Solving Issues with your Feeds

It is not uncommon to encounter problems with your blog or podcast feeds. The best way to diagnose your feed is by using FeedValidator.org. FeedValidator.org will determine if your feed is valid or has errors and also include suggestions and/or warnings. Some warnings can be ignored, depending on what you are trying to accomplish with your podcast. If you are distributing video and using embeds from video sharing sites such as YouTube or Blip.tv, it should be safe to ignore embed warnings from  FeedValidator.org.

Feed Size Limitations

Feeds can become very large in size over time. When a feed approaches 512K (1/2 megabyte) in size some web sites and applications begin to have problems processing them. Podcast directories will begin to update your listings less frequent due to the excessive size. For example, the popular feed hosting service FeedBurner will not accept feeds that exceed 512K in size.

The best way to resolve this issue is to limit the number of items in your feed. This limit may vary depending on the amount of blog post / episode show notes that you enter per episode. Many podcasters set this limit somewhere between 20-50 items/posts per feed.

Feed Timeout Errors

Many podcast directories, and podcastchers such as iTunes will display timeout errors when the podcast feed they are trying to update takes too long to download. Many factors could contribute to slow downloading feeds, but in almost all cases, the problem lies with the web server not being capable of delivering the feed in a timely manner. This is most common with web sites that use a programming language such as PHP or ASP in order to generate the feed.

If you are using WordPress, the easiest way to solve this problem is to use a plugin such as Static Feed. The Static Feed plugin will serve static versions of your feeds which will remove the need for WordPress to load every time your feed is requested from podcatchers and podcast directories.

Another solution is to move your feed subscriptions away from your feed to a feed service such as FeedBurner.com. (We do not recommend using FeedBurner for podcasting, but it is a solution to this problem)