Quick Update on the RSS Feed and iTunes (Check Your Feeds)

Folks following us on Twitter may have noticed some concern regarding our two RSS feeds: the full feed to the blog/podcast and the podcast only feed for iTunes (or folks just trying to snatch the podcasts, not the blog). This is what happened:

We use Feedburner to funnel the podcast to iTunes and podcast directories, and we keep a dedicated podcast feed so these directories only get pinged for media files and not for blog posts (which limits how many eps show up at a time). A few days ago, I went into Feedburner to update both feeds to make sure the information was up-to-date. For the podcast, that included an updated description, updated cast list, and so on. In the course of doing this, Feedburner started renaming both feeds to the same address. I don’t know why, but it happened so many times in a row that I actually got confused which feed was supposed to have which address.

Eventually, I got the feeds corrected, but by then, iTunes and iTunes derivative programs were registering a problem with the feed; at least two people reported that they could download episodes, but could not properly subscribe. Since iTunes can take up to a week to register changes to a feed, I have no idea if this is a permanent error or if the changes to the feed confused iTunes enough that it’s locked onto a feed that doesn’t exist or isn’t the correct feed. On top of that, Feedburner now registers a massive drop in subs to both feeds, which may or may not be relevant depending on when it did its last subscriber “catch” and depending on how many people checked their feeds on Friday (the last day Feedburner would have grabbed subscriber numbers). Either way, it’s weird.

I don’t currently have a solution for iTunes or iTunes derivative users. It may be weeks before I can fix whatever is wrong with our iTunes page (a week to find out if the feed corrected itself and possibly another week to correct any errors that might exist). It may turn out that all of this is worrying for nothing; the feed could correct itself on iTunes and everything could work out just fine.

For everyone else, the feeds should work just fine, though you should probably update your RSS reader or podcast catcher so it grabs the appropriate feed. If you want the full blog, use this feed; if you want the podcast ONLY, use this feed.

Sorry for the inconvenience!

Download the audio version here.