Puzzler – RSS Widget Problem: 2.6 works, 2.7 doesn’t

This seems to be a thread that isn’t being solved. Many have said there are problems using the RSS widget in 2.7. It doesn’t work! This often gets confused with RSS feeds in a thread and the issue never gets resolved.

Here is the problem. It appears to depend on the host with many 2.7 installs working fine while others don’t.

1. Install an RSS widget in your sidebar. Enter are URI and you get an error.

2. Go to the ‘upgrade to wordpress 2.71’ link at the top of the dashboard page and try to do an automatic update. You get this error: Download failed.: name lookup timed out

3. Use plugins that require communications with an external URL and they don’t work either. These produce an error similar to #2 above: Download failed.: name lookup timed out

If I switch back to wordpress 2.6 everything works.

Clearly 2.7 works on a majority of servers. The problem seems to be with some servers, or installs.

What is different on some servers that prevents the RSS widget and other functions to fail?

This is a real head scratcher. Anybody want to try to figure it out and win a coveted EUREKA! award?

Cheers