Powerpress no longer displays redirect on webpage

Looks like I may have to take that back… the redirect URL DID disappear from the media player instances on the website running Powerpress 6.2.1 after I updated to the new Podtrac URL.

Please post a link to the site(s) where you’re having the problem so we can take a look.

Sites where the redirect stopped displaying on website:

https://www.sliceofscifi.com (just converted to Powerpress today, redirect doesn’t work on page)
https://www.kickassmysticninjas.com (was working till I updated redirect link today)
https://www.dragonpage.com (was working till I updated redirect link today)

Sites where I haven’t updated any settings yet, and redirects are still working:

https://www.babylonpodcast.com
https://www.winginitarchives.com

Specific examples of episodes missing redirects:

https://www.sliceofscifi.com/2016/05/21/slice-of-scifi-765/
https://www.kickassmysticninjas.com/2010/03/07/kamn-show-47/

Working episode redirects:

https://www.babylonpodcast.com/2012/12/01/babylon-podcast-show-280/
https://www.winginitarchives.com/2006/04/dragon-page-wingin-it-58-voicemail-show/

But if you look at the RSS feeds for the non-working sites, you can see the redirect in the media link, plain as day.

Are all of these sites running on individual WordPress installations or are they working off of a WordPress Multisite installation?

They are all individual WP installations, across different web hosts.

Another data point, the podcast title disappeared from the two that I updated the other day… Babylon Podcast and Kick-Ass Mystic Ninjas all had their feed titles disappear within the past 24 hours or so:

https://www.babylonpodcast.com/feed/podcast/

even though those are still set in the Powerpress settings, both the main settings and the custom podcast channel settings.

I upgraded one of the sites still running Powerpress 6.2.1 to 6.3.3, and got some of the settings back, but the other one isn’t behaving yet, the one that was converted from podpress to Powerpress 6.3.3 over the weekend (no redirects showing on website page).

If it helps, all the sites I mentioned that are having issues this weekend are running either WP 4.4.3 or 4.5.2.

There was an issue with a recent version of WordPress that caused titles to disappear from RSS feeds. Best to way to work around that is to ensure that you’re running the latest versions of WordPress and PowerPress.

Specific examples of episodes missing redirects:

https://www.sliceofscifi.com/2016/05/21/slice-of-scifi-765/
https://www.kickassmysticninjas.com/2010/03/07/kamn-show-47/

The Download link under the media player on the Slice of SciFi page links here:
https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/media.blubrry.com/sliceofscifi/p/content.blubrry.com/sliceofscifi/Slice_765_052116.mp3
This link contains both a Podtrac redirect URL and a Blubrry stats redirect URL. The Blubrry redirect URL is the media.blubrry.com/sliceofscifi part.
The Download link under the media player on the Kick-Ass Mystic Ninjas page links here:
https://media.blubrry.com/kamn/p/content.blubrry.com/kamn/KAMN_047_100301.mp3
This file URL also contains the Blubrry stats redirect URL. In both of these instances, are you still seeing these pages without stats redirect URLs?

I went to the Dragon Page site and looked at the most recent episode here:
https://www.dragonpage.com/2014/06/30/cover-to-cover-470/
The download link under the media player links here:
https://www.dragonpage.com/media/DPC2C_470_063014.mp3
This one is missing the stats redirect URL. Please ensure you’ve followed these instructions for setting up Blubrry services with your PowerPress installation for this site:
https://create.blubrry.com/resources/powerpress/powerpress-settings/services-stats/

I changed the redirect URL on Slice of SciFi back to the old one, and the stats redirect now appears again, both on the webpage and in the feed.

Kick-Ass Mystic Ninjas is using the new stats redirect URL, which displays in the RSS feed, but not on the webpage.

Since the other redirect URLs reappeared when I reverted them back, I have also submitted a trouble ticket with Podtrac. Makes no sense why one URL appears on both the front end and the RSS feed when the other does not… you’d think it would be all or nothing for both URLs, right?

Look at the RSS feed for Dragon Page, and you’ll see what I’m talking about. The media for this one is not hosted on Blubrry, but it is using Podtrac stats, and the redirect does appear in the RSS feed, but not on the webpages. That’s how I was able to eliminate any possible issues with Blubrry redirections for the feeds. This feed is also still using the new redirect URL that Podtrac has in their instructions.

And thank you, I think I have the disappearing podcast title thing sorted.

Since you’re using PowerPress to generate the feeds, the stats redirect URL has to be included in the PowerPress settings. The RSS badge on the Dragon Page sidebar links to a Podtrac feed:
https://feeds.podtrac.com/kTW8zuWB1heR
When I look at the source code of the feed, I can see it’s based on a PowerPress feed. But there are no Blubrry stats redirects in the feed. I can’t tell what the actual PowerPress feed is, since it’s being passed thru Podtrac. But somewhere within your PowerPress installation, there should be a setting in there for the Blubrry stats redirect URL, depending on what type of PowerPress feed it is. Did you try linking the Dragon Page PowerPress installation to the Blubrry stats account?

Kick-Ass Mystic Ninjas is using the new stats redirect URL, which displays in the RSS feed, but not on the webpage.

I went to this page on the KAMN site, which is also the latest episode of the podcast:
https://www.kickassmysticninjas.com/2012/01/28/kamn-show-48/
The download link under the media player points here:
https://media.blubrry.com/kamn/p/content.blubrry.com/kamn/KAMN_048_120128.mp3
This link clearly has the stats redirect URL at the beginning. So, it’s unclear to me as to where you’re not seeing the links on the website without redirect URLs. Or are you saying that https://media.blubrry.com/kamn is an outdated stats redirect and you’ve replaced it with another?

As I said in the original post, I also use Podtrac for stats. Been using both side by side for ages on several shows. The Podtrac stats redirect is what’s missing from the website but present in the RSS feed, and that was the first thing I stated as being the issue.

On KAMN, the media file in the player on https://www.kickassmysticninjas.com/2012/01/28/kamn-show-48/ does NOT include the Podtrac stats redirect, but in the RSS feed, https://feeds.podtrac.com/90Dk7ZFLsF33, you can see that the link to the media file DOES have the podtrac.com redirect.

On Dragon Page, those files have never been on Blubrry; the show ended long before the other shows were moved to Blubrry hosting, but have been on Podtrac stats nearly 10 years.

The media file in the player on https://www.dragonpage.com/2014/06/30/cover-to-cover-470/does not have the podtrac.com stats redirect, but in the RSS feed, https://feeds.podtrac.com/kTW8zuWB1heR, you can see that it does.

I included Dragon Page as an example to show that this problem is happening with media that isn’t hosted on Blubrry as well as media that is hosted there.

All my sites that use Podtrac.com stats are working with Powerpress on the old Podtrac tracking URL, and not working with the new Podtrac tracking URL.

This is the part that doesn’t make sense… Powerpress should just take whatever the stats redirect URL I enter in the settings and prepend it to the media file URL; the fact that it will prepend it in the RSS feed, but not prepend it when displayed on the webpage (so that people who play the media from the site can also have their plays counted) is the problem.

Why one URL shows up correctly on both website and feed and the other doesn’t is what I’m trying to get help with. To me, Powerpress should behave the same with prepending that stats URL no matter what.

fpmsummer, I want to restart the conversation from scratch. Lets break out each problem into separate paragraphs to separate confusion.

The Kick-ABC Mystic Ninjas
Question 1: In the PowerPress Settings page, under Services and Stats tab, what is the podtrac URL you are using in the settings?

As far as the Podtrac hosted feed having the podtrac redirect in it, that will always be the case. The only reason to use PodTrac hosted feeds is to add the podtrac redirect to the feed that does not already have the redirect added. Essentially you do not need podtrac hosted feeds if you are using PowerPress. The podtrac hosted feeds are intended for folks primarily hosted over on SquareSpace where they cannot implement the podtrac redirect.

Question 2: Please go into your PodTrac account and find out which podcast feed URL they are using to create the PodTrac feed. Please reply with that information so we can use it to backtrack to your website. What is the feed URL that PodTrac is using to create https://feeds.podtrac.com/90Dk7ZFLsF33?

Dragon page cover to Cover
Question 3: In the PowerPress Settings page, under Services and Stats tab, what is the podtrac URL you are using in the settings?

Question 4: Please go into your PodTrac account and find out which podcast feed URL they are using to create the PodTrac feed. Please reply with that information so we can use it to backtrack to your website. What is the feed URL that PodTrac is using to create https://feeds.podtrac.com/kTW8zuWB1heR?

PodPress import
As far as importing podtrac podcast redirect settings, I do not believe PowerPress imports such setting. In PodPress the option never worked correctly, many podcasters instead used the media URL field in PodPress to include the redirect URL. If you have more sites you are migrating from PodPress to PowerPress, we strongly encourage you go over the PowerPress settings when doing such an import as PowerPress offers more settings and options than PodPress never provided.

Hi again, Angelo ??

This is not about importing podpress settings, that part was never an issue. I just said that I noticed what was happening while converting a site from podpress to Powerpress (last one, no more podpress conversions to do, yay!)

1. the Podtrac URL being used for KAMN is https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/ and it doesn’t display on the website, but is visible in the Podtrac RSS feed.

2. the source feed for KAMN is https://www.kickassmysticninjas.com/?feed=podcast and the Podtrac redirect doesn’t seem to exist in the media URL, even though it is correctly entered in the “Other Settings” tab in Podcast Channels, as well as the main “Services & Stats” tab.

3. the Podtrac URL being used for Dragon Page is the same as for KAMN, and it doesn’t display on the website, but is visible in the Podtrac RSS feed.

4. the source feed for Dragon Page is https://www.dragonpage.com/category/show-archive-c2c/podcast_c2c/feed/?redirect=no and the Podtrac redirect doesn’t seem to exist in the media URL, even though it is correctly entered in the “Other Settings” tab for Category Podcasting as well as in the main “Services & Stats” tab.

Now, for sites that are working correctly, as far as I know, are Slice of SciFi and Babylon Podcast, sites that I changed back to the old Podtrac redirect URLs.

1. the Podtrac redirect for both Slice of SciFi and Babylon Podcast is https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/

The source feed for Slice of SciFi is https://www.sliceofscifi.com/?feed=podcast
The source feed for Babylon Podcast is https://www.babylonpodcast.com/feed/podcast/

The difference I’m talking about you should be able to see by comparing the source feed for Slice of SciFi to the source feed for KAMN, and look at those media URLs in both feeds… Slice of SciFi is still using the old Podtrac redirect URL, and it displays in the source feed. But KAMN was switched to the new Podtrac redirect URL, and it doesn’t display in the source feed.

And yes, some of those sites are using “alternative” podcast feed because I’m doing htaccess redirects of “/feed/podcast/” to the Podtrac feeds to make sure subscriber counts & download counts are being tracked there.

I figured out the pattern when doing the conversion of Slice of SciFi from podpress to Powerpress over the weekend. When I checked Podtrac for the URL I needed (just double checking things from the old podpress settings), I noticed they had the new tracking URL listed for Slice of SciFi, so I added that to the new Powerpress settings I was configuring.

When I noticed that that new URL wasn’t being displayed on the front end of the Slice of SciFi website, I couldn’t figure out why, and checked some of the other sites… that’s when I noticed that the new URL as correctly set in Powerpress on all of those sites behaving inconsistently. When I switched Slice of SciFi back to the old Podtrac tracking URL, everything was back to normal, both onsite and in feed.

The old Podtrac URL is being added to the media URL correctly in all locations, but the new Podtrac URL isn’t being added at all.

My understanding is that those redirect URLs are necessary for plays & downloads of media files to be counted. My concern was that while the items accessed from the RSS feed would be counted, anything access from the actual website pages would not be counted correctly at Podtrac since the Podtrac redirect was no longer present in those links.

Is my understanding of that still correct?

I did ask Podtrac Support for more info on their end, in case something there might be the issue, but they are telling me that both redirect URLs should work, although they are eventually migrating to the new one only.

So this puts us back to something odd in Powerpress. Is there anything I should look at in regards to the Default Media URLs? All of the sites I’ve converted have the full URLs in the podcast episodes, simply from being converted, but for some of the sites, only the file name is used. I don’t know how Powerpress is supposed to behave when there’s a full media URL in the post as well as a Default Media URL configured.

As a note of correction, the Podtrac hosted feeds existed long before SquareSpace ever did… we used to use them to track how many subscribers those feeds had (they did better counts than FeedBurner back in the day), as well as send out special surveys to those subscribers through Podtrac’s system.

Alas, their free stats are better than Blubrry’s free stats for me, and that’s why I keep using them both together, to compare numbers.

fpmsummer, I now understand what is happening. When you said new URL from podtrac I thought (and I am sure Shawn also thought) you mean you just newly added the podtrac URL, but you meant literally they have a new URL! e.g. https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/ is news to us.

PowerPress currently only allows https://podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/ and https://www.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/ redirect URLs. https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/ is not in our list.

We got complaints from podcasters over the years when they put the wrong URL into the media redirect URL fields. With more recent versions we verify the URLs are valid media redirects before we apply it to media links on the site. This has eliminated this support nightmare we had in the past when folks would just put something random in the fields. This though is why you are having troubles now, because no one at PodTrac has told us of this new sub-domain.

I am adding new logic to PowerPress to allow for dts.podtrac.com.

If you want to patch your current copy of PowerPress, open the powerpress.php file and search for “WWW.podtrac.com”. You can either add ‘dts.podtrac.com’ to the array or change the https://www.podtrac.com to dts.podtrac.com.

Aha, kinda like how WordPress limits which media services to include in the oembed.

Pretty sneaky, sis ?? I’ll wait for the official update, since the old URL will still work as expected for some time yet.

Yes, they are revamping almost everything over there, even the URL to login to for podcasters changed. Not sure when they started, though but it’s been within the past 2 months or so.

I noticed in early April that Podtrac had switched some feeds to “retired” that hadn’t been updated in a long while. The stats will still accumulate for those episodes already in the feed/system, but they won’t register any new episodes in the feed until you contact them to have them “unretire” the feed in their system. My guess would be that they were streamlining how many feeds their system has to check & update every day by not needing to check feeds from old shows that are still online.