PodPress stopped tracking iTunes correctly?

  • Resolved gamebynight

    (@gamebynight)


    14 years, 9 months ago

    Hi Everyone,

    I’ve been putting on a podcast since November using PodPress to keep track of my stats. Since then, the majority of our downloads have been reported under the “feed” section of the PodPress stats table. Within the last few episodes, however, the amount of iTunes downloads has drastically dropped compared to how much bandwidth each file is using. Our server stats show that listenership has been going up (episode 9, the last one, especially) except podpress is saying that it only got 14 downloads, three of which were test plays for a few seconds.

    The main difference is that over the last three episodes, we went from 168 iTunes downloads, to 6, to 2. I’ve done test iTunes downloads from two different machines and it’s not updating for those.

    Does anyone know why it would all of the sudden stop recording our download stats correctly? We haven’t changed anything with our feed or setup. The only thing I can think of is that I dragged my feet updating PodPress and WordPress until this evening, trying to fix it. But, even after the updates, iTunes downloads are not reporting when I try from my PC and laptop.

    Any help or advice you could provide would be great. Thanks!

    – Chris

    Website/Podcast URL: https://vagary.tv/multiverse

Viewing 4 replies - 16 through 19 (of 19 total)

  • … to the causes and a quick fix:
    At least the latest WP versions recognizing linked media files in the content of the posts automatically and they creating every time you save the changes a custom field with the name “enclosure” and the link of this media file as the value for each of these posts.
    When someone is loading the feed the values of the custom field(s) named “enclosure” will be added as <enclosure>-tags to the feed by WP.
    But if there are more than one <enclosure> per <item> then most feed readers (incl. the iTunes client) recognize only the first <enclosure> and that is the problem in your https://vagary.tv/multiverse/feed/podcast. I have looked into the source code again and the <item>s of the episodes 2, 6, 8 and 9 are 2 <enclosures> the first one is each time probably the one WP has added to the feed via the custom field and the second one is the masked URL podPress has added to the feed. That was probably the case for the normal RSS feed before your redirected it to Feedburner.

    I have added a little function in podPress v8.8.4 which controls whether WP has already added a enclosure via such a custom field to an feed item or not to prevent doubled enclosures. But that works only at the moment not if the podPress stats counter is active. This bug of podPress will be fixed in the next version. Thank you for your bug report and your detailed answers!!!

    Quick Fix
    But until the next podPress version will be released you can help yourself:
    Open the editor for the posts of episode 2, 6, 8, 9 and delete the custom fields with the name “enclosure”. After that do NOT click on “Save changes” or “Update”.
    If you have to update the content of a podcast post then you have to reopen the post in the editor after saving the changes to delete the custom field “enclosure” again.
    That is probably necessary for new posts with new episodes, too. After creating them open them in the editor and delete the automatically added custom field. OR you waive adding the direct download link to the post content.

    Thread Starter gamebynight

    (@gamebynight)

    Hi ntm,

    Thanks a ton for helping me through here. I saw everything you described and went through and fixed it, so each post should only have a single enclosure now. I tested out the downloads for the feed you linked and Feedburner and they’re both tallying up perfectly. I notice that it’s not immediate through iTunes but I’d assume there’s a delay before their downloads update (that TTL timer in the podPress settings page)?

    I can’t tell you how grateful I am for the support you’ve given here. I’ve notified the Vagary TV network about the enclosure issue so we know to work around that until the next release. Good luck on all of your future efforts, ntm!!!

    I notice that it’s not immediate through iTunes but I’d assume there’s a delay before their downloads update (that TTL timer in the podPress settings page)?

    Yes, the TTL value has something to with that. (see RSS 2.0 Specification / Optional channel elements / TTL)

    Thanks for this ntm. I have found it extremely useful – I think!
    We will see if things track into iTunes but fingers crossed. It is the only information I have been able to glean from the net for two weeks on how to adequately deal with the issue and I can’t thank you enough.

Viewing 4 replies - 16 through 19 (of 19 total)
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