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Question re removing podcast from iTunes Store

Hello,

For over two months now, my podcast (American Freethought) has not updated in the iTunes Store. Subscribers are able to download the latest episodes, but potential subscribers will think, from looking at the iTunes Store, that there hasn't been an episode since July 19th!

My feed is http://www.americanfreethought.com/wordpress/?feed=podcast
My feed ID is 269213675

I can find nothing obviously wrong with my feed; I've tried pinging and re-pinging on several occasions, but...nothing. For what it's worth, I don't see this problem at, say, Podcast Pickle, which display the podcast fine all the way up to the latest episode.

As a last ditch effort, I'm considering simply removing my podcast from the iTunes Store, waiting a couple of days after it drops off, then resubmitting the feed, in hopes that this will somehow reset the podcast and fix the update problem.

Questions:

- Does this proposed fix have a prayer of working?
- What's the potential downside of trying it?
- (Or better yet) can anyone tell me what the problem is?

Thanks!

Dell, Windows XP

Posted on Sep 22, 2009 1:26 PM

22 replies

johncsnider Author

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Oct 30, 2009 10:40 AM in response to Roger Wilmut1

Well, this is getting ridiculous. It's nearly three weeks since I resubmitted my feed to iTunes. In that time I have received no communication whatsoever as to the status of my submission. I have no way of knowing if I've been rejected for some reason or if it's just taking an inordinate amount of time. I even called a Development Support number, and the woman I spoke to told me to email itunesconnect@apple.com, which I did several days ago. Still nothing.

johncsnider Author

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Nov 2, 2009 2:35 PM in response to johncsnider

I finally heard something from iTunes Podcasting support, but it doesn't offer much, um, support. The podcast is now back up on the iTunes Store, but it still has not updated any episodes since mid-July. Here's what they said:

"I have turned your podcast back on and it should be available shortly in the Store, however, the Store continues to have an issue updating it. Any subscribers should be able to subscribe and see new episodes without issue, but when the Store checks your feed, it receives an HTTP 403 "Forbidden" error. I'm unable to replicate that by pinging it from my computer, so it seems that for some reason your server is rejecting the Store's attempt to ping it. I've asked our engineers to find out more, but in the meantime, if you've got any restrictions on the server side, you might want to inspect those. I'm not sure why there's an issue here, and I have not seen this problem before; hopefully we'll be able to figure it out soon."

Any ideas?

Thanks,
John

Nov 2, 2009 3:17 PM in response to johncsnider

There is a page explaining the 403 error in some detail here:
http://www.checkupdown.com/status/E403.html
though I'm not sure it offers much help since subscribing works as does access in a browser. iTunes can be picky about URLs with a '?' in them - this presumably means that a script is being used to call the feed file, and it would be better where possible to use a direct URL to it - but since I assume this is the same URL that was working up to July that doesn't seem to be the problem. It would be worth explaining the problem to the people who run your server and ask if they have any ideas.

johncsnider Author

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Nov 3, 2009 7:13 AM in response to Roger Wilmut1

Hi Roger,

I contacted my host service and passed along the info from iTunes support. Now the host service is suggest that perhaps their network security is rejecting pings from the iTunes Store. They say if I can give them the IP address that's pinging me they might be able to fix the problem. Key word: might.

Anyway, it's worth a shot, but I have no idea what this IP address might be.

Ideas?

Thanks!

Nov 3, 2009 8:29 AM in response to johncsnider

I don't think I've ever seen one quoted: there must be one - or more likely a number - but I'm not sure you you could go about doing this other than asking Support.

johncsnider Author

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Nov 3, 2009 3:25 PM in response to Roger Wilmut1

OK, now iTunes support is saying it could be a program called Bad Behavior, which is a plugin for controlling spam. My host service support people say they are not blocking the iTunes IP. So, much as I hate to do it, I'm deactivating Bad Behavior and we'll see if that fixes the problem. (I predict it won't: color me pessimistic!)

johncsnider Author

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Nov 3, 2009 3:32 PM in response to johncsnider

OK, now color me completely wrong. I just checked it on the iTunes Store and everything is up and running and looking good!

But what a pain in the *** that I can't use Bad Behavior - that's an excellent program otherwise.

Question re removing podcast from iTunes Store