Fixing Your RSS Feed Problems in WordPress

Mar 8

Posted by

Just a quick post here.  I had been having real issues with the RSS feeds over the last few weeks.  In short, they weren’t working.  See the issues I was having over here.  As a good forum goer, I hit Google and also searched the forums for a solution.  To no avail.

So if you see this:

PROBLEM: FeedMedic Alert for http://feeds2.feedburner.com/<blog name>/EaHL
07/03/09 13:59

FeedBurner had trouble retrieving your Source Feed: http://www.<blog name>.org/feed/

The error message is:

Error on line 2: The processing instruction target matching "[xX][mM][lL]" is not allowed.

The fix that worked for me is here.  This fixed the issue immediately and I feel relieved.  Thank you to w3it.org your advice was great.

I am posting this in case anyone else has the problem and also in case a future upgrade of WordPress brings back the problem.

Posted on 8 March, 2009, in Blogging/WordPress, Computer Stuff, Idiot's Journey and tagged , , , , . Bookmark the permalink. 27 Comments.

  1. hari | 9 March, 2009 at 02:52

    I'm not a big fan of WordPress for more reasons than one, but after seeing these RSS feed problems which are really too elementary I have to question the quality checking process which is adopted before they release a WP version. How such a bug could have escaped the development team is beyond me.

    • ray | 9 March, 2009 at 13:44

      I agree. I have seen blame be put onto the plugin maintainers and that the devs have put in place changes to the files to prevent this from happening. It was a bugger that it took so long to fix though.

  2. MarbleHost.com | 14 March, 2009 at 09:55

    In past I used Feed wordpress for my RSS needs, using WP-O-Matic made my hosting crash and left my account suspended I do not know why, but now I only use RSS feed Footer in one of my blogs which is scraped by many people.

  3. Sire | 14 March, 2009 at 09:57

    What seems strange to me is how some people can have this problem and others do not. If it is a WordPress issue you would think that we would all be having the same problem?

    • ray | 14 March, 2009 at 11:02

      Agreed, I think it's a mix of the way WP is programmed, the individual themes and occasionally plugins. It's telling, though, that the WP devs have started putting in place measures to prevent this – like leaving out the final /?> in most of the WP files.

  4. ray | 14 March, 2009 at 11:02

    Agreed, I think it's a mix of the way WP is programmed, the individual themes and occasionally plugins. It's telling, though, that the WP devs have started putting in place measures to prevent this – like leaving out the final <code>/?></code> in most of the WP files.

  5. Sire | 14 March, 2009 at 22:56

    I reckon it would be a great idea if they also incorporated the most popular plugins into the core, just as they did with the staggered comments. it would be nice if it was also able to use less resources.

    • ray | 14 March, 2009 at 23:39

      I agree completely. Since WP has some sort of partnership with IntenseDebate, surely it could be offered as the default comment system or at least a built in alternative. There are also other plugins – such as Bad Behaviour – that would be a good way to protect your blog without making you go looking for it. And I would love to see Akismet be improved – if SpamKarma2 were to be updated and worked on I would use it in a flash.

    • Dr. Mike Wendell | 15 March, 2009 at 19:44

      I have to disagree with including the popular plugins into core. What's popular to some isn't to others and useless to the rest. They've done it in the past of course. A perfect example of this is the admin bar now included in WordPress multiuser. (Did it get added to regular wordpress? I never looked.)

      Don't forget the mess that was Skippy's backup plugin either when it got removed due to a non existent security issue.

      Core should be core and that's it.

  6. Pozycjonowanie | 18 March, 2009 at 07:50

    I just don't know how they could've let basic problems like this happen. I mean come on, it's nice that there's a way to fix it but we shouldn't NEED to use fixes like this for one of the most important features.

  7. Nick | 19 March, 2009 at 03:01

    How much time do we have to waste on fixing problems? Not much, so basically you would expect things to be tried and tested before it is released! Especially important to the end user us.

    • Ray | 19 March, 2009 at 19:27

      It’s not entirely the fault of the devs – they do have to contend with plugin developers who may end up trashing your system because several plugins don’t play nicely and react against the core.

  8. History | 25 March, 2009 at 21:15

    Thanks for the update. I had the same problem

  9. Mark @ Irish Jewelry | 4 April, 2009 at 16:33

    I've used wp a lot over the years, but I have to say, I'm really tiring of it. Blogger may be far more limited, but for my uses, it just looks like a better tool. The last of my wp installations were old – mainly because I hated updating the codes every couple of months.

  10. CDesign Blog | 8 April, 2009 at 02:38

    Wow great! We have the same problem but I found your post and now I'm out of the said rss problem. Thanks.

  11. Deed poll | 11 April, 2009 at 13:30

    Thanks for this, I definitely wouldnt know what to do if this happened to my computer

  12. learn spanish online | 20 April, 2009 at 21:36

    This is a common problem. If you search around, there's some quick fix solutions out there.

  13. Ecigs | 3 May, 2009 at 14:03

    Wow, great, thanks for the help.

  14. andre | 22 June, 2009 at 23:04

    good job and nice blog, great information but i can't to subscride 😦 where i can to do?

    • ray | 22 June, 2009 at 23:59

      Firstly, I am well aware that this is link spam. So secondly, here's the deal: I know you people don't read this site, otherwise you would see the link in the header and in the sidebar. You would also see the 2 RSS links in the sidebar. Please don't take me for a fool. And your link is now gone. I hope your subscription brings you great joy.

  15. gochi | 18 October, 2009 at 08:51

    I agree with you ray.But we all need to discuss our problems here and get a real and helpful answer and sometimes we also have to write for others, so this commenting thing and share of ideas will keep going,so lets not take it seriously and be on topic.Wordpress is good but sometimes I don't like it for its individual theme and plugin troubles.

  16. Resveratrol Wine | 26 October, 2009 at 09:48

    it would be a great idea if they also incorporated the most popular plugins into the core, just as they did with the staggered comments.

  17. oes tsetnoc | 7 December, 2009 at 05:28

    rss can help you boost rankings on search engines for your target key phrase or keywords. IT is important to submit your site on RSS Feed.
    My recent post Oes Tsetnoc team give up?

  18. car air horn | 30 December, 2009 at 09:07

    Great blog, just looking around some blogs, seems a pretty nice platform you are using. I'm currently using WordPress for a few of my sites but looking to change one of them over to a platform similar to yours as a trial run. Anything in particular you would recommend about it?

  19. Sennheiser | 30 January, 2010 at 09:32

    I haven't experienced any problems with any of my WordPress sites. However I can see how frustrating it could be dealing with this problem. Rss feeds are a valuable way to promote a site.

    Sennheiser ,

  20. Pozycjonowanie | 9 February, 2010 at 22:06

    What's popular to some isn't to others and useless to the rest. They've done it in the past of course.