RSS Doesn’t Work – XML Parsing Error

I’m getting almost the same error message:

XML Parsing Error: xml declaration not at start of external entity
Location: http://media-visions.com/media_reports/?feed=rss2
Line Number 2, Column 1:<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>

As recommended, I’ve checked all the files cited in this post:
http://validator.w3.org/feed/docs/error/WPBlankLine.html

The error is still occurring, and it occurs no matter which theme I install.

This is the blog at issue:
http://media-visions.com/media_reports/

FYI:
My other blog is generally working:
http://media-visions.com/globalsenseblog/feed/

But it puts this note on top of the feed readout:

This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below.

I tried a workaround by copping all of the php files cited by Validator (except config.php) from the functional blog to the dysfunctional blog, and that made no difference. I still get the same RSS error as at the top of this email.

Any helpful guidance will be appreciated!

Thanks for your response.

I have been through all of the cited files, I deleted every blank line in the code on these pages, so there is code on every line, no empty lines. However, this yielded no change in the RSS failure. perhaps I did not do this process correctly?

I also went through all of my plugins, disabling one at a time, and in no case did the RSS start functioning. Then I disabled all the plugins at once, again I still got the same CMP parsing error.

My best hope now is to request more information, more clarification. When you say:

Check your wp-config.php file for blank lines outside of <? and ?> bracketed sections.

What EXACTLY am I supposed to be catching? Can you use different words to describe what I’m supposed to be finding and fixing?

Even better, can you please post a before and after example from a php file? I tend to be a visual learner. If I can see an example, I likely can understand better.

Thanks!

To help myself find where to make the correction with the blank line, I ran Feed Validator at my blog:
http://feedvalidator.org/check.cgi?url=http%3A%2F%2Fmedia-visions.com&#8230;
With these results:

Sorry
This feed does not validate.
*
line 1, column 1: Blank line before XML declaration [help]
^

In addition, interoperability with the widest range of feed readers
could be improved by implementing the following recommendation.
*
line 47, column 1: Missing atom:link with rel=”self” [help]
</channel>
^

Source: http://media-visions.com/media_reports/feed/

1.
2. <?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?><!– generator=”wordpress/
2.0.2″ –>
3. <rss version=”2.0″
etc…

MY PROBLEMS:

1) I DO NOT HAVE ANY SUBDIRECTORY IN MY BLOG CALLED “FEED” —
So I cannot find the file that has the blank line before the XML Declaration “<?xml version=”1.0″ ….”

Please advise me on WHERE to look for this error. Which file among the dozens of php files in my blog is responsible for this line error?

2) I am unclear which php file contains the error:

line 47, column 1: Missing atom:link with rel=”self”

I’ve tried a search in TextWrangler without finding the two code strings at issue. Likely the answer is in plain sight, but I’m still a newbie. So I may be missing the obvious.

FYI. Feed Validator said:

Solution

If you haven’t already done so, declare the Atom namespace at the top of your feed, thus:

<rss version=”2.0″ xmlns:atom=”http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom”&gt;

Then insert a atom:link to your feed in the channel section. Below is an example to get you started. Be sure to replace the value of the href attribute with the URL of your feed.

HOWEVER: even when I figure out (with your help) which php file to correct, I still do not know where in the file to insert the suggested code.

Thanks for helping me.
jf

I am having same issue, but with version 2.5

YEAH!!!!!

Ok – I had added mighty ad sense code to my sidebar from the theme editor.
I took that one line out and now my rss feed works, YEAH!

Thank you.

HOWEVER when I save my rss feed to an rss reader it says
TITLE UNKNOWN

How do I fix this?

Thanks
Dee

I have been going crazy trying to figure this out. I even removed the xml statement and transferred it to the top line in the wp-rss2 file in php echo format, yes it still showed SEVEN lines of blank space which made absolutely no sense. I saw a post above about the www so I added it into the url and lo and behold…it works.