Author Topic: 404 Error from iOS iTunes?  (Read 1301 times)

Burton Lo

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404 Error from iOS iTunes?
« on: January 21, 2016, 08:55:47 am »
Our site at http://voicemarketingradio.com seems to be working fine, except for this recent trouble ticket from a listener.

She sent this snapshot of her error with this message:
"I tried again this morning, but I get the error message unable to download podcast.  I am subscribed through iTunes and I download via home wifi to my iPod, so I can listen when I go to work where there is no wifi.  I attached a copy of the screen shot."

Image is here: http://www.voicemarketingradio.com/vmr/wp-content/uploads/404errorfrommisha.jpg

I am looking into the nginx config and handling of byte ranges on my server that hosts the Wordpress site, but since our media is located on Blubrry's media hosting, I'm wondering if it's something on Blubrry's end.

I don't have any iOS devices, so I'm a little restricted in testing.

Any suggestions?
« Last Edit: January 21, 2016, 08:58:16 am by Burton Lo »

Shawn Thorpe

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Re: 404 Error from iOS iTunes?
« Reply #1 on: January 21, 2016, 02:13:07 pm »
I've tested your podcast (using the latest episode) on both my Mac Mini and my iPad Mini and both devices downloaded the file just fine. It's possible that the person having trouble just ran into a temporary connection issue. If she continues to have the problem, let us know.

Burton Lo

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Re: 404 Error from iOS iTunes?
« Reply #2 on: January 21, 2016, 03:11:29 pm »
Awesome, thanks, Shawn!

Burton Lo

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Re: 404 Error from iOS iTunes?
« Reply #3 on: January 26, 2016, 02:06:29 am »
So, users are still having issues. Any ideas on how to debug this?

Here's a public thread of complaints: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ebayradio/permalink/10153792972318955/

Also, feedvalidator.org gave some feedback: http://feedvalidator.org/check.cgi?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.voicemarketingradio.com%2Fvmr%2Ffeed%2Fpodcast

---
This feed is valid, but interoperability with the widest range of feed readers could be improved by implementing the following recommendations.

line 2, column 0: Unable to validate namespace: http://www.rawvoice.com/rawvoiceRssModule/. See the RawVoice specification at http://www.rawvoice.com/services/tools-and-resources/rawvoice-rss-2-0-module-xmlns-namespace-rss2/ [help]

<rss version="2.0"
line 2, column 0: Use of unknown namespace: http://www.google.com/schemas/play-podcasts/1.0 [help]

<rss version="2.0"
line 76, column 196: itunes:summary should not contain HTML: a (14 occurrences) [help]

...  to keep her Top Rated Seller status.]]></itunes:summary>
« Last Edit: January 26, 2016, 02:11:20 am by Burton Lo »

angelo

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Re: 404 Error from iOS iTunes?
« Reply #4 on: January 26, 2016, 10:05:52 am »
FeedValdiator.org hasn't updated in years. I would not rely upon it.

CastFeedValidator.com should be reliable for validating feeds.

Your problem though does not appear to be with the feed itself. It appears to be with downloading the media files.

I have duplicated the issue and I am investing now what could be the cause.

When you edit your recording, do you add any sort of bumper at the end of the recording?

angelo

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Re: 404 Error from iOS iTunes?
« Reply #5 on: January 26, 2016, 10:27:58 am »
I will submit a ticket to Apple to see what the problem is. I observe the entire file get downloaded, then my app displays "Processing", then fails. What ever the problem is it is after the file was downloaded.

Also, why are you using 192kbps for a mono recording? That is insanely high quality, it is the equivalent of doing 384kbps stereo.

Burton Lo

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Re: 404 Error from iOS iTunes?
« Reply #6 on: January 26, 2016, 11:18:37 am »
Thank you, Angelo.

I do not believe anything is added at the end of the recordings, but I'll double-check with the client.

Their use of high bitrates is an insistence based on their experience in terrestrial radio.

angelo

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Re: 404 Error from iOS iTunes?
« Reply #7 on: January 26, 2016, 04:48:30 pm »
Well, Apple got back to me, they are not having an issue downloading the episodes in their test environment. Go figure.

I duplicated the issue on my own personal iPad. Interestingly, it first worked (I was running iOS 8.4.1). I proceeded to try again after updating to 9.2.1 and the error happened.

I then created a copy of your podcast feed, changed the media URLs to another CDN (we have multiple CDNs at our disposal) to rule out the possibility that there was a problem with our CDN. My test succeeded, I was able to download the files which then lead me to believe we're having a technical issue with our CDN.

I then proceeded to spend the next 2 hours testing our CDN. I did everything right down to replicating the user agent. I could not explain why the file download failed.

Out of frustration, I manually subscribed directly to your feed at http://www.voicemarketingradio.com/vmr/feed/podcast which lead to good news, it worked as well. This now ruled out that our CDN is the problem.

This lead me to revisit your original suspicion that the problem was a feed issue (not media hosting). I looked up your podcast on iTunes and quickly found that you are NOT using (http://www.voicemarketingradio.com/vmr/feed/podcast) as your podcast feed, you are using (http://feeds.feedburner.com/ebayradioshow).

I then manually subscribed to your podcast on my iPad using the FeedBurner feed (http://feeds.feedburner.com/ebayradioshow), where I confirmed, downloads fail.

I did compare the FeedBurner feed to the PowerPress feed briefly, one thing I noticed is that the FeedBurner feed is including <media:content> tags in addition to the enclosure tags. I don't believe this would be causing the issue but who knows. What I do know from my testing is the problem has to do with FeedBurner.

My advice would be to go into FeedBurner and disable any of the enhancement features and added options, then refresh your feed to see if that clears up the issue. Ideally you want FeedBurner to simply cache your actual feed without modification. The second option is to leave FeedBurner completely. Here are the instructions if you decide to leave FeedBurner: http://create.blubrry.com/manual/syndicating-your-podcast-rss-feeds/leaving-feedburner/

angelo

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Re: 404 Error from iOS iTunes?
« Reply #8 on: January 29, 2016, 03:29:30 pm »
Did you resolve the issue with FeedBurner yet?

Burton Lo

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Re: 404 Error from iOS iTunes?
« Reply #9 on: January 30, 2016, 11:41:47 pm »
Ah, I've had my head down in a deep programming task. I'll look into Feedburner asap. Thank you!!!

Burton Lo

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Re: 404 Error from iOS iTunes?
« Reply #10 on: February 01, 2016, 01:08:43 am »
Ok, just disabled everything on feedburner. Ill check in with some listeners.

Do you think those adjustments on feedburner need time to take effect, or should we see changes immediately?

Burton Lo

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Re: 404 Error from iOS iTunes?
« Reply #11 on: February 01, 2016, 08:13:58 pm »
It was Feedburner, as you suggested. All podcasts are reliably downloading from iTunes now.

Thank you, Angelo!!!