A few episodes are not downloading/streaming on desktop iTunes, but will work on Stitcher and iPhone app?

Question

A few episodes are not downloading/streaming on desktop iTunes, but will work on Stitcher and iPhone app?

Hello! My friend and I host a Twin Peaks review podcast called Log Ladies. We're having an odd issue where a few of our episodes (Episodes 1.1 and 1.7) cannot be streamed or downloaded when accessing iTunes from a desktop computer. However, this issue doesn't appear in the following situations:

when accessing these episodes from an iPhone using Apple's Podcast app (or any other podcast app)
when accessing these episodes from a desktop computer on Stitcher
when accessing any of the other episodes on a desktop computer

We've been using the same exact method to edit, export and upload our episodes so I'm not sure what could be affecting these specific episodes! I'd really like to get this resolved as soon as possible because I assume any new listeners we get will listen to our first episode - and many people listen to podcasts on their desktop 😟.

Additional Info: We record/edit in Garageband (Mac), host the files via Google Drive, use Blogger as our RSS, and finally use FeedBurner to connect to iTunes.

Thanks for your help!

Jane

Posted on Jul 6, 2015 11:12 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Jul 6, 2015 1:05 PM in response to bowloforanges

It would help if you posted the URLs of your iTunes Store page and your feed instead of my having to do detective work to find them.

Your feed is at http://feeds.feedburner.com/LogLadiesPodcast

When subscribing all episodes appear and 1.8 and 1.7 play OK. However while the Store will play episode 1.8 it plays only the first split second of episode 1.7. There is no obvious reason for this - both episodes are much the same and appear the same when checked in Terminal.

You have no 'itunes:duration' tags in your feed so the Store does not know what the duration is. This can cause problems, though why it would apply to only two episodes when all are the same I don't know. Otherwise I can only suggest a problem at the server. You could try hosting 1.7 on a different server and see whether it works that way, and if you can add the duration tags it would be a good idea. (The Store will believe what it's told so if for example you gave the duration as ten seconds that is all it would play. So it may be thinking the duration is only a tenth of a second, though there's nowhere it could pick that up from and as I say the same applies to 10.8 and that's OK).

Reply

Answer 2

Jul 6, 2015 10:34 PM in response to Roger Wilmut1

Hi Roger,

Thank you for your help! I did include all the links, you should see them above. If not, here you go:

Itunes Link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/log-ladies-podcast/id991593699
Stitcher Link: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/log-ladies-podcast/log-ladies?refid=stpr
Google Drive Link: https://327d3fc6ec34621f5aaa83848a87e4cc251b1356.googledrive.com/host/0ByIFf-5SP n_wfjJMMzJHWGx1S0JnQS1pSDFEWFYyRzdnTjlHc2lMYmZyOENLOEkxMk1vdEU/
Blogger Link: http://logladiespodcast.blogspot.com/
FeedBurner Link: http://feeds.feedburner.com/LogLadiesPodcast

Thanks for the help! I'll try the duration tags. Do you happen to know where/how to do this with my current setup?

Reply

Answer 3

Jul 6, 2015 10:53 PM in response to bowloforanges

I think I found the issue! See attached screenshot. The episodes showing a thumbnail image are the ones having issues - so obviously the image is what is affecting the episodes. Now I just have to figure out how to fix it. Maybe the image file is too large?

Reply

Answer 4

Jul 6, 2015 11:40 PM in response to bowloforanges

Certainly 1.7 has an embedded image where 1.8 does not. The image is larger than it should be at 1.7MB - that would be too large for the main image in the feed, but I don't know whether any restrictions apply on an embedded image. And I don't see why it would affect the Store.

However the obvious next step is to remove the image. Go to your original file; drag it into the Music library in iTunes (not in the Finder). Select it and hit command-i. Click the Artwork tab to show the image: delete it. Drag the file out of iTunes to somewhere else, then replace your original file with this version. Re-upload it to the server.

Reply

Answer 5

Jul 8, 2015 8:31 PM in response to Roger Wilmut1

Hey Roger - I removed the images, and reuploaded/posted everything, but no dice. Any other suggestions?

Reply

Answer 6

Jul 8, 2015 11:42 PM in response to bowloforanges

I've compared 1.7 with 1.8 (which does work) and I can't see any difference between them, so I'm afraid I have no idea. Using Google Feedproxy can cause problems, though as the episodes which do work are using it it's not possible to say whether this is the cause. I can only suggest you host the episodes in question somewhere else and see what happens.

Reply