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1. Steve Rodgers
   Member
   Posted 10 months ago #
   

   I have been trying to figure out why none of my podcast episodes are using my post-specific itunes:summary or itunes:subtitle.

   In the itunes store, my default description and summary from the feed/itunes settings for podpress are showing properly, but my post-specific are not showing in the itunes client. Instead I'm getting a summary and subtitled pulled from the first paragraph of the post.

   I've tried just about everything I can think of but can't effect change for what people see in their itunes library after subscribing to my podcast.

   here is my feed
   http://musicmarketingmanifesto.com/feed/
   My itunes store:
   http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/music-marketing-manifesto/id483256618

   Any help with this would be totally appreciated.

   http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/podpress/

2. ntm
   Member
   Plugin Author
   Posted 10 months ago #
   

   Your podcast feed does contain post specific iTunes:subtitle and iTunes:summary values on the post level. Furthermore the iTunes Store (iTS) page of the podcast shows also the post specific subtitle and summary. The subtitle is what one can read in the column Description (on the iTS page) and the summary value is available with a click on the (i) symbol.

   But you are correct once I had subscribed to your podcast and downloaded an episode, the description was the first part of the post and not the value from post specific setting.
   I have tested this with one of my test podcast feeds. But this test showed that this problem is somehow specific to the feed of your podcast. iTunes showed the post specific subtitle and summary for the post in my RSS feed.

   The difference between the podcast feed of your blog and the one from my blog is that yours gets routed through and altered by Feedburner.
   Feedburner adds some additional (but for iTunes not necessary) tags and information and it does that without respect to the normal indention of the XML code of such a RSS feed.
   My guess is that this or something else might confuse the iTunes client software. But the current (development) version of podPress works fine.

   Maybe there is a Feedburner settings which you can use to prevent Feedburner from adding those additional media content tags.

   btw: Which version of podPress are you using?

   Tim

3. Steve Rodgers
   Member
   Posted 10 months ago #
   

   Hi Tim,

   I'm using Version 8.8.10.13

   I'm confused by your response. iTunes is getting my feed from podpress at http://musicmarketingmanifesto.com/feed

   That's the same feed that feedburner is getting to. In other words any post specific stuff I activate should appear in both itunes and feedburner.

   Are you suggesting that iTunes is getting my feed from feedburner? That's not what I have set up in my feed/itunes settings.

   Specifically, the latest podcast episode is the only one that I have set post-specific summary and subtitle for, just to test and see if it works.

   Am I not undertsanding how itunes picks up my feed properly? I'm not seeing how feedburner affects this at all.

4. Steve Rodgers
   Member
   Posted 10 months ago #
   

   Just to make sure I'm not overlooking something painfully obvious, but...

   Inside of the XML file with feeburner, I'm noticing that the iTunes new-feed-url for my feed is http://musicmarketingmanifesto.com/feed/

   however my feedburner uri is indicating: musicmarketingmanifesto/feed <-- without the ending forward slash.

   Could what I'm experiencing be related to this somehow?

   Thanks again

5. ntm
   Member
   Plugin Author
   Posted 10 months ago #
   

   iTunes is getting my feed from podpress at http://musicmarketingmanifesto.com/feed

   Well, you may have registered this URL at the iTS but since then you have probably installed a Feedburner plugin which redirects the feed URL to http://feeds.feedburner.com/musicmarketingmanifesto/feed/
   If you click on the original feed URL you will see/experience that. When the iTunes Store server opens the original URL it gets the Feedburner version feed too.
   And as I have mentioned before Feedburner adds additional tags to the XML code. Currently everyone and everything is getting this version of the feed.
   There is probably an option inside the Feedburner account which deactivates all additional formatting of Feedburner. Please, try to find this/these settings.
   podPress is adding the post specific value correctly (as you can see in the XMl code of your feed.). iTunes should pick up those values without any problems and it does that with a feed which is not influenced by Feedburner.

   Inside of the XML file with feeburner, I'm noticing that the iTunes new-feed-url for my feed is http://musicmarketingmanifesto.com/feed/

   You should use the itunes:new-feed-url option only if you plan to move your podcast to a different location with a different URL. Otherwise keep this option disabled. This option will tell the iTS server where it can find the new podcast and the server will change the registered URL automatically to the new value. Both podcast feeds need to work at the same time for a couple of days (read on: http://www.apple.com/itunes/podcasts/specs.html#newfeed).

   Both things are probably unrelated. But you should deactivated the itunes:new-feed-url option.

6. Steve Rodgers
   Member
   Posted 9 months ago #
   

   I have deactivated the itunes-new-feed-url as you have suggested.

   I pinged my feed so that the xml would update and the itunes-new-feed-url is gone.

   What is confusing me is that you have suggested that feedburner is adding tags and I'm seeing the opposite to be true. It seems that feedburner is removing the post-specific custom subtitle and summary values that I have added to the latest post, using the podpress post options.

   Also, the xml is showing me that the itunes:subtitle and itunes:summary are the exact same string of text: "Music Marketing Manifesto is a leading resource for today's DIY musicians and Music Business Professionals. Presented by John Oszajca, Music Marketing Expert and Former Major Label Recording Artist."

   I have not set it up this way in podpress itunes/feed settings, so I don't know why this is the case.

   It appears to me that the xml is not getting any information from the podpress settings at all

   Lastly, the newest post does not appear as an item in the xml, but past episodes do.

   I'm really feeling at this point that podpress is not affecting my feed at all, other than the fact that itunes, somehow knows how to find it by id.

   I wish I could just get item specific (post-specific) subtitle and summaries to appear.

   Thanks

7. Steve Rodgers
   Member
   Posted 9 months ago #
   

   I deactivated the Feedsmith plugin and now I see what you mean about the added tags.

   Now the http://musicmarketingmanifesto.com/feed does not redirect to feeds.feedburner.com/musicmarketingmanifesto/feed

   If I look at my feed xml, it's much cleaner and the channel summaries and subtitles are as they should be, however the recent episode is still not showing post-specific summary and subtitles that I have set.

   I'm not sure if my boss updated the podpress plugin since I had originally set this up, but it's possible and I noticed you have a special note in there for people who have upgraded from an older version.

   Should I be updating this "Feed enhancedpodcast" section? Right now it's mostly empty.

8. ntm
   Member
   Plugin Author
   Posted 9 months ago #
   

   Steve,

   you are right. Now the <item>s with an podcast episode have no iTunes tags at all. Only the channel (the feed) has iTunes tags. That was different the last time I looked into the XML code.

   podPress should add such tags of course and version 8.8.10.13 does that.
   I have checked that twice.
   The question for me is: why is it not working in your blog?

   A likely explanation is that there is a different plugin active in this blog which influences also the feed output. Both plugin may interfere somehow.
   That is why I would like to know which other plugins are active your blog?

9. ntm
   Member
   Plugin Author
   Posted 9 months ago #
   

   The most recent post in this feed is currently "MMM Podcast Episode #7 – Kickstarter for the Average Musician With Kat Parsons". That post has an podcast episode (in the feed too). But the file size value is 0. Although it is probably greater than this. Does the Auto Detect button not work?

   Should I be updating this "Feed enhancedpodcast" section?

   Not necessarily. You may activate one or more additional feeds. If you do that, you need to save Permalink settings afterwards. But I believe you have not used the additional feed with the URL http://musicmarketingmanifesto.com/?feed=podcast or http://musicmarketingmanifesto.com/feed/podcast .

   The notive above the podPress Feeds section on the Feed/iTunes Settings page is most likely not related to the problem with missing itunes tags on the <item> level.

10. Steve Rodgers
    Member
    Posted 9 months ago #
    

    Here all of my active plugins.

    I'm using the Thesis theme, btw

    Active plugins:

    Akismet
    Audio Player
    BackUpWordPress
    Comment Reply Notification
    Facebook Comments for WordPress
    FLV Embed
    Page Expiration Robot (PRO) - not used for posts ever.
    Pinterest "Pin It" Button
    Pinterest RSS Widget
    podPress
    Post Filters
    TweetMeme Retweet Button
    Widget Logic
    WordPress.com Stats
    WordPress plugin - Google +1 Button
    Select WP-Stats WP-Stats

    I think me might be getting somewhere now. Thanks for all your help so far.

11. Steve Rodgers
    Member
    Posted 9 months ago #
    

    I noticed the file size value being 0 too, but paid it no mind because the podcast file actually plays in the blog, the feed and itunes.

    Not sure what the auto-detect button is (?)

12. ntm
    Member
    Plugin Author
    Posted 9 months ago #
    

    Steve,

    I have installed those plugins in my blog in the hope one of them would make the difference. But so far I would say that none of the plugins interferes with podPress - at least not with the default settings.

    So to be sure that it is none of the plugins I would like to ask you to do the tests in your blog with your settings.
    Deactivate one plugin, load the feed with a web browser of your choice, look into the XML code and control wheter the iTunes tags of the post(s) are in the feed. If they are in the feed while a certain plugin is deactivated then your know that this plugin interferes with podPress. If you find such a plugin, please tell me the name of the plugin. If I know the name of the plugin I will be able to look into the code of the plugin and try to find a fix for the problem.
    After the test you can activate the plugin again. Please clear the browser cache before you reload the feed. Otherwise the browser shows you eventually only a cached version and you would see no difference.

    (I would start with the Audio Player plugin.)

    But maybe the theme interferes somehow with podPress. The Thesis theme offers a lot of action hooks and filters which are helping to modify the appearance and the output of the blog. Maybe it comes with an own feed template. I think that because the <item>s in the feed of your blog don't contain e.g. the <content:encoded> tag which is usually part of <item>s in WP feeds. Maybe there are also theme settings to influence the feed.
    Maybe activate a default theme like Twenty Eleven or Twenty Ten for a moment and look whether the feed output is different.

    Not sure what the auto-detect button is (?)

    On the post editor page in your blog, in the podPress box below the editor, next to the input field for the file size value is a button with the caption "Auto Detect". If you click this button podPress tries to determine the file size.

13. ntm
    Member
    Plugin Author
    Posted 9 months ago #
    

    Before you start switching themes it seems be a good idea to compare the content of the file wp-includes/feed-rss2.php of your blog and this code: http://core.trac.wordpress.org/browser/tags/3.4.1/wp-includes/feed-rss2.php
    Are the files equal?

    If you look into the code you can see that there should be an <content:encoded> tag inside each <item>. But none of the items of your feed has such an element. That is why I think that your blog uses a different version of that file which may also not include the line
    

    <?php do_action('rss2_item'); ?>

    Can you see this line of code in the file of your blog?

    podPress uses this Action Hook to insert for instance the <itunes:subtitle> and <itunes:summary> tags. If this line of code is not present or a different plugin (or the theme) prevents action via this hook then it would explain why those elements are missing in your feed.

14. Steve Rodgers
    Member
    Posted 9 months ago #
    

    Hi Tim,

    I sorted it out. I actually wasn't an issue with any of the plugins at all.

    The problem was that I was inserting music player into the posts, rather than podpress player. I've since updated all of my posts with the podpress player and voila! All of the post-specific subtitles and summaries are now showing in both itunes and in my feedburner xml.

    For anyone else who finds this, you do not need to deactivate the Feedsmith plugin that redirects the feed to feedburner for this to work.

    It was simply a problem of not using the podpress player.

    Thanks again, Tim for all your help!

15. ntm
    Member
    Plugin Author
    Posted 9 months ago #
    

    Thanks Steve!

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