Keith a.k.a. K j A M

He’s engaged but I was trying to find a solution myself rather than have someone dig into my admin, which he offered. I’m also using Gemini to help solve the problem and this has been ongoing for a couple of days. I’ve tried several different solutions I found on the web about the same issue (code for my functions.php file in my child theme) but none have worked.

I’ll likely let the developer take a look because he wants to view my setup, which is likely different than most but works for me with the exception of this one issue.

Thanks for taking the time to help out. You didn’t have to and I wasn’t certain it was an issue with PowerPress feed generation. Though, Gemini is asking me to find filters or hooks in your documentation regarding the generation of your feeds. Honestly, I’ll probably let go and have the developer take a look.

Thanks again.

I don’t have to tell you that WordPress generates the feed that ends with /feed/ and PowerPress generates the feed that ends with /feed/podcast/. Both are identical and based on whatever information I add to the feed in PowerPress. Why this one feed was redirecting, I can’t say because there were no redirects for feeds that I could find — especially not back to the home page.

I went ahead and added the redirect as you suggested but that didn’t resolve the issue, nor did I expect it to. I’m just trying to hide the shortcode at the top of my post in the feed so it doesn’t show up as the description in streaming services.

I don’t use the description field for each episode because that was never a thing for many years and my podcast is 17 years old. It always pulled from the blog post, which is why I’m now having issues with the shortcode appearing as part of the description since I moved the player to the top of the post.

That’s because the feed is https://partyfavorz.com/category/club-fusion/feed/podcast/

I replied several days ago and it’s missing. Anyway, here’s the link to one of my podcasts in Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/club-fusion-by-party-favorz/id1676656976?mt=2&ls=1

I have a code to hide the shortcode in the RSS feed but cannot find the shortcode_function that triggers the play button to add it to my functions.php file in my child theme. I’m going back and forth with the developer now about what it is but he seems to be questioning if I’m adding the shortcode into the description when I just rely on the blog post to be pulled like it always has. With over 1,000 episodes, there’s not enough time in my day to summarize all of them when I’m trying to maintain a website, podcast, and create content.

I look forward to it. Thanks for the update!

Interesting, it appears to me this is something built into WordPress not my theme. I know you offer the option in your newer block editor.

Regardless, I don’t think the people behind CustomizrPro are the same developers. They say they’re still supporting the theme but it hasn’t had an update in over a year. I’ll be switching themes in the new year and will see if that changes anything. I doubt it but okay.

Thanks.

That worked. Thanks!

Disregard this request. Thank you.

It’s fixed. Thanks!

I’m using Customizr Pro and if you look at the threads, there were others with the same issue.

It’s cool. I got it working by clearing the plugin cache. I had restored my site from the previous day and that’s when I noticed it was blank. It’s never done that before but after clearing the plugin cache it started working again. Thanks!

Nevermind, I cleared the plugin cache and that brought it back but all the posts are not correct and it’s only listing 7. I have no idea what happened.

I think it’s rich that Castos doesn’t understand how the DJ community works in conjunction with the music labels and DJ promo services to promote artists in the clubs and through DJ mixes. Much like talk and series podcasts (and now video podcasts), Continuous DJ mixes have been an integral part of podcasting from the beginning. You’re confusing what we do with radio and streaming. I’ve only been doing this out in the open for 16 years and was at the forefront of the podcast movement but I digress.

That being said, having used your service, I can assure you the issue is the limit you place on file size whether I host with you or not. You might want to read your own support section about the issue: https://support.castos.com/article/200-what-is-the-maximum-file-size-i-can-upload#:~:text=This%20setting%20can%20range%20from,Did%20this%20answer%20your%20question%3F

Though your support section blames WordPress for the limitation, that’s just not true. I previously hosted with Podbean and the exact same files played just fine using the default WordPress player. After all, these files are not being uploaded into the WordPress media file folder. My current host doesn’t have any issue with uploading the larger file sizes either and it works just fine in their player. I just don’t like their player and prefer yours. Take that last statement as a win.

I’m not trying to be argumentative, but I’ll bet that if you dig into your code — you’ll find there’s a limitation being placed on your end regardless of whether the file is hosted with your service or not.

Ultimately, it’s not that big of an issue because I can re-encode them at a lower bitrate to get them to work. I’m manually moving over 900 episodes and have the benefit of seeing firsthand which ones are playable and which ones are not. The majority of the audio files are playable. It appears to be selectively restricting some files but not others that are the same or in some cases larger.

No one is trying to disparage Castos or your player because both are excellent and like all other hosting platforms have their pluses and minuses. I’m just pointing this issue out as I see it. I’m guessing it’s not that big of a deal on your end unless you have a video podcast where I can see that could be problematic.

From what I’ve seen, most DJs encode at 128 bitrate to save on hosting costs like in Soundcloud even though that’s no longer ideal because of cheaper storage, faster wifi, mobile data transfers, and internet connections.

For the record, publishing my podcast to all the streaming services that I was already on and changing my feed without my permission was a colossal misstep on your part. I can see how this is beneficial for newbies but I wasn’t one of them because I already know how to add my feed to a streaming platform and was able to pick the services that work best for my audience. You might want to consider an opt-in for hosting customers. Thankfully, I’ve gotten all but one fixed, which should be corrected this week.

In fact, pushing it out to Apple Podcasts is what started the whole issue with me leaving Castos in the first place where another DJ (who runs a podcast similar to mine) and who just trademarked ‘Dance Club’ last year after Billboard (who never trademarked the term) dropped the chart. ‘Dance Club’ happened to be one of my categories and when Castos pushed the main feed out, it got reactivated in Apple and iTunes ruffling this other guy’s feathers. We’ve since worked out an agreement where I changed the name of the category because it’s not pertinent to my operations.

Castos would serve itself well to have legal counsel on stand-by to advise in such frivolous matters because this won’t be the first time this issue comes up (and I doubt it was) as opposed to just screwing over your paying customers. That’s on you.

For what it’s worth, I spent several hours cleaning up the Apple Podcast mess you created by having to archive the channel and all of my shows and then recreate them again with my original feed from WordPress. If I had done this for someone else as an independent contractor (which I do), I would’ve charged them over $1,000.

Even though I don’t harbor any bad feelings or ill will against your company, I won’t try to help you improve your service going forward. Like most developers I run across, you don’t take constructive criticism very well unless it comes from within your own community. It would serve you well to show a little humility when people point out an issue with your service so you can improve upon it as opposed to talking down to them. I’m not saying they’re always right because experience has taught me otherwise and granted me the patience to walk them through their issue to correct it.

There’s no need to publish my response.

Your player seems to be targeting smaller files now with the same error. They work once encoded at a lower bitrate making the file smaller.

As for using your service, I was until you kicked me off because of some stupid generic trademark dispute over the use of ‘dance club’ for one of my categories, which has now been resolved. I’ve been doing this for 16 years and have never had a complaint over anything.

Regardless, this was an issue when I originally imported the feed from my previous provider to Castos. Your support section states there’s a limit on the size of the file but since I’m no longer hosting with you, it shouldn’t matter.

Even then, as mentioned above, it’s selectively random as to what it will allow in size. I’ve never had this issue with any host much less just a plugin player that’s not even hosting the content. It’s weird.

I thought about it overnight and went back and looked at the files. It’s a size issue. Some of the episodes were over 3 hours long and encoded at 320 bitrate.

I reencoded those episodes at a lower bitrate this morning and it worked. I have memory uploads on the host end set to 2G so the limit being imposed is on your end.

Regardless, that is the fix. Thanks for the reply.