"Download File" link redirecting to homepage

Thanks Hugh. I’ve started a support ticket with Synthesis and passed on the info you mentioned. They did ask if there are any special requirement to use the plugin, such as php variables to modify or direct access from external resources?

No – nothing at all. SSP doesn’t use any special rules and doesn’t need any special permissions. I’d be very interested to know what the issue is here, so when you do find out please let me know and then maybe I can cater for it in the plugin.

Hugh,

Synthesis asked if the plugin is supposed to generated any kind of HTACCESS file, as the server is running NGINX/Apache and they don’t use the default HTACCESS location, this might be the issue (as normal HTACCESS isn’t being used).

No – SSP uses the WordPress rewrite API to generate the URLs for file downloads. This API does not write any info to the HTACCESS file and leaves it entirely unaffected.

It appears there was a rule that Synthesis had implemented that conflicted with the plugin. It was responsible for specific default browser cache rewrite rules for W3 Total Cache. We’re not using that plugin though, so they were able to replace it with a custom one they use for fastcgi_cache servers, which (they said) should not cause any issues (as there are no headers being set for those).

The podcast player and download link are now working again. However, the feed is not validating now and is still not playing in itunes. Any suggestion on why this might be or what I can do to fix it?

I’m so glad it’s sorted out! Do you think you could get some specific information regarding what the W3TC setting was that could cause an issue as well as the custom rule that Synthesis used to work around the problem? I would like to add it to the plugin FAQ if possible and the more info I have the better.

Regarding your feed – I’m not on my computer at the moment, but I’ll have a look in the morning when I’m back online (it’s evening for me now).

Cheers,
Hugh

I’m waiting to hear back from Synthesis on exactly what the issue was/what they changed. Still having the feed issue though. When I check the validation, it’s not validating: https://castfeedvalidator.com/?url=wellnessmama.com/feed/podcast/. I’m having Synthesis look into this as well, but I don’t see that anything has changed feed wise, other than updating SSP. So far, they’re telling me they don’t think it’s validating because the length and type are not set within the enclosure, but I’m not sure they ever were.

Any thoughts on it?

It looks like there’s a problem with your caching plugin (WP Rocket) affecting the feed – it’s adding content to the end of the feed that shouldn’t be there, which is why the validator is saying that the feed does not validate properly.

Please disable WP Rocket and test the feed again.

Ideally, WP Rocket should have a setting to bypass caching for feeds or something along those lines.

I disabled WP Rocket and retested the feed. It’s still not validating correctly. I’ve opened a support ticket with them as well. Hope to hear something back soon.

It looks like WP Rocket is still enabled as this text appears at the end of your feed:

<!-- This website is like a Rocket, isn't it ? Performance optimized by WP Rocket. Learn more: https://wp-rocket.me - Debug: cached@1427206530 -->

That needs to be removed otherwise the feed will not be able to validate.

Ok, try it again. Should be deactivated. We’re also using MaxCDN which is connected via WP Rocket.

I just tried it again and in the W3C Validator it returns a 500 Internal Server Error, which points to a problem with your site not allowing remote access to the feed. Please confirm that your feed us allowed to be accessed by third-parties and that they are not being blocked.

I can’t see any other reason why that type of error would occur.

The issue there is because I deactivated WP Rocket, the site keeps going down due to the amount of traffic coming in. It gets close to 300,000 page views per day, so the caching resource is a necessity. I’m still waiting to hear back from WP Rocket to see what they say about it.

Hugh, I’ve deactivated WP Rocket (and Synthesis has upped our allocated resources so we shouldn’t have any timeout errors!) and the feed is still not validating or playing in iTunes. I’m at a complete loss here. What else can be done to test?

I’ve just tested your feed in the W3C Validator (which is the only validator that holds any real weight I think) and it all looks successful: https://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwellnessmama.com%2Ffeed%2Fpodcast%2F&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&group=0

When you submit to iTunes, what happens exactly?