Feedburner enclosure issue

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Feedburner enclosure issue

I am creating a new podcast, and am facing issues in Feedburner which prevent me from submitting to iTunes. I realize there are other discussions related to this issue, but none have managed to provide a solution for my problem.

1. I am hosting my audio on archive.org

2. I'm creating my feed as a category on my wordpress.com blog

3. I'm burning my feed in Feedburner

On my wordpress.com page, I have tried both the embedded player (swf) and a direct hyperlink to the mp3, and both function properly.

BUT, when I run the feed through feedburner, it either creates an enclosure for the swf file (which is a problem) or fails to recognize the mp3 entirely.

My friend has done the exact same process with her podcast, without any problems, so I'm assuming that I'm facing a glitch in feedburner.

Any help in working around this is greatly appreciated.

Here are links to my feeds:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheLastTapePodcast

http://lasttape.net/category/podcast/

and my friend's feeds, which work properly:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/precipitate

http://precipitatepodcast.wordpress.com/

Thanks!

Andre

Posted on Feb 24, 2013 9:55 PM

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Answer 1

last_tape Author

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Feb 24, 2013 10:03 PM in response to last_tape

UPDATE:

I have tried using a different Wordpress theme, resynching my Feedburner feed, deleting/reposting on Wordpress, deleting/reburning on Feedburner, and none of these have fixed the issue.

Again, any help is appreciated. 🙂

Cheers.

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Answer 2

Feb 24, 2013 11:39 PM in response to last_tape

http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheLastTapePodcast

The top episode has no 'enclosure' tag nor any playable media. The second episode down has an enclosure tag containing a .swf file which iTunes will not handle. There are three 'media:content' tags - the first contains the .swf file and the third the .mp3 file - itunes does not read this tag.

http://lasttape.net/category/podcast/

This is a web page, not a feed. Despite each episode saying it contains links, they don't.

Your friend's feed is similar - the first episode has no playable media, the second has a 'enclosure' tag contining the .mp3 url and the 'media:content' tag contains no playable media URLs - so this feed should work with the one episode. Unlike yours, the Wordpress web page does have an embedded player for the mp3 file.

You are hosting your .mp3 file on a URL which has https:// - this is likely not to work in iTunes: you should use http://

WordPress causes a lot of problems, but it is possible to construct a proper feed in it - though a lot of people have difficulty with it. As your web page has no media players or links to media you are obviously missing at least one step somewhere; however I'm afraid I can't advise on WordPress so I can only suggest that you look in their Help or possibly there is a forum for it where you could ask.

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Answer 3

last_tape Author

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Feb 25, 2013 4:20 AM in response to Roger Wilmut1

Hi Roger,

Thank you for your reply.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheLastTapePodcast

So as you noticed on the feedburner page, the top episode (episode 2) does not create an enclosure tag for the mp3 that is contained in the post, but when you click the words "Link to mp3", it does in fact open the mp3 file.

The lower episode (episode 1), shows the embedded player (as on my friend's feed) but the enclosure tag is for the swf file rather than the mp3 itself. In my friend's feed, the same exact setup results in a different outcome, with the enclosure tag catching the mp3.

http://lasttape.net/category/podcast/

You're right, this is a page. I add "/feed" to make it a feed, and link it to feedburner like that. Feedburner then successfully updates the episodes, as with any other RSS feed. No problem there.

And I understand that it looks like there is no mp3 or embedded player on the Wordpress site, but that's only because my theme presents the posts as summaries. If you open each post individually, you'll see the mp3 (in episode 2) and the embedded player (in episode 1).

And Feedburner successfully displays both the mp3 AND the embedded player. The only hitch is that it either doesn't create any enclosure tag (episode 2) or creates a tag for the swf file (episode 1)

And my friend also hosts her audio on a URL with https://, so I can't see how that would cause the problem.

I could contact Wordpress, but it really appears to be a mysterious glitch with Feedburner, because that's where the failure occurs. And of course, Feedburner are notorious for having almost no user support 😟

Does anyone know of a good free alternative to Feedburner, in terms of serving as a proxy to send through to iTunes?

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Answer 4

Feb 25, 2013 4:31 AM in response to last_tape

http://lasttape.net/category/podcast/feed/

This feed has no 'enclosure' tags and so won't work in iTunes. The second episode down has three 'media:content' tags - so does the Feedburner version though they are in a different order; also the original feed has no .swf file whereas the Feedburner one does, and as it's the first one in order it's apparently that which Feedburner is using to create the missing 'enclosure' tag. It looks as if you have amended the original feed since Feedburner last read it.

In any event, it's not Feedburner that's messing up your feed - the original feed is not working, and Feedburner is simply trying to make a working feed out of what is there. You need to get the 'enclosure' tags into the original feed, containing the .mp3 files, then Feedburner will simply reproduce those. And of coursse if you get the original feed to work properly you can just as well submit that to iTunes - the main reason for going through Feedburner is to get download statistics.

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Answer 5

Feb 25, 2013 4:55 AM in response to Roger Wilmut1

Loooking at the web pages for the individual episode: Episode 2 has a link to the mp3 file but in its entry in the feed this appears only inside the 'description' tag which iTunes does not read. The only 'media:content' tag contains a non-playable URL.

Episode 1 uses the embedded WP player and the code for this appears (again, to no effect) in the 'description' tag. There are three 'media:content' tags -

<media:content url="http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/58446502b57dd36dfff5118c8cee85d0?s=96&d=identicon&r=G" medium="image">

<media:title type="html">drejones</media:title>

</media:content>

<media:content url="https://archive.org/download/Episode1_20130222/episode%201.mp3" medium="audio">

<media:player url="http://lasttape.net/wp-content/plugins/audio-player/player.swf?soundFile=https:/ /archive.org/download/Episode1_20130222/episode%201.mp3" />

</media:content>

These were in a different order in the Feedburner feed (which is now giving a 'file not found' error) and Feedburner used the top one to construct the 'enclosure' tag.

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Answer 6

last_tape Author

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Feb 26, 2013 9:18 PM in response to Roger Wilmut1

Thanks Roger for your investigation. You may have noticed I'm not especially code-literate, but it seems the Wordpress site is encoding my posts differently than my friend's posts, which is what confuses Feedburner, and causes it to create the wrong enclosure tags. Am I understanding that right?

I'll keep trying alternate ways of working around this, and I'll post updates.

Cheers.

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Answer 7

Feb 26, 2013 11:50 PM in response to last_tape

This business of having no 'enclosure' tag is a common problem - I've had another query today which has the same issue on just one episode - and I can only conclude that there is a procedure you have to follow in order to get this working which you haven't done but your friend has. Perhaps he is using one of the plugins for Wordpress which does this; but you could start by comparing notes with him. Also if there is a forum anywhere for Wordpress that would probably throw up an answer.

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Answer 8

last_tape Author

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Feb 27, 2013 12:06 AM in response to last_tape

FOLLOW-UP:

My problem appears to have resolved itself, but I'm not sure what I did to fix it. Here are a few possibilities:

1. In the "Writing" section of my Wordpress.com settings, I checked the box " WordPress should correct invalidly nested XHTML automatically".

2. It also appears that my archive.org files started being identified with "http" rather than "https". I didn't make this change myself, but from what I gather, it is something you can do by simply removing the "s" in the file's URL.

Other than that, I think it could be that Feedburner is a little wonky. I've noticed a few other glitches (e.g. the feed title I enter on my details page doesn't display correctly) , and Google have been oddly silent since the APIs shut down in October 2012. Maybe they're trying to overhaul the service without anyone knowing, and that's causing the glitches.

Anyway, I'm just happy to be back on track.

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Answer 9

Feb 27, 2013 12:22 AM in response to last_tape

http://lasttape.net/category/podcast/feed/

this does indeed now have 'enclosure' tags - in fact both episodes havve duplicated enclosure tags. This doesn't matter as iTunes will just ignore the second one anyway. The feed works when subscribed to manually.

You have no 'itunes:duration' tags - the feed will still work, but it's better if you can get them in as the Store won't know how long the episodes are and the durations when subscribing don't show until you've actually downloaded the episode.

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