Author Topic: Media URL Field Blank  (Read 1210 times)

Jonah West

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Media URL Field Blank
« on: October 31, 2017, 04:51:47 pm »
Hi there,

I'm using the plugin with a custom post type (CPT: podcasts), and had media files linked and verified to over 300 posts. Then all of a sudden, they were wiped out from the WP Dashboard. The enclosure field values are still there in the db, and the feed properly reflects this, but still on the back end it's confusing because it looks like a post does not have a media file any more when it really does. Any ideas why this might be and/or how to fix it?

Thanks!
- Jonah

Shawn Thorpe

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Re: Media URL Field Blank
« Reply #1 on: November 01, 2017, 01:48:23 pm »
I've asked the dev team to look at your question. Someone will respond here as soon as possible.

Shawn Thorpe

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Re: Media URL Field Blank
« Reply #2 on: November 01, 2017, 02:48:56 pm »
Can you respond with the URL to the podcast feed that should contain the episodes that are no longer there?

Jonah West

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Re: Media URL Field Blank
« Reply #3 on: November 01, 2017, 03:16:39 pm »
Hey Shawn,

It's not that they're missing from the feed, its that the media URL field for my posts in the feed is blank (even though the posts show in the feed). Make sense? For example: our feed is http://infinitesmile.org/podcast/feed/infinite-smile-podcasts/ - you'll see a podcast for iSmile 341 in that feed with the enclosure (media URL). But, when editing this podcast the media URL field is blank: https://cl.ly/nQtA. So that is what I'm asking about. It seems like a bug and we're concerned it could be an issue going forward. Please let me know what insight you can provide.

Thanks!
- Jonah

angelo

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Re: Media URL Field Blank
« Reply #4 on: November 01, 2017, 05:23:32 pm »
Hello Jonah,

Let me gather some additional information.

PowerPress Specific: Do you have post type podcasting enabled? Or are you using podcast channels?

Site wide: Did you make any changes to your site, move your site or anything in the last year?

You are using a post type with the slug "podcast", this conflicts with the podcast feed "podcast". You can disable the powerpress "podcast" feed with a define in your wp-config, or you can set a setting in PowerPress to make this work. We document this for the page or category named "podcast" here and it may be the same solution for you as well: https://create.blubrry.com/resources/powerpress/advanced-tools-and-options/disabling-powerpress/

I will warn though with every major update to WordPress, the way the permalink structure is managed by WordPress can change and the option 2 "2 Create a root level page or category" listed on the link i just provided may no longer work.

The problem with the media URL not populating the episode box is a major one and it indicates to me that perhaps the podcast feed slug name was changed in some way. It could also indicate a problem with the wp-admin area selecting data from the database, again info on if you made any changes, migrated to different hosting, etc.. could pin point what could be the cause.

Jonah West

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Re: Media URL Field Blank
« Reply #5 on: November 02, 2017, 11:31:58 am »
Hi Angelo,

Thanks for the reply. Yes, we have post type podcasting enabled for this post type. Site wide there have been some changes in the last year - we did a redesign and I believe we used to have PowerPress installed and setup for regular posts until we moved to this new CPT. But we did not change web hosts or anything like that.

I added the define to our wp-config but that didn't fix the issue.

Let me know if you have any other ideas or need any more info from me.

Best,
Jonah

angelo

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Re: Media URL Field Blank
« Reply #6 on: November 02, 2017, 09:25:19 pm »
Hello Jonah,

If you moved from regular blog posts to a post type, that may explain the problem. See the podcast episode meta data is tied to the slug name "podcast" by default, and now that it is in a custom post type it has a custom slug name "infinite-smile-podcasts". That does not explain why they appear in the podcast channel feed, which has me confused though, but it would explain why the episodes do not appear in the pages.

I assume new episodes do not have this problem just past episodes correct?

I think it would be easier to go over this in a 20 minute Gotomeeting session rather than going back and forth on the forum. Please contact me at cio [at] rawvoice dot com to schedule. We can make a few changes to the data in the database and it should get you back up and running

Thanks,
Angelo

angelo

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Re: Media URL Field Blank
« Reply #7 on: November 27, 2017, 02:31:36 pm »
Hello Jonah,

I see you started a new thread on the WP forums. Do you want me to copy/paste everything here to there? and freeze this thread?

Thanks,
Angelo

Shawn Thorpe

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Re: Media URL Field Blank
« Reply #8 on: November 27, 2017, 03:43:53 pm »
In order to keep this conversation from becoming fractured, I'm going to lock this thread. The thread on the WordPress forum is here:
https://wordpress.org/support/topic/no-media-enclosure-in-new-podcasts-media-url-blank-on-old-podcasts/