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Podcast empty on Apple-Podcast-app but feed isn't

Hello,


I've got the problem, that my podcast feed is empty, when I subscribe to the podcast. The overview of the podcast shows every item correctly. But as soon, you subscribe to, the feed is empty. What can I do?


several months ago, everything went fine, but it stopped working. You can search for the term "bondage music" and you will find every single podcast.


the link is: http://rssfeed.servebeer.com/bondage/Podcast01.xml


with a different podcast app, like Downcast, everything seems ok.


I checked the hints from the forum search here:

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

2. the enclosure tag is set


I stepped in contact with apple support and they told me, that the podcastcovers resolution is not 1400x1400 and it has to be.

I resized the cover - with no avail.

Posted on Sep 2, 2015 6:54 AM

Reply
3 replies

Sep 2, 2015 8:24 AM in response to Rular

You have fallen over an interesting incompatibility in XML. The Store page shows episodes 27 to 65; when looked at in a browser the feed shows episodes 27-54, and when subscribing in iTunes the podcast appears to be empty.


This is because of a line in the 'itunes:summary' tag for episode 55, which reads


06. Howling - Signs (R&oslash;d&aring;d Remix)


Now if you were constructing a web page, that would be perfectly valid, and would come out as


06. Howling - Signs (Rødåd Remix)


Indeed the iTunes Store shows this correctly in the summary, and so is not fazed by what is actually an error (though one would have expected it to be). This error is causing the browser I checked the feed in to fall over at that point, but has rendered the entire feed unreadable in iTunes.


XML is picky, and you need to use the numbered entities, not the named ones, so that to be correct your line should read


06. Howling - Signs (R&#248;d&#229;d Remix)


Alternatively you may be able to enter the characters directly without using the coding.If you change that line and re-upload the feed it should work immediately when subscribing.


Quoting from the Apple Help page http://www.apple.com/itunes/podcasts/specs.html :


There are five characters which must be entered using the named identity in XML:


characternamexml
&ampersand&amp;
<less-than sign&lt;
>greater-than sign&gt;
apostrophe&apos;
"quotation&quot;

All other characters can be entered directly in an editor that supports UTF-8.

However, you can also use numeric character references that specify the Unicode for the character, for example:

characternamexml
©copyright sign&#xA9;
sound recording copyright&#x2117;
TM trademark sign&#x2122;

For more information, see XML Character and Entity References.

Podcast empty on Apple-Podcast-app but feed isn't

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