RSS feed with one empty record

[Oliver]

Hi Casey,

In our website I implemented a custom RSS-feed according this excellent guide:
https://theeventscalendar.com/how-to-add-events-to-your-rss-feed/

Everything worked really great for months until around two weeks ago I realized, that the RSS-feed produces ONE empty record (= always the last one), which breaks the RSS-feed:
http://feedvalidator.org/check.cgi?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.treffpunkt-jazz.de%2Fevents%2Ffeed%2F

I have set up a clean system, but can’t reproduce this behavior.
Therefore I think is has something to do with the post data. Do you have any idea, where I can look for the empty record?

I already checked the wp_posts-table with the post_type = “tribe_events” but wasn’t successful. I also tried to disable all the plugins and checked the customizations I did on the website but nothing changed.

Any help or idea (even if it’s something completely unexpected ) would be great, as I’m really lost :-/

Best regards,
Oliver

PS: can it be related to the wp_postmeta-table? (I have seen this table, but I only have a rough guess about the structure of it or the relation to the wp_post-table…)

PS: Hi Casey! Just to let you know: The empty record disappeared by itself. Therefore I’m very sure that it was only a data problem in the DB and not one of the code! 🙂

[Casey]

Oliver,
The tutorial that you’re mentioning would add Events to your main RSS feed, which I’m not sure you’re wanting (but I could be wrong). The Events Calendar has RSS support right out of the box, and doesn’t require any customizations. So, you should just be able to go to your main Calendar page and add ‘/feed/’ to the end of the URL. Try removing your custom code there and see if it resolves the empty item issue.

Thanks! 🙂

-Casey-

[Oliver]

This reply is private.

[Casey]

Oliver,
The /events/feed/ is a WordPress-generated feed of the tribe_events custom post type. You might try plugging in your custom feed to a site like FeedBurner that cleans up feeds for you, and would hopefully remove the empty item. Give that a shot and see if it does the trick! Thanks! 🙂

-Casey-

[Oliver]

Hi Casey,

FeedBurner is an interesting tool, I didn’t knew it before.
I tried it, but unfortunately the empty record is still there:
http://feedvalidator.org/check.cgi?url=http%3A%2F%2Ffeeds.feedburner.com%2FTreffpunktJazzAnstehendeVeranstaltungen

I guess the reason for the empty record is somewhere inside WordPress or the DB, especially because the /feed/ works, but not the /events/feed/.
Do you have another idea, where the RSS-feed is manipulated inside WordPress / TEC or where inside the WordPress DB I could search for the wrong data?

Best regards,
Oliver

[Casey]

Oliver,
I’m honestly a bit baffled by this one, but here a couple of things you might try:

• Try turning on Browser Friendly and SmartFeed in your Feedburner settings (under the Optimize tab). These will convert your feed to different formats and hopefully remove the empty item.
• Verify that you don’t have any events in the ‘Trash’.
• Verify that you don’t have any ‘Draft’ or ‘Private’ events
• Try accessing the feed using this URL instead to see if it makes a difference: /feed/?post_type=tribe_events

I was able to follow the tutorial in my local environment and wasn’t able to replicate your issue, so as you suggested, it seems like something specific to the data in that environment. I’m sorry I’m not much more help than that, but please let me know if I can answer any further questions.

Thanks! 🙂

-Casey-

[Oliver]

Hi Casey,

I tried the different settings in Feedburner, but the empty record stays there.
I also tried your other suggestions, but there is no difference.

To fix the issue temporalrily we made a little change in the iPhone app to hide the empty record.
This is not a real solution, but ok for a workaround.

I still think that the problem relies in the data or how the feed is generated inside the TEC plugin.
Can you tell me which php-file is used to generate the /events/feed/? Then I can further investigate there.

Best regards,
Oliver

[Casey]

Oliver,
This is actually functionality within the WordPress core. We’re querying the posts with our own custom query, but using WordPress to return the RSS feed for the custom post type. Since you weren’t able to replicate this in other fresh environments, I’ve got to assume that something weird is going on with your local data.

You can see the re-write rules we’re adding on line 2409 in the filterRewriteRules function: http://docs.tri.be/Events-Calendar/source-class-TribeEvents.html#_filterRewriteRules

I hope that helps, but let me know if you have further questions. Thanks! 🙂

-Casey-

[Casey]

I just wanted to follow up and see if you’re all set here or if you still have further questions. Just let me know if you need further help or if I should go ahead and close out this thread. Thanks! 🙂

-Casey-

[Oliver]

Thanks for the useful hints. I will check them the next days and will come back! (it’s a bit busy after vacation 😉

[Casey]

Ok, no worries. I’ll leave this open in the mean time. Thanks! 🙂

-Casey-

[Casey]

Oliver,
I just wanted to follow up and see if you’re all set here or if you still have further questions. Just let me know if you have further questions or if I should go ahead and close out this thread. Thanks! 🙂

-Casey-

[Oliver]

Hi Casey,

sorry for letting you wait so long.
My client decided not to follow this issue currently. Maybe we will pick it up later.
Therefore I can only say thanks for now 😉
If my client changes his mind, I will open another ticket.

Best regards,
Oliver

[Casey]

Thanks Oliver! I’ll go ahead and close out this thread, but let us know if we can help further! 😀 Thanks!

-Casey-

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