Users are "Unable to Download Podcast" on iOS Podcast app

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Users are "Unable to Download Podcast" on iOS Podcast app

We've had issues with the last two weeks of our podcast. We upload it to Soundcloud fine, update our RSS feed, it plays fine, but in the iOS podcast app, it seems to download fully, then comes up with the message "Unable To Download Podcast" error. This error appeared to show up on all people's Podcast apps. Curiously, it downloads fine on the iTunes desktop app. We uploaded via Chrome, on a Mac, and exported the podcast to mp3 via Adobe Audition.

This is the podcast in question: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-empire-podcast/id507987292?mt=2

This is our Soundcloud page: https://soundcloud.com/empiremagazine

And this is our RSS feed: http://www.empireonline.com/podcast/podcast.xml

The episodes which aren't downloading in iOS are #185 and #186.

We're totally stumped on this - can anyone shed any light?

Much appreciated.

John Empire

https://www.soundcloudcommunity.com/

Posted on Nov 9, 2015 4:31 AM

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Answer 1

Nov 9, 2015 8:54 AM in response to misternuge

I'm not in a position to test this on the Podcasts app. However, when subscribing in iTunes the feed comes up empty. This is because you have introduced a fatal error into it. Lines 17 and 18 read

<itunes:category text="TV & Film"/>

</itunes:category>

You have in effect closed the 'itunes:category' tag twice. This is wrecking the feed. You need to remove line 18 - the second line above - and you should insert a space before the slash in the upper line - <itunes:category text="TV & Film" />

The iTunes Store in iTunes on a Mac is still showing the podcast because it shows the cached version as of the last time it was able to read it. The top episode starts to play. The actual episode files shouldn't be affected by the feed error, but I can't answer that problem if dealing with the feed doesn't cure it. You may do best to ask in the iPhone forum.

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Answer 2

misternuge Author

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Nov 9, 2015 9:09 AM in response to Roger Wilmut1

Thanks Roger - I made that edit to the RSS feed only today. I put the RSS feed through Feed Validator and it flagged up a dodgy 'category' tag, but I obviously didn't fix it very well.

I've amended as per your suggestion. Not sure how long the cache is for iTunes but I did wonder whether this could have been the issue all along...

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Answer 3

Nov 9, 2015 10:17 AM in response to misternuge

It's now possible to subscribe in iTunes. However: lines 17-20 of your feed read:

<itunes:category text="Film">

<itunes:category text="Film" />

</itunes:category>

<itunes:category text="TV & Film" />

'Film' is not a category; you should delete the first three lines of this section. The last line is OK; but it's possible that the first three lines, since the do not represent an iTunes category, will result in you being dumped in some other category.

Now it's a question of whether the original problem of episodes not downloading still applies, and if you test this and find it still to be the case it suggests an issue at your server. However I can only refer you to the iPhone forum on this one.

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Answer 4

misternuge Author

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Nov 10, 2015 4:56 AM in response to Roger Wilmut1

Thanks again Roger, much appreciated.

I believe I've fixed the category tag, and removed the erroneous 'Film' tag.

The episodes are still not downloading on iOS. It seems like this issue is now affecting all historic episodes of our podcast, and only on iOS (it is still working fine on desktop). Presumably if it is affecting all episodes, it would suggest an issue with the RSS feed here somehow?

Feed validator is still listing a few errors (http://feedvalidator.org/check.cgi?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.empireonline.com%2Fpodca st%2Fpodcast.xml) but nothing that has been added recently, or that seems to explain any of the recent issues we've had. Does the fact that the XML feed is very long make any difference?

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Answer 5

Nov 10, 2015 5:16 AM in response to misternuge

Your 'category' is still incorrect. It reads

<itunes:category text="TV & Film" >

</itunes:category>

it should read

<itunes:category text="TV & Film" />

As to the FeedValidator Report:

Line 57 - you must use colons as a separator e.g. 39:17

Line 176 - this date was a Monday

Line 225 - I don't see anything wrong with this

Line 1908 - the 'length' attribute is the file size in bytes (numbers only).

Line 2693 - your 'enclosure' tag must include the attribute type="audio/mpeg" as your other episodes do.

Line 3847 - ignore this

Line 3847 - not having an 'explicit' tag doesn't matter as long as you don't have any strong or sexual language.

I wouldn't have thought any of this would have cause files to stop downloading part way through, unless incorrect 'length' attributes is confusing the system. It's more likely a server problem.

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