BPS Pro and iTunes podcast submission

[Krzysztof]

Hi!

Is it possible that BPS Pro somehow brakes iTunes podcast feed submission?

I use PowerPress plugin to prepare the RSS link suitable for iTunes (a real pain in the neck that I have to install a plugin to make a fancy RSS and WordPress can’t handle it – the WordPress.com guys can do it…)

Excpet it I don’t have any plugins – BPS as my shield, Classic Editor, Genesis Simple Edits, Google Authenticator, advanced-cache.php, object-cache.php – the last two are dropins without settings.

How to check if BPS is not messing my submission?

[AITpro Admin]

Check the BPS Security Log and post any Security Log entries that are related to the podcast feed.  You can also do BPS troubleshooting steps here > https://forum.ait-pro.com/forums/topic/read-me-first-pro/#bps-pro-general-troubleshooting to confirm, eliminate or isolate the BPS Pro feature that is blocking the podcast feed if BPS Pro is causing the problem.

[AITpro Admin]

I searched the forum and found this forum topic > https://forum.ait-pro.com/forums/topic/itunes-cannot-read-feed/#post-2787 Looks like you need to whitelist HEAD Requests for iTunes.

[Krzysztof]

Hi! It looks like the code is already there. Should I remove the # from the two last lines?

Edit:

I have utblocked the two last lines and got:

[405 HEAD Request: March 27, 2019 8:51 am]
BPS Pro: 13.9
WP: 5.1.1
Event Code: BFHS-HEAD - HEAD Request Blocked
Solution: https://forum.ait-pro.com/forums/topic/security-log-event-codes/
REMOTE_ADDR: GDPR Compliance On
Host Name: 17.154.84.40
SERVER_PROTOCOL: HTTP/1.0
HTTP_CLIENT_IP: GDPR Compliance On
HTTP_FORWARDED: GDPR Compliance On
HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR: GDPR Compliance On
HTTP_X_CLUSTER_CLIENT_IP: GDPR Compliance On
REQUEST_METHOD: HEAD
HTTP_REFERER:
REQUEST_URI: /feed
QUERY_STRING:
HTTP_USER_AGENT: iTMS

So the basic settings looks OK and iTunes should say OK to the feed but still a no go. Strange.

Edit:

I’m so fed up with this plugin for rss nonsense tha I have even tried something like this:
https://ctrlq.org/code/19520-podcast-xml-feed

but it also doesn’t work. Something is wrong with the code.

[Krzysztof]

I have managed to fine tune the method with the new page and special php template:

<?php
header('Content-Type: text/xml; charset=' . get_option('blog_charset'), true);
echo '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="'.get_option('blog_charset').'"?'.'>';
?>

<rss xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd" version="2.0">
<channel>
<title>Chris on Defense</title>
<link>https://chrisondefense.com</link>
<language>en-US</language>
<description>Your latest news about aviation, defense and geopolitics.</description>
<itunes:explicit>no</itunes:explicit>
<itunes:owner>
<itunes:name>Krzysztof Kuska</itunes:name>
<itunes:email>xxxxxxx</itunes:email>
</itunes:owner>
<itunes:author>Krzysztof Kuska</itunes:author>
<itunes:image href="https://chrisondefense.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/cod-cover.jpg" />
<itunes:keywords>aviation, defense, geopolitics</itunes:keywords>
<itunes:subtitle>Your latest news about aviation, defense and geopolitics.</itunes:subtitle>
<itunes:summary>Your latest news about aviation, defense and geopolitics.</itunes:summary>
<itunes:category text="News &amp; Politics"></itunes:category>
<copyright>Krzysztof Kuska</copyright>
<? $q = new WP_Query(array('posts_per_page'=>10,'category'=>'podcast')); ?>
<? while( $q->have_posts()) : $q->the_post(); ?>
<item>
<title><? the_title() ?></title>
<link><? the_permalink() ?></link>
<pubDate>
<?= mysql2date( 'D, d M Y H:i:s +0000',
get_post_time( 'Y-m-d H:i:s', true), false); ?>
</pubDate>
<guid isPermaLink="false">
<? the_guid(); ?>
</guid>
<description>
<![CDATA[<? the_excerpt(); ?>]]>
</description>
<itunes:explicit>clean</itunes:explicit>
<itunes:subtitle><? the_excerpt(); ?></itunes:subtitle>
<itunes:summary><? the_excerpt(); ?></itunes:summary>
<itunes:author>Krzysztof Kuska</itunes:author>
<itunes:keywords>aviation, defense, geopolitics</itunes:keywords>
<?php rss_enclosure(); ?>
</item>
<? endwhile; ?>
<? wp_reset_postdata(); ?>
</channel>
</rss>

It kinda works- iTunes is fetching all of the data but after submitting for validation it rejects it. No errors in BPS error log. Maybe its something on their side.

This method if perfected would allow to get rid of third party plugins which is a big motivator to push it further.

[AITpro Admin]

You don’t want to remove the # sign from the last 2 lines of code since the last 2 lines of code block the iTunes iTMS Bot HEAD Request.  I’m not familiar with iTunes feeds so I can’t really offer any suggestions except for doing something like this > find a working plugin that does what you want and then grab the code from that plugin and create your own custom solution.

[Author]

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