Feed won't validate - conflict with security plugin?

[MaytagMan]

Website: www.mediafiasco.com
Podcast Feed: http://www.mediafiasco.com/feed/podcast/

The post for my first episode appears, and the player works just fine.  When I try to validate as a precursor to submitting it to iTunes, I get the following:


Sorry

This feed does not validate.
•
Server returned HTTP Error 403: Forbidden [help]

•
line 1, column 0: XML parsing error: <unknown>:1:0: syntax error [help]

Access denied.  Your IP address [67.205.45.142] is blacklisted.  If you feel ...

In addition, interoperability with the widest range of feed readers could be improved by implementing the following recommendation.
•
Feeds should not be served with the "text/html" media type [help]

Source: http://www.mediafiasco.com/feed/podcast/
01.Access denied.  Your IP address [67.205.45.142] is blacklisted.  If you feel this is in error please contact your hosting providers abuse department.



Could this be happening because I have the Better WP Security Plugin activated?   That is the only time I have ever seen the term "blacklisted" come up - I get emails when there are too many strange loging attempts etc...   I tried deactivating the plugin and then revalidating, but I am thinking that after deactivating the plugin I may have to delete and repost my first episode to get things squared away?

Thanks for any help/input!

This is my first attempt at getting away from Feedburner, so I am hoping that this will work out!   :-)

Bill



Plugins:

Ad Squares Widget
Akismet
All In One SEO Pack
Backup Scheduler
Better WP Security <-- Deactivated
Blubrry PowerPress
Contact Form 7
Select CryptX
CryptX
Feedjit Widget
Google Analytics Dashboard
Google XML Sitemaps
Jetpack by WordPress.com
Livefyre Realtime Comments
Pretty Link Lite
Really Simple CAPTCHA
Shareaholic | share buttons, analytics, related posts
Select Social Media Widget
WordPress Database Backup
WPtouch
 

[MaytagMan]

I just deleted and reposted with the Security plugin deactivated...  still same result and error.   

I sent an email to BlueHost to see if it is on their end...

Any other ideas?   Tnx!

[MaytagMan]

So, the latest is that the IP in question was indeed blacklisted by Bluehost.

Can anyone give me any info about the IP, why it was blacklisted, and how not to run into the problem again?

(BlueHost whitelisted the IP for 72hrs. and said it would be perm if there was no more suspicious activity.)


So, where is it that I am accessing IP 67.205.45.142?

Thanks,
Bill

[MaytagMan]

BlueHost just responded and said:

"Thank you for contacting support,

The IP address 67.205.45.142 may be the IP address the feed is validating through. If so, it's likely that there was some abuse with the feed plugin you're using, and you may want to choose another one."

Is this IP one associated with Blubrry?

Sorry for all the updates, I'm just trying to keep you all informed with the latest info as I get it.

I did submit my feed to iTunes, so we'll see what happens.  I just don't want to get up and running and then have my feed corrupted or something...

Thanks,
Bill

[Todd]

Bill

67.205.45.142 resolves to spiderman.dreamhost.com

You can check this yourself on your windows machine by opening a command window and typing tracert 67.205.45.142 it is something on the dreamhost side..

Todd

[angelo]

Is BlueHost using any caching or CDN on top of your hosting account? If that's the case, that is most likely the problem. The Caching/CDN needs to support HTTP/1.1 fully for iTunes, including full HEAD and GET requests as well as byte range requests.

[MaytagMan]

Thanks, I forwarded that to BlueHost and will report back their response.

I also did some further reading, and it seems to be the consensus that SEO Plugins also cause some issues, so I Deactivated All In One SEO, and will see how things go... 

[angelo]

I've never had issues with "All in one SEO" plugin, but we have had issues with Yoast's WordPress SEO. That has been fixed in PowerPress 4.0.8 though.

[FreedomPodcasting]

I'm having this same issue. 

Background:
Domain: www.themoneypillow.com
iTunes show link: < https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-money-pillow/id667123174?mt=2 >

The RSS feed is verifiable, the media is linked in properly. All the episodes come up properly in iTunes, but when you click the media you get the following error message:

|

Error
Playback Failed

|

Quite the interesting problem...

Here is list of installed plugins:
1. Akismet
2. All In One SEO Pack
3. Bad Behavior
4. Better WP Security
5. Blubrry PowerPress (duh...)
6. Google XML Sitemaps
7. Magic Action Box Pro
8. MediaElement.js - HTML5 Audio and Video

I've got 2 podcasts on iTunes that are working fine so I'll qualify this list to Likely Suspects:

1. Bad Behavior (Don't know this one)
2. Better WP Security <- This is the one we have in common. I'll be looking here
3. MediaElement.js - HTML5 Audio and Video

Mark, just because you deactivated the plugin, it could have left code behind to be screwing with the playback in iTunes.

SEO Plugin Topic = Mark & Angelo - I've got podcasts displaying on iTunes that are operating fine with All In One SEO Pack... so I'd suggest looking elsewhere for the error.

If you guys have this figured out, I'd love to hear your solution. Rest assure, when I find it, I'll be happy to share it here too.

Thanks,
Ian Robinson
FreedomPodcasting.com

[angelo]

Read what I said, we never had issues with "all in one seo". Those 2 security plugins are most likely causing the issue, and one of them may be adding lines to the .htaccess file which is where the problem could be. So disabling the plugins may not fix the issue until you update your htaccess file. And on top of this, if your web server has mod security enabled or your using a caching service with a budget hosting company that may be the issue. I think one of them is called cloudwatch or something like that. You can search this forum, its been discussed times before.

[FreedomPodcasting]

Thanks Angelo,

Yeah, I'll explore the htaccess file.

Interesting to note here:

The podcast media files are playing correctly in the iTunes store if you open it in a browser <https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-money-pillow/id667123174?mt=2>

At the same time, it's failing to open in the iTunes store < https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-money-pillow/id667123174 >

Will update when we find a solution to the problem.

Thanks

[angelo]

The problem is with iTunes app and podcasts iOS apps. In the web browser the html5 player plays the media so its not going to use a head or multi byte requests.  Its a requirement for iTunes specific for apple apps to efficiently download the media files.

[angelo]

Here's a new resource that documents most of the possible issues with both plugins and web site issues: http://create.blubrry.com/resources/powerpress/using-powerpress/diagnosing-feed-andor-player-issues-with-powerpress/

[txactor]

Just had the same issue with the same IP: 67.205.45.142

Bluehost says it was blacklisted for 'spam'. Never had this problem before. They have whitelisted for 72 hrs.

My feed is now validating again.

What can I do to keep this from recurring?

Tommy

[angelo]

So it was blocking the feedvalidator.org server IP address!

Unfortunately in the past feedvalidator.org has been compromised and infected with malware, so it is understandable why that IP could have been blocked. It has been at least 6 months though since I've seem feedvalidator.org get infected though, so hopefully this will not happen again.