Enabling RSS: "Error reading RSS data"

Enabling RSS: "Error reading RSS data"

by Enrique Castro -
Number of replies: 15
Picture of Core developers
Hi all,
    I am new to RSS and news aggregators. I am trying to set up forums in my test site as RSSf feeds, just like moodle.org forums (which I can read with a news aggregator plug-in within Firefox).

But from my own site I repeatedly get only:
      <description>Error reading RSS data</description>

This is a Moddle 1.4.3+ server (tested also in 1.5dev). I have activated RSSfeeds options at:
  • Site level (Admin>variables)
  • Forum module level (Admid > module config > forum)
  • Individual forum (either discussion or message, 10 items)
What have I forgotten?
Should I change any other setting or install something in the server

Now a question (what I wanted to test and I cannot). If I activate RSSfeed and  add that feed to another Web page / news aggregator: May I have that forum viewable by any one?.  I have been asked for a way to allow general public (without registration) to see individual forums (selected by each teacher) at course level (not forums in site homepage).
When I use aggregator to see moodle.org forums I am not asked registration. Is it done automagically on the fly?

Thanks,
- Enrique -
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In reply to Enrique Castro

Re: Enabling RSS: "Error reading RSS data"

by Martin Dougiamas -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
No, there is no authentication for reading RSS, they are always open to anyone.

RSS is that way by nature, there is no good way I know of to provide authentication and still make it compatible with RSS readers.

As for the feeds ... have you run admin/cron.php since you made your changes?  Do you have posts in those forums?
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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Enabling RSS: "Error reading RSS data"

by Enrique Castro -
Picture of Core developers
OK, it was the cron. Now I see the posts in my aggregator.

And I see that the forums becomes public. fine!!cool
That was exactly what some ULPGC staff was asking for.
Moodle is always two steps forward!!big grin
   
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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Enabling RSS: "Error reading RSS data"

by Marc Triola -
If the activity is hidden the cron job wont generate the RSS xml. You need to make sure its 'visible'.
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In reply to Marc Triola

Re: Enabling RSS: "Error reading RSS data"

by Allen Koay -

I'm a beginner, may I know:

1. What is cron?

2. How to execute it?

3. How to make it visible?

I was running moodle 1.5 on windows 2000.

Thx in advance

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In reply to Allen Koay

Re: Enabling RSS: "Error reading RSS data"

by Allen Koay -

Dear all,

Finally I have getting corn running now.

But I still unable to resolve the RSS error.

Any Idea?

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In reply to Allen Koay

Re: Enabling RSS: "Error reading RSS data"

by Simon Bryan -
Did you solve this? I had a similar problem yesterday and found that I had to empty my browser cache before clicking on the RSS button to generate the XML.
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In reply to Simon Bryan

Re: Enabling RSS: "Error reading RSS data"

by Zachary Lyons -

I believe this topic is solved. The bottom line is as follows:

  1. When you want to enable RSS feeds on any given forum, make sure that the forum is visible to students. (Not hidden)
  2. You must run the admin/cron.php script.
  3. You may need to clear your browser cache before viewing the RSS feed.

I had this problem today, and after taking all these steps, RSS works great!

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In reply to Zachary Lyons

Re: Enabling RSS: "Error reading RSS data"

by John Fitchett -

This helped me a lot! Solved my problem!

Thank you!!

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In reply to Zachary Lyons

Re: Enabling RSS: "Error reading RSS data"

by Barbara Schroeder -
Hi Zach,
I've read through the threads on this forum, have done all three of your requirements, but I still get an ERROR message when I click the RSS feed icon. Hm . . .

I am trying to create a feed on an already-created forum, which shouldn't be a problem, right? I get the same error message:

RSS Error
Thu, Sep 25, 2008 4:26 PM
Error reading RSS data

Any suggestions/ideas?

Thanks,

Barbara
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In reply to Barbara Schroeder

Re: Enabling RSS: "Error reading RSS data"

by Greg Dabelstein -

I had the same error nd did the things as outlined in these postings....and had the same problem ...HOWEVER , I discovered that I actually had to unsubscribe from the feed (and delete content associated with it) and then resubscribe....and it now works fine!!

I use IE7 but I think it might be the same in whatever aggregator you use.

Try this and see.

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In reply to Zachary Lyons

Re: Enabling RSS: "Error reading RSS data"

by Cesar Garcia -
Your instructions worked great. I needed to run cron.php to get rid of the RSS error.

BTW: to the people testing moodle you can verify (and run) if cron.php is working correctly by running:

http://example.com/moodle/admin/cron.php

Regards,
Cesar
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In reply to Cesar Garcia

Re: Enabling RSS: "Error reading RSS data"

by Carl Kennard -

I've been having similar problems to those discussed here. Originally I couldn't get any internal feeds to work ie. from a Moodle forum but external feeds to other sites were fine. I managed to fix the problem by removing the global search and running the cron job manually.

The internal feeds then worked for about a month before they broke again. I've tried turning the global search on and off again and run the cron job but it has no effect. It appears that our 1.8.4 Moodle doesn't want to write XML files in the moodledata folder but the permissions are fine. We haven't do anything to the Moodle or server backend during this time

Has anyone else encountered this?

Carl.

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In reply to Enrique Castro

Re: Enabling RSS: "Error reading RSS data"

by Lucas Arantes -
Eu só consegui extrair o endereço correto do meu RSS, quando o acessei com um outro usuário que não o criador do fórum. Estranho né? Deve ser algum bug.

I only got the correct address of my feed, when i access the forum with an other user that was not the creator of the forum. I think this strange, don't you? It must be a bug.

thanks for all
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