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1. AlChron77
   Member
   Posted 1 year ago #

   It seems like every single day I am posting a new stupid question. Last night I finally got my podcast uploaded and playing on the front page. I clicked the "Validate your Feed" button and it validated just find. I tried it again (just to double check) earlier this evening and, again, it validated. I just changed my theme and tried it again. Now its saying:

   "Server returned HTTP Error 404: Not Found"

   Do I need to do something different with the theme to make it work? Are there only certain themes that a podcast feed will work with? I hope I'm not stuck with the default 'twentyten' theme. Its stylish, but I hope to make my page unique. Once again, any help is VERY appreciated!

2. ntm
   Member
   Posted 1 year ago #

   Today, I saw this message, too and I thought a lot about the probable causes. But now that I started to investigate it further, it seems that the problem is gone. Your podcast feed http://www.doganddeuce.com/?feed=podcast should is valid and it contains the podcast episode.

3. AlChron77
   Member
   Posted 1 year ago #

   Yeah its validating now, but I'm having the same exact problem I had a few days ago where the player won't find the file. It was working just fine thirty minutes ago but now nothing. I didn't change the link to the file or anything, all I did was try to add some show notes to the post. The last time this happened I had to reinstall WordPress. I have actually reinstalled it so many times to fix errors with Podpress (AT LEAST 5 times) that I'm starting to wonder if I should go a different route. If its not one thing its another. At first I thought it was me but after spending over 15 hours on this in the last 3 days I'm pretty confident its not.

   Do you have any idea why it won't find my file now? At this point I think it would actually take less time to learn to write the feed myself and use a different player, especially considering Mighty Seek doesn't offer any support (I've tried emailing all the addresses on the site with no response). Or maybe just use the 'podcasting' plugin, that one has worked every time I've used it, I've just used Podpress because it has a good reputation and because it makes configuring for iTunes so easy. I'm willing to give it one more shot, though.

   Sorry, I don't mean to vent all my frustration, but this plugin was supposed to make it easier to podcast and all its done for me is cause problem after problem and give me a never ending migraine. I really do appreciate all your help, especially considering you are the only person to even give me a response to these questions.

4. AlChron77
   Member
   Posted 1 year ago #

   And now the feed won't validate AGAIN! Now I'm going to have to uninstall and then reinstall WordPress for the 6th time, reinstall my theme and repost my episode. I am done with Podpress, I will never use it again or recommend it to anyone. It would be one thing if they offered some sort of support but its impossible to get anybody to respond. Nothing against you, nTm, in fact I wouldn't have had any success without your help. I just don't think I should have to go to the forum of a different company to get support. I guess its my own fault for sticking with Podpress after it failed so many times (and not going with the better rated plugin in the first place).

   Check out my site (www.doganddeuce.com) and notice the two players. The one at the top is the one from the Podcasting plugin. The one at the bottom is the Podpress player. The top one works fine, the bottom says "file not found". I copied and pasted the link into both plugins so there is no type-o or other difference.

5. ntm
   Member
   Posted 1 year ago #

   Hi Allen,

   I can totally understand your frustration since podPress is a complex plugin and in some cases not very user-friendly. But reinstalling WP or a plugin is helping only in few cases.

   Your problems, especially the one with the feed, looked more like a cache problem to me until I visited your site some minutes ago.
   Now that I watched your site and looked into the source code of your front page, I discovered that you have switched on the statistic feature of podPress while using the default permalink structure of WP.
   That is the reason why the player says "file not found". The player is actually not able to find the file because when you are using the statistic feature, podPress rewrites and tries to redirect (in a reversible manner) the links of the media files. That is necessary to count the how many times a file has been played and downloaded. But this will only work if you switch at least to the "Day and name" structure (and if you are using the podPress stat logging "Use WP permalinks", which is the stats method that I would recommend).
   That is probably the same reason why your feed is not valid.
   The function which creates the feed adds only posts to the ?feed=podcast - feed if the posts containing media files. But if something is wrong with the media file URLs then feed is empty and not valid.

   If you install podPress in a fresh WP installation then you need to save the permalink settings of the blog again after you have activated podPress. Because WP writes these permalink rules (most times) into a file with the name .htaccess. podPress adds feeds to your blog like the feed with the name podcast as long as it is active. But these feeds are not automatically part of these rules in the .htaccess file, so WP needs to rewrite the rules.
   Please, control whether there is such a .htaccess file in the root directory (the one where the wp-config.php file is) of your blog after you have activated the "Day and name" permalinks.
   Please, test the stats support on the general settings page of podPress afterwards. If it says "Test: Failed" then something is still wrong with this .htaccess file (maybe it is not in place or not writeable) and the stats feature will not work.
   Use "Counts Only" or "Full" as the stats method. But keep in mind that the "Counts only" method counts also while you are using "Full", but not vice versa. Since 8.8.5 the tables and graph will show the result of "Counts Only" OR "Full/Full+". (Full+ is practically the same as Full. It logs the same values to the same data base table.)

   podPress and the support:
   Dan, the main author of the plugin, seems to be very busy with other things. But at the moment there is some support of the WP community as you can read e.g. in the long threads here: http://wordpress.org/tags/podpress?forum_id=10.
   But I hope that Dan continues the development of this plugin or that there will be some other people (more than one) out there who like do that, too.
   At the moment I have write permissions for the podPress folders in the repository, too and I can write patches for it. If you notice errors/bugs then please, write a post like you have in the last days and describe the circumstances in much details as you can. Or ask simply your questions. But I want to remind you that figuring out the cause of a problem in a foreign blog is sometimes not easy.

   Regards,
   Tim

6. AlChron77
   Member
   Posted 1 year ago #

   Thank you so much for taking so much time to answer all my questions. I can't imagine how frustrating it is to have some newbie sit here and insult a plugin you've worked hard to help develop. Sorry for my rant earlier, I was just tired and frustrated.

   I changed the permalink settings to 'day and name'. The good news is that the player is now playing the file. The bad news is that the feed still won't validate. I'm going to delete Podpress and then reinstall it. If that doesn't work I will do one more reinstall of WordPress. I'm really, really excited to get my podcast up and running so if that doesn't work I will probably go with the Podcasting plugin.

   Seriously, thanks again. Without your help I would have been totally lost.

7. AlChron77
   Member
   Posted 1 year ago #

   Ok I reinstalled Podress and WordPress and reset the permalinks to date and name. It looks like everything is working (for now at least). I'm just so nervous to make any changes - settings, theme, feed, anything - because it seems like every time I made a change before it all fell apart. Is there anything that you can think of that I should not do or change? You have been so helpful, you should write up a manual or a FAQ or something because as it is now, using this plugin is very unclear and not very user friendly (especially for newbies like me).

   Thanks again, and I would really appreciate and other advice you have.

   -Allen

8. raymer
   Member
   Posted 1 year ago #

   Allen,
   If you want to be safe just don't use the statistics features in podpress at all. And definitely don't use any of the features that are for Podango. Changing your theme doesn't really have anything to do with plugins unless you have added plugin-specific code to the theme. And if you are not using the podpress statistics it won't matter whether you change the settings in wordpress. You can still get statistics from other plugins or from your webserver log.

   In case you didn't catch it Tim is not the original plugin developer. He is doing everyone a great service by fixing many of the bugs left behind by Dan Kuykendall when he abandoned the project in late 2007. Dan promised publically to release updates several times and I am sure he had good intentions but he shutdown the very popular support forum shortly after he got a "real job" and hasn't released and update to this plugin since 2007-12-18 -->
   http://www.mightyseek.com/podpress/changelog

   Instead of complaining about lack of support I think you should start thanking Tim for stepping up and fixing bugs on this plugin. If you have specific questions post away and someone will help you. Also, you should mark this topic as resolved since your original problem was fixed. That will help others looking for answers.

   -Ray

9. ntm
   Member
   Posted 1 year ago #

   Allen, thank you for your last post in this thread. I'm not mad about you. I'm actually happy that you took the time to report your problems in this forum. That seems to be momentarily the only way you can get help in dealing with podPress and every report is helping those who want to help e.g.: now, I'm aware (again) how unintuitive it is to set up this statistics feature and I will most likely insert some helping messages on the settings page or/and in the FAQs.

   You can use the statistic feature the way I have tried to explain it.

   • WP permalinks to other than the default setting
   • podPress stats method: "Use WP permalinks"
   • podPress stats logging: "Counts Only" or "Full" (Full+ made no problems in my blog but it creates the same results as Full. There are some lines of code especially for the Full+ feature and podPress will do more when this option is active but the additional results seems not to end up in the data base. In the end both options seems to have the same result. But Full is probably faster.)
     And as I wrote before the total counts of "Counts only" and "Full" resp. "Full+" are different and collected in different data base tables.

   I can not tell whether the 3rd party statistic features are working or not. But since there was no maintenance for these features during the last 2-3 years, it is possible that these feature don't work. Angelo Mandato, the man behind the blubrry PowerPress plugin, contacted me in spring and wrote that he could "[...]" work on a patch that fixes this[...]" 3rd party stats feature. But at the moment I can not recommend to use one of the 3rd party stats features.
   For each of these statistic features, it is necessary to use WP permalinks like "Day and name".

   And as Ray told you: don't use any of the features that are for Podango!
   The Podango player which is still part of podPress works. But I recommend to use the 1PixelOut (a.k.a. WP Audio Player) player. Because this one has more features and is still maintained by its author.

   If you know that you will not add more than 10 episodes to a post then you should avoid increasing the "Max Number of Media Files". It would slow down the load time of post/page editor page. You could decrease it e.g. to 3 if you know that you will have never more than 3 podcast episodes per post. But if later want to have more episodes in one post then you can change it as need it. It has only influence on the load time of the editor page (and of course how many episode input fields will appear in the podPress box below the editor.).

   Regards,
   Tim

10. AlChron77
    Member
    Posted 1 year ago #

    Ray, obviously you haven't read all of my posts. I have thanked Tim profusely in every one. Personally, I see nothing wrong with being frustrated over a lack of tech support for a program that is supposed to make my life easier. Especially considering how much time I have spent over the last week giving this plugin a chance when there was a very reasonable and user friendly alternative readily available. With that said, thank you for the response and the advice about Podango. I will make sure to avoid any of those features.

    Tim, thanks for the heads up about the potential problems with using 3rd party statistics. I will make sure to avoid them. It looks like everything is working for the moment thanks to your help. If you think of anything else that I should or shouldn't do in podPress would you mind email me (doganddeuce@gmail.com) and letting me know? You have been an immense help through this ordeal!

    Allen

11. raymer
    Member
    Posted 1 year ago #

    @AlChron77 - I read all your posts in this particular thread but you started 5 threads in the past three days. I think they are all about the same issue right? I am assuming that they are all resolved now? The signal to noise ratio in your posts makes it tough to get any real clues as to what you are doing wrong. In this thread you talked about having to "uninstall and reinstall wordpress" over six times to make the podpress plugin work. I can't help much with that except to say I have been running versions of podpress for years on several different sites and have never had to "uninstall" wordpress (are you deleting directories, dropping tables in the database, what?).
    You also said
    

    Personally, I see nothing wrong with being frustrated over a lack of tech support for a program that is supposed to make my life easier. Especially considering how much time I have spent over the last week giving this plugin a chance when there was a very reasonable and user friendly alternative readily available.

    And finally you told Tim that he should write up a manual for this plugin so you wouldn't be so confused.

    I am simply asking that you focus more on resolving your issues. If you prefer a different plugin, then by all means use it. If podpress is working well for you now (as I suspect it is), then I'm sure you will find it is the best plugin available for this purpose. Thank you for marking this thread as resolved. If the other threads are still unresolved I can try to help. Which issue are you still having trouble with? "Podpress can't find my podcast file (two different threads with same title)", "Can't validate my feed", or "I can't validate my RSS feed for podcast"? Are they all resolved now?

    Do you have other issues that you need help with? I'll be happy to help as I am able and I'm sure others will too. It does take over 24 hours for responses sometimes though so patience is advised.

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