I've tried submitting my podcast to iTunes several times. Please help :-(

When you enter the URL of your media file in a browser it downloads instead of playing within the browser as it should. This means that although it works in the iTunes application, the Store can't play it within its own page; this will cause your submissions to be rejected.

You need to set each file not to download. eiznem has posted the process:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6523821?answerId=26564459022#26564459022

Check if by entering the file URL in Safari or another browser - it should play in the browser, not download.

Your image is the correct size but the filesize is too large at 815kB - it must be less than 500kB. This too will get you rejected. You should resave it with more compression (and a different filename).

Otherwise the feed itself appears to be OK, though you don't have an 'tunes:duration' tag for your episode, which isn't fatal but if possible you should have this so that the Store knows how long it is.

The image is OK, but the audio file is still downloading. You need to check this by entering its URL in Safari before submitting otherwise you are just going to get more rejections.

I had the same problem with submitting and although the XML is exactly in the format of the example, when attempting to submit the Podcast in iTunes it comes back with an error “We are currently experiencing technical difficulties. Please try again later.”

I finally found the problem is in following the example podcast XML feed format as that no longer works. I finally got it to work by replacing the <rss> line in the example:

<rss xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd" version="2.0">

with the following:

<rss xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd" version="2.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd ">

This now works when uploading the Podcast. IT would be nice if someone at Apple could update the example to reflect the additional tag information needed to be able to submit correctly.

Even it that code modification is necessary, which to be honest I doubt, it has nothing to do with the OP's problem which is that the media files are forcing a download: that's nothing to do with the feed at all.

I looked at the XML feed that ridgeeagle linked initially and noted that it wasn't the <rss> tag that Apple says is necessary. However, to avoid him having the same error I had, I recommend he use the <rss> tag I listed above. If you are able to get the Apple Podcast to load with the <rss> tag mentioned in Apple's example, I would love to be corrected. According to Apple's own documentation, they will reject if it doesn't use their <rss> feed schema. So I am only going by their word.

Apple'sPodcast Help page has a sample feed with the basic xmlns tag:

<rss xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd" version="2.0">

Other tags often get added within that, for example the OP has an atom tag as well (Atom is a very old feed reader which I doubt anyone is still using). The additional parts of the tag quoted above won't do any harm, but they've never been necessary in the past so I doubt the requirement has been added in the last few days.

As I say, the reason for the OP's feed being rejected is nothing to do with the code, it's the way the media files are behaving. The feed validates in FeedValidator (barring one minor thing which isn't relevant to iTunes anyway). FeedValidator of course checks only the feed coding - obviously it doesn't know anything about media files which don't load properly, or images which are the wrong size (which as another issue originally).

Tom - I checked your feed with libsyn and all looks good.

If you have any issues - or questions about libsyn or if you can't get into iTunes let me know.

Rob at libsyn dot com