Robert Marshall

Q: "Can't download episodes from your feed" when trying to validate Squarespace feed

Hi all,

 

We're moving our church's website from Drupal 7 to Squarespace 7.  Today I tried validating one of my feeds. However, the Podcast Connect page is throwing me the error about not being able to download any episodes.

 

I checked my xml, and the 10 episodes all have valid links to .mp3 files within their enclosure tag. I even tried one of the file's URLs directly in a browser, and I can successfully stream the episode, so I know it is reachable.

 

Here is the http://regeneration-church.squarespace.com/genesis?format=rss

Posted on Aug 2, 2016 11:13 AM

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Q: "Can't download episodes from your feed" when trying to validate Squarespace feed

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  • by Roger Wilmut1,

    Roger Wilmut1 Roger Wilmut1 Aug 2, 2016 11:42 AM in response to Robert Marshall
    Level 9 (77,925 points)
    iTunes
    Aug 2, 2016 11:42 AM in response to Robert Marshall

    The Store checks only the top episode in your feed. Your top episode - dated 1 January 2025! - has no 'enclosure' tag although the others do. Consequently the Store is complaining that it can't find a media file. I assume this episode is a template? - anyway you should remove it.

     

    None of your episodes have titles, so when subscribing in iTunes the media filename is shown. It would be worth sorting that out.

  • by Robert Marshall,

    Robert Marshall Robert Marshall Aug 2, 2016 11:46 AM in response to Roger Wilmut1
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Mac OS X
    Aug 2, 2016 11:46 AM in response to Roger Wilmut1

    If they only check the first episode they should reword that as episode, not episodeS. That caused some confusion.

     

    As for the top item in the feed, it actually stems from the look of the page, where i have the graphic and some verbiage about that particular feed. It's set up as a blog entry, as are all the episodes. (Apparently, using the blog format is the only way to support iTunes tags in Squarespace :-( ). The future date is to keep the stuff as the very top blog entry.

     

    So, I'm basically at a Catch-22 right now. To get the look at feel I want for the page, I have to keep the invalid entry, yet to validate properly I have to remove the line. UGH!!

     

    If someone knows of a How-to somewhere on how to create iTunes podcast feeds within Squarespace, I'd appreciate the link. I did some searching. But, didn't find anything that solved all my issues.

     

    Thanks!

     

    Robert

  • by Roger Wilmut1,Solvedanswer

    Roger Wilmut1 Roger Wilmut1 Aug 2, 2016 12:00 PM in response to Robert Marshall
    Level 9 (77,925 points)
    iTunes
    Aug 2, 2016 12:00 PM in response to Robert Marshall

    You could take the phantom episode out, get the feed submitted and accepted, then once it's in the Store you can put it back. That won't cause any problems (it won't show).

  • by Robert Marshall,

    Robert Marshall Robert Marshall Aug 2, 2016 12:32 PM in response to Roger Wilmut1
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Mac OS X
    Aug 2, 2016 12:32 PM in response to Roger Wilmut1

    Not a bad idea. :-)

     

    Truthfully, that one particular feed I showed you is already in iTunes. It's just that I like knowing the code is valid code, so I was validating it, and then was going to abort the submission.

     

    At this rate, I can just change the podcast feed URL to the new one when it's finalized, and it presumably shouldn't be an issue since it was already submitted/approved.

  • by Roger Wilmut1,Helpful

    Roger Wilmut1 Roger Wilmut1 Aug 2, 2016 9:11 PM in response to Robert Marshall
    Level 9 (77,925 points)
    iTunes
    Aug 2, 2016 9:11 PM in response to Robert Marshall

    Validators are a useful too but you have to be aware of their limitations. For one thing, many of them are simply validating the XML. They will pick up errors in the basic coding, but they won't flag missing 'itunes:...' or 'enclosure' tags as not having them isn't an XML error. Similarly though they may complain if the media file URLs begins with https rather than http they don't check that the file actually works. There are also a number of 'errors' which are quite irrelevant, like not recognizing 'rawvoice' or complaining that there is a missing 'atom' link.

     

    http://castfeedvalidator.com/ is more useful than most as it actually checks the media files, including for 'byte range requests'. http://feedvalidator.org is useful for showing the feed coding and listing errors, as long as you bear in mind the limitations I mentioned above.

     

    If you are going to change the Store to using a new feed, please make sure you do it properly to avoid complications. If you're not completely and absolutely clear about this my page at http://wilmut.uk/move describes the methods in detail.

  • by Robert Marshall,

    Robert Marshall Robert Marshall Aug 2, 2016 9:16 PM in response to Roger Wilmut1
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Mac OS X
    Aug 2, 2016 9:16 PM in response to Roger Wilmut1

    Awesome!! Thanks again for the suggestions. I'll check your page out later when I have some time. Castfeedvalidator was the one I was using earlier today before trying to submit the page through iTunes.

  • by Scarlets Fan,

    Scarlets Fan Scarlets Fan Aug 3, 2016 2:17 AM in response to Roger Wilmut1
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Publishing
    Aug 3, 2016 2:17 AM in response to Roger Wilmut1

    Roger,

     

    Your responses have been very useful to me as I am having a related issue.

     

    I am now starting to put audio blocks into my blog articles. The RSS feed works well on standard aggregators but I want the audio files to be captured by iTunes

     

    However, my rss feed http://theriotpoint.com/lab/?format=rss  is being declared as "Deleted" on Podcast Connect, but it is working when I check the castfeedvalidator site.

     

    Any recommendations on what to do next?

     

    Thanks

  • by Roger Wilmut1,

    Roger Wilmut1 Roger Wilmut1 Aug 3, 2016 2:38 AM in response to Scarlets Fan
    Level 9 (77,925 points)
    iTunes
    Aug 3, 2016 2:38 AM in response to Scarlets Fan

    I checked your feed in Podcasts Connect and it said 'prepared for submission' which suggests it's good to go. Why you should have found it saying 'deleted' I can't imaginee - I'm assuming you never actually had the podcast in the Store?

     

    Your feed has only one episode with a playable media file, though as it's the top one (the only one iTunes checks) that shouldn't be a problem. The only other thing which occurred to me is that it starts with a signature tune, which presumably is taken from a commercial recording? This is a breach of copyright and though the automated process won't detect it, when they check manually on submission they may well be concerned about that and ban the podcast. You might want to consider doing without it.

     

    Incidentally, if you have queries in the future could I encourage you to start your own thread - it makes things generally easier to deal with than tacking onto another thread.

  • by Scarlets Fan,

    Scarlets Fan Scarlets Fan Aug 3, 2016 2:45 AM in response to Roger Wilmut1
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Publishing
    Aug 3, 2016 2:45 AM in response to Roger Wilmut1

    Thank you for checking. Much appreciated.

     

    I will wait to see what happens next.

     

    Re the signature tune. I have purchased this music for this use and have the relevant receipt and licence. Hopefully that addresses the issue but let me know if I have to acknowledge this action in the meta-data somewhere.

     

    Thanks

  • by Roger Wilmut1,

    Roger Wilmut1 Roger Wilmut1 Aug 3, 2016 3:22 AM in response to Scarlets Fan
    Level 9 (77,925 points)
    iTunes
    Aug 3, 2016 3:22 AM in response to Scarlets Fan

    You should add a comment in the 'itunes:summary' tag in the top section of the feed to the effect that the music is podcast-licenced.

  • by Scarlets Fan,

    Scarlets Fan Scarlets Fan Aug 3, 2016 3:26 AM in response to Roger Wilmut1
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Publishing
    Aug 3, 2016 3:26 AM in response to Roger Wilmut1

    Done!

     

    Thank you