podcast Mirror account. Added my feed and waited for a couple of hours and then checked the feed to see if it would validate and all was well. W3C still said it wouldn’t validate and showed a bunch of errors.

Here is a screenshot of my setting in my Podcast Mirror. I tried to add my “destination” links, but the only link that would stay in it was the Blubrry one. I also did it as a PowerPress feed, was that right? I followed the directions and set it up as a “Podcast Channel” in my PowerPress plugin and added my Podcast Mirror to the “FeedBurner” box.

I then tried adding it to iTunes. I got farther than I had before and after submitting the link my podcast actually showed up in the “My Podcast” section. But, I still got an error email from iTunes right away. So I felt like I was getting somewhere but still shot down. LOL.

The W3 Validator is a very old validator and tosses out a lot of unnecessary warnings. I ran your Podcast Mirror feed here:
https://feeds.podcastmirror.com/the-sin-bin

Thru modern validators like CastFeedValidator and Podbase and everything came up fine. If you’re still having trouble submitting the feed URL to Podcasts Connect, please reply here with whatever error messages you’re receiving when you try to submit.

@shawnogordo, knowing that W3 Validator is older makes me feel better. LOL. I had been using Cast Feed Validator and Podbase and everything was fine. So I definitely fee much better.

As for errors from iTunes…they don’t tell you what the errors are. All I get is an email usually within about 30 seconds of submitting the feed that says…

Dear Podcast Owner

An error was encountered while trying to add your feed, [ https://feeds.podcastmirror.com/the-sin-bin ].

Please correct the error and submit your feed again. For additional information, please consult the podcast FAQ at https://www.apple.com/itunes/podcasts/faq.html and technical specification at https://www.apple.com/itunes/podcasts/techspecs.html.

Sincerely,

The iTunes Store Team

This is why I am stumped and don’t know what to do. I don’t know how I am supposed to correct the “error” if they don’t tell you what the error is. One of my website partners originally submitted the feed a couple years ago. So I am going to have him try and resubmit the PodcastMirror link and see if he gets anywhere with it.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 6 months ago by beermoney.
• This reply was modified 6 years, 6 months ago by beermoney.

Yes, that is problematic. Best thing to do is to contact iTunes Support directly by clicking the Contact Us link at the bottom of this page:
https://itunespartner.apple.com/en/podcasts/overview

If they respond with something more specific in terms of errors, please respond with that here. They may identify it as a problem on their end and just add the feed for you.

Alright cool. That was my next step if you guys were unable to figure it out. I am going to have my website partner who originally submitted the feed a couple of years ago try and resubmit the Podcast Mirror link and see if it makes any difference. If not, I will contact iTunes and see where that gets me. LOL. I will definitely post updates to this thread.

iTunes Support got back to me.

My name is ______. I’m a senior Advisor here to assist you moving forward. The podcast continues to be rejected because the title “The Sin Bin” has been submitted in the past.

Update the title of your podcast to not be “The Sin Bin” and submit your feed. Once the podcast is reviewed and approved you can update the title in your feedback to “The Sin Bin” if you choose.

So it runs out its because the name had already been submitted before. While waiting we actually decided to break our three shows down into channels. So we submitted all of those today. When they hopefully get accepted we will work on trying to resubmit this default feed which still has tons of podcasts from other shows we no longer do.

I didn’t no Apple was enforcing a policy like this re: shows with similar names. This must be something fairly new. As they suggest, you can always change the name after the show is accepted by updating your settings in PowerPress. Thanks for the update.

Hi there, I’m also having trouble with my podcast not appearing in Itunes. My subscribers receive it no problem but I receive the below message in Connect:

Error: we had difficulty reading this feed, connection reset.

Here is my feed: https://www.gunpowderconsulting.co.uk/feed/podcast

Please could someone help?

@izzjarv: Your feed URL is returning a 200 error (connection reset). Contact support for the company hosting your website and ask them what’s going on. Respond back here with what they tell you.

Hello @izzjarv:,

Just to add more details, your web hosting is blocking HEAD requests, required for iTunes and most other podcast apps.

Hi,

my podcast feed generated by PowerPress was successfully validated by iTunes Connect pages but the later after submitting it was rejected. I only got a list of possible problems that could cause the rejection. I fixed the Artwork size as it seemed to be perhaps too big. After fixing the Artwork I did try submitting the podcast feed to iTunes once again (after successful validation) without changing the feed URL. I have not yet heard any reply from them. However that was only 3 days ago so perhaps they need some more time.

But the instruction on the iTunes Connect pages is a bit confusing to me. Perhaps I could get some help from here. The instructions on the pages says that:”If Apple deletes, fails, rejects, or removes a podcast, the podcast remains in the dashboard until you click Delete Podcast in the podcast detail page. If a podcast is rejected, you can’t delete the podcast but must instead fix the issue, change the RSS feed URL, and submit the podcast as a new podcast.”

So, I would need to change the RSS feed URL according to the instructions. How is this done in PowerPress as to my understanding the feed URL is fixed and not possible to edit.

My audio files are hosted by SoundCloud but the RSS feed is created with PowerPress plugin on my WP-based homepages.
The feed URL is https://www.ultrastanleypark.com/feed/podcast/

Do you have any advice how to proceed if the current submission fails? Have you had any similar cases?

Br,
mikael

Technically, your podcast feed is valid. However, the first episode in the feed doesn’t contain any description/show notes. I don’t know if that’s something Apple would care about or not. Still, I’d suggest just adding a few lines worth of notes if nothing else.

You can’t just edit a feed URL created by PowerPress. The best course of action is to wait for Apple to review your feed and get back to you. If you need to create a new feed URL to try and resubmit your show, take a look at Blubrry’s free Podcast Mirror service: https://podcastmirror.com/

Hi Shawn,

thanks for your reply and advice. After waiting for 6 working days I checked back yesterday with the iTunes podcast support team and found out that my re-submission was never done or it did not reach them. I don’t know the reason for that.

However the support person was quite helpful and told me the original reason for the Rejection:”Your show was rejected because the author field or title field contains extraneous information that should be included as part of its description (<description>, <itunes:subtitle>, or <itunes:summary>) tags.”

So, in the original feed I had left the Author field empty and the title field was “UltraStanleyPark | Polkuporinat”. Maybe the | in the middle was the problem?

Now, I have modified the title to simply “Polkuporinat” (without any special chars) and used the Mirror service you suggested. The new feed URL is:
https://feeds.podcastmirror.com/polkuporinat

After these modifications I run the validation on 3 different validator services including the one in iTunes Connect. All show success. And now I have submitted the podcast to iTunes. I just got an email saying they are reviewing my podcast.

Fingers crossed,
mikael

Apple is cracking down on podcasters adding keywords or other descriptive words to show titles and author tags. They want ONLY the podcast title to be in the title tag and they want ONLY the author name to be in the author tag.

Glad to see things are working with the Mirror feed. Please let us know if you need further assistance.