Just a quick note for anyone who has been missing updates for the last couple of weeks.
I am not sure exactly what changed within WordPress 2.8.4 to cause this but for a large segment of my readers there might not have been any visible updates on RSS feeds since around 6th September.
I wasn’t experiencing the problem, as email subscriptions to my own feed, and Google Reader subscriptions were not affected, because these pull directly from my feed on Feedburner which was being updated.
http://feeds.feedburner.com/Exploring-Niche-Websites
However, some RSS readers and feed aggregators actually behave themselves and subscribe to the feed exactly as it appears in my header.
http://andybeard.eu/feed
Unfortunately, those feed readers haven’t been able to access my feed, caught in some kind of broken redirection loop that I haven’t had time to fully diagnose… but it is fixed now.
I don’t know which of the plugins is really the culprit…
- If I remove a feed redirect from Feedburner Feedsmith, the original raw WordPress feed works fine… so that would make it look like it was the fault of Feedburner Feedsmith.
- However, if I switch of caching with WordPress Supercache Plus, redirects work fine as well. I currently have a slightly old SVN bleeding edge version so something may have been tweaked since. It also affects WordPress Supercache as noted my Marc at WTC a month or so ago.
- This also started happening when I upgraded to WordPress 2.8.4, so that upgrade could be blamed
If I actually looked at my Feedburner stats more often than once a month, I might have noticed before, and have to thank Internet Business Solutions expert John for nudging me about it. (he has some great email marketing info)
The Bandaid Fix
This isn’t a permanent solution, one of the plugins or WordPress 2.8.4 is doing something wrong/different, but this works.
You just need to add /feed to the list of regular expression declarations which determine which pages are not cached, by whichever variation of caching plugin you are using.
This isn’t a major issue. Anything calling /feed for your primary RSS feed should be redirected to Feedburner anyway, and the same could be true of the primary comments feed.
The only heavier load would be for comment feeds for individual posts, and feeds for things like category & tag pages.
The culprit may indeed be the Feedburner Feedsmith plugin, as comments on Marks blog post suggest that alternative Feedburner redirect plugins work without any problems.
11 Comments
I think that the culprit is Feedburner Feedsmith. I once try to install it in my 2.8.4 wordpress blog, and got some errors. But, i already forgot the details of the error.
I burned my feed with google feedburner, I can not able to get much feed subscriber, I do not know what I have to do how to improve my feed subscriber.
Sorry it seems like you are using spun articles
One of the sources certainly seems to be Maki from Doshdosh
Write about something you actually know about, and are passionate about, and you might gain some readers.
Thank you for the mention, Andy.
I am glad I was helpful. You also remind me that I ought to finish my email marketing guide. Have put it off for too long. :-(
Hi,
SuperCache-Plus does deliberately prevent the WordPress generated 304 redirect for feeds happening otherwise it would be caching the empty 304 response. However; it’s done this since just before the public release of Wp2.7. I’ve taken a quick look at the feed caching in SuperCache-Plus vs. WP2.8.4 and I don’t see anything that has changed enough to make me raise an eyebrow.
I haven’t been following the internals of Donncha’s SuperCache for a while, but a cursory glance tells me it still disables SuperCaching based on is_feed() and doesn’t attempt to address the 304 issue, so effectively it handles feed caching in a completely different way to mine.
I’d be inclined to point the finger elsewhere, but if you can pin down anything concrete, I’m more than happy to take a look at it.
Oops!
I did’nt mean 304 redirect. It’s WP’s 304 Not Modified feed response that I override.
That’s a freudian slip. I was working on something redirect related.
I just used HTACCESS hack to redirect my feeds once I upgraded. It also helps having one less plugin installed. =)
First, it’s neither WordPress 2.8.4 nor Feedburner Feedsmith plugin, because I’m running both and haven’t faced any problems so far. Its WP SuperCache plugin that’s affecting your feed.
The Feedburner Feedsmith plugin could be making assumptions which aren’t true.
It all boils down to the “correct way” of doing things, though I tend to side with Donncha doing it the right “WordPress approved” way simply because working on WordPress is his day job at Automattic.
I also agree with mark that the culprit may indeed be the Feedburner Feedsmith plugin.
I’m using FeedBurner FeedSmith & WP Super Cache with WP 2.8.4 without any problems. I am not using that WordPress SuperCache-Plus plugin that you are using tho.