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RSS Feeds by Category stopped working

 
 


dimeco
User

Oct 26, 2011, 7:47 AM

Post #1 of 8 (6527 views)
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RSS Feeds by Category stopped working Can't Post
This is kind of wierd, I haven't changed these files, but it seems they are now appearing "blank" (yet if you view them via ftp or view source, you can see the list of the articles).

http://www.dime-co.com/health_rss.xml

Ideas on why this no longer appears when you view it?


dimeco
User

Feb 23, 2012, 6:43 AM

Post #2 of 8 (3879 views)
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Re: [dimeco] RSS Feeds by Category stopped working [In reply to] Can't Post
This is seriously hurting my site... even the regular rss.xml is not working - it DOES post to the page, but when you view it its blank.

Any suggestions AT ALL??


Dave
Staff


Feb 23, 2012, 8:18 PM

Post #3 of 8 (3870 views)
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Re: [dimeco] RSS Feeds by Category stopped working [In reply to] Can't Post
Hi Amber,

I'm not sure what the problem might be but when I view this url I'm seeing content now:
http://www.dime-co.com/health_rss.xml

Are other urls still not working?

Dave Edis - Senior Developer
interactivetools.com
 


dimeco
User

Feb 24, 2012, 4:33 AM

Post #4 of 8 (3856 views)
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Re: [Dave] RSS Feeds by Category stopped working [In reply to] Can't Post
Hi Dave,

Well I fought with it for about a half hour with a programmer and it turns out that the article manager is sometimes taking characters as ascii... for example, a - (hyphen) was appearing in the rss feed as a diamond with a ? in the middle.

Not sure why because it was NOT an ascii code in the title or summary when submitted (Usually I can see when it is).

It was making the rss feeds render blank from the visible eye unless you looked at the code.

I edited and fixed the two offenders, but the issue still remains that I'd have to virtually check daily to find out which ones do that. I don't allow other characters in titles or summaries, but obviously somehow something is making them ascii on occasion.

Amber


Dave
Staff


Feb 24, 2012, 12:16 PM

Post #5 of 8 (3844 views)
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Re: [dimeco] RSS Feeds by Category stopped working [In reply to] Can't Post
Hi Amber,

My guess would be that the content is being copied and pasted from a word processing program or other source and that the dash is in fact not a standard dash but an "emdash" or other special type. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emdash#Em_dash

The diamond with a question mark in it is how some browsers render characters they don't understand. You may be able to fix that by changing what "charset" the server tells the browser to use for the RSS feed. Here's some links on that:
http://blog.salientdigital.com/2009/06/06/special-characters-showing-up-as-a-question-mark-inside-of-a-black-diamond/
http://www.cybervaldez.com/how-to-remove-those-nasty-question-mark-with-a-diamond-symbols-from-appearing-in-your-website/2009/

Hope that helps!

Dave Edis - Senior Developer
interactivetools.com
 


dimeco
User

Mar 1, 2012, 1:21 PM

Post #6 of 8 (3586 views)
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Re: [Dave] RSS Feeds by Category stopped working [In reply to] Can't Post
How do I put that in an rss / xml file?

It's still causing it, because I can't see when they've copied it funny or not...

and obviously I can't do it server wide because we have hosting clients who might not want it on the entire server.

Suggestions?


Dave
Staff


Mar 1, 2012, 1:31 PM

Post #7 of 8 (3585 views)
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Re: [dimeco] RSS Feeds by Category stopped working [In reply to] Can't Post
There may be something you can add to the RSS feed to indicate it is UTF-8, or your server admin may be able to add a setting with an .htaccess file to indicate the .rss files should always be sent with a UTF-8 charset.

Either way it's going to take some research and testing. In the meantime, If I think of any quick or easy fixes I'll post back here.

Dave Edis - Senior Developer
interactivetools.com
 


dimeco
User

Mar 2, 2012, 7:10 PM

Post #8 of 8 (3405 views)
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Re: [Dave] RSS Feeds by Category stopped working [In reply to] Can't Post
Thanks, I'll test that.

I seriously need to update this system anyway, but obviously want the current rss feeds to work.

Why people can't use regular letters I don't know... lol