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invictus88@mac.com
Level 1 (4 points)
Publishing

Q: Validation Error using Seriously Simple Podcasting

I've got the Seriously Simple Podcasting plugin setup and validated the feed on Google's new podcasting service, but iTunes keeps rejecting it due to: Can’t download episodes from your feed.

 

Here's the feed: http://thetruelifechurch.com/feed/podcast

 

I've looked at the source code and the only thing I can see that might be the issue is the enclosure url as it's not the direct url to the audio for each episode. Any thoughts on this? I've also contacted the developer for a solution.

Posted on May 27, 2016 11:50 AM

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invictus88@mac.com

Q: Validation Error using Seriously Simple Podcasting

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  • by Roger Wilmut1,

    Roger Wilmut1 Roger Wilmut1 May 27, 2016 2:02 PM in response to invictus88@mac.com
    Level 9 (78,515 points)
    iTunes
    May 27, 2016 2:02 PM in response to invictus88@mac.com

    As you say, the episode file has a redirect in place ( a 302, 'moved temporarily'). The UTL in the feed:

     

    http://thetruelifechurch.com/podcast-download/5465/the-inseparable-love-of-god.m p3

     

    redirects to

     

    http://thetruelifechurch.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/05-22-2016.mp3

     

    This works OK in a browser, but redirects can be very dodgy. Usually they work when subscribing in iTunes but here it's not working and an error comes up when attempting to subscribe. Terminal shows the redirect code when carrying out the usual test for byte range requests,but does not then proceed in the usual way, showing this result:

     

    curl -I -r 200-300 http://thetruelifechurch.com/podcast-download/5465/the-inseparable-love-of-god.m p3

    HTTP/1.1 302 Found

    Date: Fri, 27 May 2016 20:50:29 GMT

    Server: Apache

    X-Powered-By: PHP/5.5.30

    Set-Cookie: wordpress_clef_state=SRaJIky3AQGMOfzXmnI18T57; expires=Sat, 28-May-2016 20:50:29 GMT; Max-Age=86400; path=/; httponly

    Pragma: no-cache

    Expires: 0

    Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0

    Robots: none

    Content-Description: File Transfer

    Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="05-22-2016.mp3";

    Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary

    Location: /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/05-22-2016.mp3

    Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8

     

    The Store plainly can't handle this. I should use the direct URL and avoid the redirect.

     

    There is also an error in the coding of the 'enclosure' tags which may well also cause a problem: you have

     

    <enclosure url="http://thetruelifechurch.com/podcast-download/5465/the-inseparable-love-of-god.m p3" length="1" type="audio/mpeg"></enclosure>

     

    it should be

     

    <enclosure url="http://thetruelifechurch.com/podcast-download/5465/the-inseparable-love-of-god.m p3" length="1" type="audio/mpeg" />

     

    Incidentally the 'length' attribute within each 'enclosure' tag is supposed to be the file size in bytes - you have "1" in each case: in practice I don't think this is a problem with iTunes but you might want to correct it.

  • by shawnogordo,

    shawnogordo shawnogordo May 28, 2016 11:50 AM in response to invictus88@mac.com
    Level 1 (99 points)
    Publishing
    May 28, 2016 11:50 AM in response to invictus88@mac.com

    The redirect that Roger has described above is happening because Seriously Simple Podcasting passes file downloads thru the PHP scripts on the server. This is bad because it can't 100% provide byte range requests required for iTunes. Please consider using the Blubrry PowerPress plugin instead. You can use PowerPress with Blubrry's free basic stats to get a much more reliable podcast feeds as well as top-notch stats. (disclosure: I work with the Blubrry support team) EDIT: PowerPress also has a verify URL feature which will validate the hosting for byte range requests support as well as detect the media's file size and duration, so you shouldn't have any issues with your media enclosures.