Mysterious “image caching” reference causing issue

  • The plugin has references to some unknown third party image caching service, “images.weserv.nl” — in two places in its code, in the file named “podcast-feed-player-widget.php” — on line 93, and again on line 303.

    Here’s an example of code lines referencing the third party service:

    $image_src = "//images.weserv.nl/?url=".$image_src."&w=".$size;

    Thus, the plugin seems to presume both that

    (1) some local image is connected with each podcast entry (which is not always the case)

    and

    (2) that the services of the third party service are desired and obtained (not the case for us).

    We are seeing “broken link” image display while trying to use the plugin to display a podcast feed. We’re trying to use the plugin to display the very same podcast in two different themes on two sites, and, interestingly, one of the two reveals the above mentioned issue, while another does not.

    Can we get a fix, or otherwise get a version of the plugin that does not presume a local image is associated with each podcast entry, and that does not presume use of a third party image caching service?

    Thanks for any help or advice.

Viewing 12 replies - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)
  • Thread Starter dougjoseph

    (@dougjoseph)

    The site showing the “broken image link” issue is here: https://pentecostalcc.org/sermons/

    Thread Starter dougjoseph

    (@dougjoseph)

    Here is a screenshot of the broken link image issue:

    https://pentecostalcc.org/files/2019/03/Screen-Shot-2019-03-15-at-11.57.27-AM.png

    Here is mysterious IMG tag being outputted on every single entry:

    <img src="//images.weserv.nl/?url=&w=" alt="Listen to [content here varies by title]" height="" width="" />

    • This reply was modified 5 years, 8 months ago by dougjoseph.
    Plugin Author douglaskarr

    (@douglaskarr)

    Hi @dougjoseph,

    My apologies for the late response.

    • https://images.weserv.nl is an image caching and resizing service that’s free to use. My concern here was that I didn’t want to slow down someone’s site with the large image that podcasts typically require. I’d love to get your recommendation on this. I could make it default enabled and have a shortcode variable to disable it like cacheimage=”false”.
    • I’m fixing the issue with whether or not the image exists.

    Doug

    Thread Starter dougjoseph

    (@dougjoseph)

    Hello! Sorry I only just now saw your reply. Thank you! I will try to verify whether the fix (re: whether the image exists) helps with the cosmetic issue we were seeing.

    Thread Starter dougjoseph

    (@dougjoseph)

    The the “broken image link” issue is still showing.

    I notice your reply was “3 weeks, 6 days ago” and the plugin’s last update shows as “4 weeks ago” – so I cannot tell if you have released a fix intended to address this issue or not.

    Thanks for any info you have.

    Plugin Author douglaskarr

    (@douglaskarr)

    Yes, if you view the change log, it shows the update:

    2.2.0: Fixed a bug where no image was still outputting an image tag.

    Thread Starter dougjoseph

    (@dougjoseph)

    Thank you for trying! Regretfully even though we are using the updated 2.2.0 version, the unneeded image tag is still being outputted:

    <img src="//images.weserv.nl/?url=&w=" alt="...

    The site showing the “broken image link” issue is here: https://pentecostalcc.org/sermons/

    Any ideas? Thanks again.

    Plugin Author douglaskarr

    (@douglaskarr)

    Can you provide your podcast feed URL?

    @douglaskarr I am seeing the same issue. I opened up the browser console and noticed that the calls to that third party are throwing 404’s

    Here is an example of one of the request URLs throwing error code 404 in the console, but response message suggests 403

    https://images.weserv.nl/?url=d3t3ozftmdmh3i.cloudfront.net/production/podcast_uploaded_episode/3634049/3634049-1587519269027-59a4d178aed6a.jpg&w=

    Response->
    {“status”:”error”,”code”:404,”message”:”The requested URL returned error: 403″}

    My guess is the API call doesn’t go through due to insufficient permissions

    • This reply was modified 4 years, 6 months ago by planeventsca.
    • This reply was modified 4 years, 6 months ago by planeventsca.
    Thread Starter dougjoseph

    (@dougjoseph)

    @douglaskarr

    Re: Can you provide your podcast feed URL?

    I think the feed URL is https://churchapp.me/pccmobile/feed/podcast/

    One of my earlier replies had already included a link to where the feed is being displayed — The site showing the “broken image link” issue is here: https://pentecostalcc.org/sermons/

    I’m not sure why the feed URL would matter. There are no images in the podcast entry items as it is an audio (sermons) podcast.

    Thread Starter dougjoseph

    (@dougjoseph)

    I think maybe there are two issues, not just one. It may be that the plugin is presuming there is going to be an image, which is not always the case, and this seems to be an even more important issue than the presumed caching. In our case, the feed is audio entries and there are no images in the entries.

    Plugin Author douglaskarr

    (@douglaskarr)

    Thank you for that information! I was trying to use a free image resizer so that very large podcast images weren’t displayed, slowing down people’s sites. I’m going to look for an alternative on this!

Viewing 12 replies - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)
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