One of the most common support questions I run across is a variation of:
“Help my FeedBurner feed hasn’t updated since [insert number of hours or days] and my readers aren’t seeing the migration message? Why are things broken?”
There are a few potential causes for the FeedBurner feed to not update or for the FeedBlitz migration message to not appear after activating the FeedBlitz service.
1. Your FeedBlitz FeedSmart plugin is pointing at a secure URL.
FeedBurner will not even look at secure urls. If your url looks like this – https://feeds.feedblitz.com/myawesomeuri (note the ‘s’ at the end of your ‘http’) The FeedBurner user agent looks and reports back saying there’s no feed here. It simply does not recognize the secure feed. The FeedBurner feed is then not updated.
The Fix:
Log into your WordPress account, click Settings, Click FeedBlitz FeedSmart, and delete that pesky little ‘s’ in your url.
2. Redirect loops.
These can happen in some fun and creative ways. Sometimes I have wondered if people are testing my troubleshooting abilities. . .
a. Sometimes people create a FeedBlitz feed from a FeedBurner source, and then they activate the FeedBlitz FeedSmart plugin pointing it at a secure url (see previous issue). FeedBurner then gets redirected to the FeedBlitz feed which hasn’t been updated, because we look at FeedBurner and say, “Hey, nothing new here!” We at FeedBlitz see “nothing new here” ad nauseam, despite all of the glorious new content you have diligently been creating.
The Fix:
Use your website’s native feed as the source of FeedBlitz. No loop, no problem.
b. Sometimes people have a theme like Thesis or Genesis that has an easily overlooked setting for FeedBurner. This setting sends the feed to the FeedBurner URL which argues with the FeedBlitz FeedSmart plugin and neither feed is happy.
The Fix:
Look through your theme’s setting and resist the urge to put a feed url there. We know, it’s tempting.
c. Sometimes people leave the FeedBurner FeedSmith plugin active, and then activate FeedBlitz’s FeedSmart plugin. No one wins in this scenario.
The Fix:
Deactivate the FeedBurner FeedSmith plugin.
3. Security plugins
This one gets pretty technical so I won’t delve into the details, but if a feed hasn’t updated since the installation of a security plugin, chances are that is the root cause.
Why? It has to do with an unseen element of content known as an etag. It is important to note etags are NOT meta tags. Etags are a secondary way FeedBlitz checks to see if content is new. Duplicate etags = FeedBlitz assuming old content = no update = no mailings and sad faces. No one wants this.
Alert the developers of your plugin, and temporarily disable it until the problem has been fixed.
4. Feed caching - (one of my favorites!)
Caching is wonderful, but it can trick FeedBlitz into believing there is no new content.
The Fix:
Carefully check the settings of your caching plugin to disable feed caching.
5. The FeedBlitz feed is too large
FeedBlitz can handle a larger feed than FeedBurner. If you have everything redirecting properly, FeedBurner panics, flaps its arms, and stops updating when the FeedBlitz feed gets too large.
The Fix:
Log into your FeedBlitz account, click on your RSS Feed, Click on Settings, scroll down to and expand the section on FeedBurner Migration, enable the migration message and send subscribers to the source. The migration message is much smaller in size than your content and the FeedBurner feed will now update telling everyone your feed has moved and everyone wins.
I hope these tips have been helpful. And please let us know over on our Facebook page if you have any other questions. I’d be happy to address them in future blog posts!
