Custom RSS not validating

The path /feed/tab/ seems wrong to me, /feed/ is usually the last element, not first.

It appears /tab/ alone is a feed by itself, maybe you don’t need /feed/? I tried /tab/ in the validator, it connected OK, so that’s progress. But it wasn’t happy with the feed structure, it came back with “FATAL: Found zero items with a valid enclosure tag…”

Hi and thanks @bcworkz

That’s strange. I imagined it was hierarchical when I followed a tutorial to that URL.
What’s also strange is that w3.org thinks it’s fine. Podbase thinks it’s fine. Brave Browser and Firefox display it like any ordinary unstyled feed, while Opera displays it without errors in its inbuilt feed reader.

I should have shared the function snippet I was instructed to use:

add_action('init', 'customRSS');
function customRSS(){
        add_feed('tab', 'customRSSFunc');
}
function customRSSFunc(){
        get_template_part('rss', 'tab');
}

OK then, just /tab/ is your custom RSS feed. Also using “feed” in the path returns a feed OK, but HEAD requests aren’t handled correctly. Just /tab/ HEAD requests look OK AFAICT. /tab/ is a valid feed apparently, but it’s supposedly missing <enclosure> elements which are used to reference media files that player.fm and similar media repositories are looking for. W3 and browsers don’t care if it’s there or not, only that it’s well structured if it exists. I do see enclosure tags in your feed, so that explains why Podbase thinks it’s OK. Not sure why castfeed is unhappy.

I suggest trying to submit just the /tab/ path to your preferred podcast repositories, it may be fine despite the issue flagged by the validator.

Thank you for your time @bcworkz, but I’m afraid it may have been abused. For whatever magical reason I can’t comprehend, player.fm started reading my feed and it’s working fine on Spotify.

The only thing I can do to help anyone potentially in my position is to say don’t bother with Google Play Podcasts namespaces – those people don’t know what they’re doing. Also, take a look at how my feed is arranged for an idea of what podcast aggregators are looking for.

You’re welcome whether it’s in vain or not ?? I’m just glad your feed is now working, even if you didn’t change anything. At least others can see what a properly structured feed is supposed to look like.