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My podcast won't appear on the Podcast app. Why?

My podcast can be found via iTunes and via browser, but it suddenly stopped appearing altogether on the Podcast app.


In comparions to a previous version I have of the feed, everything seems in order. What on earth could have happened to the feed that it would appear on every other outlet except for the Podcast app?

Posted on Sep 20, 2013 10:58 AM

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5 replies

Sep 20, 2013 11:36 PM in response to terrytorres

In fact it's quite straightforward. You have introduced a fatal error into your feed, so that it cannot be subscribed to and the podcast app cannot read it. The iTunes Store is showing the state of the feed the last time it could read it (as it caches feeds) but cannot update.


The 'title' tag for the episode of 25 August reads


<title>Minisode 4 - Lewis & Clark</title>


You cannot have an ampersand ('&') by itself in XML because it signified the start of a code sequence which is never completed, thus rendering the rest of the feed unreadable - and since the closing tags are included in this that invalidates the opening tags.


You must replace the ampersand either with the word 'and' or with the code


&amp;

Sep 21, 2013 8:18 AM in response to terrytorres

Now that you've cleared that error it's exposed another in the 'link', 'enclosure' and 'guid' tags in the same episode:


<link>http://terry-torres.com/podcastgen/media/History%20Lessons%20Mini%20-%20Lewis%20 &%20Clark.m4a</link>

<enclosure url="http://terry-torres.com/podcastgen/media/History%20Lessons%20Mini%20-%20Lewis%20 &%20Clark.m4a" type="audio/x-m4a"/>

<guid>http://terry-torres.com/podcastgen/media/History%20Lessons%20Mini%20-%20Lewis%20 &%20Clark.m4a</guid>


Again, the ampersand messes things up. You can't have this in the URL - and you shouldn't have spaces in the filename, though the feed has substituted the code %20 so it isn't actually a problem. The ampersand, however is: in this case the &amp; code doesn't work but you can substitute the code %26 so that the URL reads


http://terry-torres.com/podcastgen/media/History%20Lessons%20Mini%20-%20Lewis%20 %26%20Clark.m4a


I would advise avoiding both spaces and odd characters (including the ampersand) in URLs.


There seem to be no further instances of this - elsewhere you have used the &amp; code - though as a matter of course you should check your feed by subscribing in iTunes so you will find out quickly if it's not working.

My podcast won't appear on the Podcast app. Why?

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