Duplicate titles in iTunes

Here’s a bit of the feed, something is clearly inserting the post_title into the feed title…

<item>
		<title>Episode 157 – The One Where Feel The Wrath of Cthumanhuahua! Waiting 4 Wrath - Episode 157 - The One Where Feel The Wrath of Cthumanhuahua!</title>
		<link>https://waiting4wrath.com/w4w-157/</link>
		<pubDate>Fri, 10 Nov 2017 14:00:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://waiting4wrath.com/?p=35633</guid>
		<comments>https://waiting4wrath.com/w4w-157/#respond</comments>
		<wfw:commentRss>https://waiting4wrath.com/w4w-157/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		<category><![CDATA[Waiting 4 Wrath]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Aaron]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jenn]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[No Jim]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Porter]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Shea]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Steve]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Vanilla Java Porter]]></category>
		<description>In This Week’s Show, episode 157, we flashback to yester… month… for the Texas vs. Kenya: Lost Time Challenge!</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>Chapters</strong></p>

Also, I’ve cloned my site to dev and disabled everything but powerpress and changed to default 2015 theme. The dev feed shows the same issue: [Post Title] – [Podcast title]

Any help on this would be great, thanks all!

• This reply was modified 7 years ago by drperil.

The only thing I’ve found that fixes the problem is clearing the “Episode Title” field (with the “Custom epsiode title for feed” prompt).

That will remove the duplicate title, leaving only the post title. The frustrating is that those are different very much on purpose. The Ep title I would like to see on iTunes etc and the Post_title is formatted as it is for use in my theme.

Nevermind that “Fixing” the problem by removing all the Episode Title fields means manually touching 156 episode posts :X

Help?

So, modifying line 123 if feed-podcast.php will effect the change I’m looking for.
Which makes me think the real question is how <title><?php the_title_rss() ?></title> is arrived at. the_title_rss() shows up powerpress.php but I don’t see anything obvious that would cause the duplication. I’m going to keep digging but if I have to replace this with the_title() or get_the_title() etc I can but… editing core plugin/theme files is of course a terrible idea.

And I’m not sure if changing the titles in the way will cause peoples pod players to see the posts with the fixed title (all of them) as new episodes. I *really* don’t want to cause my listeners to get a bunch of downloads they’ll just have to delete.

Hello @drperil,

Wow, you figured out a lot while we were out for the evening!!!

The call to the_title_rss() is a hook function in WordPress allowing other themes and plugins to modify the content that is to be placed there.

The “Custom episode title for feed” replaces the default blog post title. It may be a theme or another plugin adding additional info to your feeds. Luckily we have an option in PowerPress you can select which may solve your issue without having to modify the source code in PowerPress.

Go to PowerPress Settings > Feeds tab, there is a checkbox available labeled “Do not allow other plugins to modify podcast feeds”, check that option then click save.

Don’t forget to clear caching (if you have it with your hosting or website) after making feed changes.

Thanks,
Angelo

Hey Angelo,

Thanks, sometimes the tinkering works ??

Level checked that box and the problem persists. I also have no other plugins running and no caching (debugging on dev).

Is there a way that WordPress might be doubling up?

• This reply was modified 7 years ago by drperil.

If you haven’t already, try testing with a default WordPress theme like the 2017 theme. Sometimes, themes will mess with titles in RSS feeds.

Yep. Running 2017 as the theme and the only active plugin is PowerPress.
It’s my dev server – I can send an email login info?

Can I hook into the function in my functions.php and say something like
if powerpress title != “” {use it}
else {use post title}

Any help would be great, thanks!

Hello @drperil,

I just tested PowerPress and then scanned the logic in the plugin, it only sets the title in one place and it overrides the title in that case. If you have no other plugins enabled and you were using the default twentyseventeen/twentyeighteen theme and you still had duplicate titles, I suspect one of the 2 is happening…

1. caching may be an issue. Who is your web hosting through? have you had any caching plugins enabled in the past?

2. PowerPress source was modified. Try deleting powerpress and re-uploading a fresh copy.

Also, do you have any of the options enabled in PowerPress for SEO?

So…

Being in IT all I can do is laugh at myself.
This is gonna be one of those PEBKAC tickets we all love so much.

Yep. Apparently, at some point, I was clicking around in SEO and left the post title modifier to “Feed episode title appended to post title” so yeah, this isn’t a problem at all, it’s a feature.

Now my question is if I disable this in prod, will it cause my listener’s podcatchers to see all the posts as new episodes because the name is fixed?

Thanks for all the help, I’ll try to go from 0 to panic a little less quickly next time ??

So yeah, all of that is on me. ??
Thanks for helping me track things down!

/closed

• This reply was modified 7 years ago by drperil.

Hello @drperil,

You can safely modify blog post titles, episode meta information, media files, etc… the only time someone will see a new episode is if the “guid” value in the database changes, which happens if you modify the database directly or if you create a new blog post. Hope this helps.

Thanks,
Angelo