Troubleshooting RSS feed issues in Seriously Simple Podcasting
The RSS feed is the container for your podcast's information, details, and episodes. Without it, your podcast would lack organization. Your podcast's RSS feed organizes and presents data points to listening platforms.
Strict guidelines from platforms like Google Podcasts, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts standardize podcast RSS feeds. An "invalid" feed may prevent submission to directories.
| Jump to: | Troubleshooting RSS feed issues |
| No episodes in feed | |
| Podcast artwork has incorrect dimensions | |
| Missing or incorrect fields | |
| Wrong file type | |
| Empty lines or invalid characters |
Troubleshooting RSS feed issues
RSS feed validators
The following tools are free and extremely useful. Think of feed validators like a Health Check for your feed. Each validator will return slightly different results including false/positive errors and alerts. We suggest running your RSS feed through more than one:
If you run your feed URL through these services and they come up with an error message then it's time to address those issues. These validator services are pretty good at describing what the issues with your feed might be, but below we'll walk through the few most
Common issues
No episodes in feed
An RSS feed must have at least one published, live episode to be valid. A podcast requires an episode for the audience to listen to, and the RSS feed must contain an episode file to be valid. Along with podcast details such as Title, Description, Artwork, Categories, etc., ensure there is an episode published on your WordPress site (with a media file associated with it).
Podcast artwork has incorrect dimensions
The podcast cover image for your feed must be between 1400 x 1400px and 3000 x 3000px in size, a JPG or PNG file, a perfect square, and a file size less than 1MB. This isn't something you want to eyeball. Use a tool Dynamo or Photoshop to design your podcast artwork is a great way to make sure the dimensions are exactly correct.
Using a WordPress plugin to automatically compress and resize uploaded images? If you're getting this error message despite having the correct image size, shape, and filetype, a compression/resizing plugin may be active. Contact plugin support for deactivation steps or to bypass the podcast artwork image. Small images can cause issues with the RSS feed.
Missing or incorrect fields
- Sign in to your WordPress Admin dashboard and go to Podcasting → Settings → Feed Details
- Double-check that your podcast's details have been entered in full. Leaving out important information will result in an error when attempting to validate your RSS feed.
Not all feed details will apply to every podcast. But the following feed details are required:
| Title | Author | Description |
| Cover image | Primary category* | Owner name |
| Owner email address | Language | Copyright |
*Including a Primary Subcategory, Secondary category, and Tertiary category aren't required but are considered a best practice.
Wrong file type
Double-check that episodes were uploaded as MP3 audio-based files. It's not unusual to accidentally upload an image file (jpg or png) instead of the audio file.
When using a tool like Audacity to edit your podcast episodes, you may need to reformat the files before they're uploaded. In this case, the error might be seen when a podcaster has uploaded their episode as a .aup file instead of a file format that's compatible.
Empty lines or invalid characters
The CastFeedValidator tool will alert you to any incorrect, invalid, or additional characters or lines in your RSS feed's code.
In this case, running a plugin/theme conflict test is the best way to resolve this issue. Some plugins and themes can invalidate your podcast's RSS feed by automatically insert code or character. A plugin/theme conflict test is the best way to narrow in on the aspect of your WordPress site that could be contributing to this issue.