Art's Show via RSS (i.e. Dogg Catcher, Beyond Pod, Downcast, etc)

[ziznak]

sporade??? well that sounds succulent!!  pass the sporade I'm going to go swimming in my American debt

[sbaustin]

sporade??? well that sounds succulent!!  pass the sporade I'm going to go swimming in my American debt

Sounds like you can raid wr250's money bin for some copper coins.  At the height of the doc com bubble(2002/2003)  I had almost 15k in CC debt and no job. That was hard to come out of.  Enjoy that USA debt. Where I am now the dollar is strong and I can use the local currency as toilet paper! 

[sbaustin]

PSA: Podcast Addict won't work with the feed if you are interested in being able to download historical episodes.  The developer states that the RSS specification says that ITEMS (the episodes) are immutable (unchanging) and once he has them in his app they will never get updated even though I'm changing the pub date and the url's are changing as discussed.   I checked the specs or what I could find and never saw anything about them being immutable.

If you are interested in using Podcast Addict, maybe go to his feedback page and let him know.  Mention the show Art Bell/MITD and that Podcast Addict should update the MP3 URL's when the feed is refreshed.

https://podcastaddict.uservoice.com/forums/211997-general

[sbaustin]

Sorry for the constant updates. I heard back from the Republic Podcast (Android) app dev today. He has said he will make some changes to accommodate our requirements. Kudos to him.  Once he does and is tested I'll report back. This entire world of podcast apps sucks.

[WavelengthZero]

PSA: Podcast Addict won't work with the feed if you are interested in being able to download historical episodes.  The developer states that the RSS specification says that ITEMS (the episodes) are immutable (unchanging) and once he has them in his app they will never get updated even though I'm changing the pub date and the url's are changing as discussed.   I checked the specs or what I could find and never saw anything about them being immutable.

I'm really confused by this! Both of you are wrong! I already posted in this thread how to update the URL in Podcast Addict. I just tried it again. I was able to update the URL for an old episode 3 times in 3 minutes and the URL changed (was updated) each time. The GET variables "Expires" and "Signature" encoded in the URL changed each time. Changing the publication date is a bad idea because it changes the sort order of the episodes and it's just a hack to try to make things work.

My previous post explaining how to get Podcast Addict to download older episodes:

In Podcast Addict I discovered how to update the url for individual episodes then download them. You need to select "Refresh content from RSS" then download it. There are a few ways to do this. You can long press on an episode, then from the menu select "Refresh content from RSS". Or you can go to the episode page, then tap on the menu icon (3 vertical dots in the upper right corner) and select "Refresh content from RSS".

From those same menus you can copy the url to the clipboard and verify that it changes after the refresh.

You can also update more than one episode at a time by first tapping the check mark icon at the top on the episode list screen, then tapping several episodes, then using the option menu (3 vertical dots) to "Refresh content from RSS". You can also use the menu to choose "select all" then refresh.

There are 2 minor problems with this. Any episode that was already downloaded will be deleted and you will have to redownload it if you refresh the RSS for that episode. It also changes the publication dates, so now the episodes are out of order.

This is all only necessary if you want to download older episodes. If you just set Podcast Addict to download new episodes whenever you refresh, then it works great.

[sbaustin]

I was only passing along what the developer wrote me. If it works for you that's Great! I may go back to the original pub dates to your point.

[byte9]

Is ANYBODY having stable ongoing success? The rss feed starts to play, for a session i can hop between podcasts on Pocket Casts. After an hour or so it then consistently errors out if I pause/resume. A different app, Podcast Addict actually helpfully gives back an error that the server is refusing connection and BeyondPod just drops connection and won't stream, refuses the actual download. I've been testing all the apps to see if something would be more amenable.

My conclusion is whatever is server side, hopefully gets pounded out.

For the more granular tech folks, this has been tested across LTE/WiFi and multiple devices. On all of those connections and devices all other podcasts work fine. All the effort being put on our side is for not as they're still getting server config streamlined.

[byte9]

Pocket Cast does not support authenticated feeds.  You'll need to choose a different podcast app unfortunately.   http://www.shiftyjelly.com/support/pocketcasts#11

I recommend DownCast personally.

Pocket Casts works, when it works. You have to encode the username / pass properly as is explained. You just have to replace your @ in email to __ and it works.

[sbaustin]

I'm working on putting some instructions together for a couple apps so Keith can post them on the site.  My regular job keeps getting in the way.

[GravitySucks]

I'm working on putting some instructions together for a couple apps so Keith can post them on the site.  My regular job keeps getting in the way.

Don't you just hate when that happens?

[ziznak]

I'm working on putting some instructions together for a couple apps so Keith can post them on the site.  My regular job keeps getting in the way.

you should never let your real job get in the way of bellgab... get your priorities straight

[Dr.Fate]

Has any communication been opened with the Dogg Catcher developers?

[sbaustin]

Has any communication been opened with the Dogg Catcher developers?

I was testing that app this morning.  Doesn't work well. I will contact them tomorrow to see if we can work something out.

[ziznak]

I was testing that app this morning.  Doesn't work well. I will contact them tomorrow to see if we can work something out.

don't be afraid to threaten them with the power of bellgab

[byte9]

I'm working on putting some instructions together for a couple apps so Keith can post them on the site.  My regular job keeps getting in the way.

Do you find consistent results? I keep getting server errors with BeyondPod pro it results in 'Preparing Stream' forever and then 'Playback Error'. I get better results streaming but no downloading from Pocket Casts and Podcast Addicts does have error messages that come back as a server refusal. So i don't think at all it's the links. The server still has some wonkiness in it's tolerance of download. Hopefully getting hammered out

[WavelengthZero]

I was only passing along what the developer wrote me. If it works for you that's Great! I may go back to the original pub dates to your point.

I was reading some of the info here: http://www.rssboard.org/

It doesn't sound like RSS was intended to be used with things that expire or change, so there's no standard way to handle that, and each app will handle it in its own way, but I didn't see anything about items being immutable.

Getting the feed to work reasonable well with several of the most popular apps might be the best you can do (or hope to do). Like I said, I'm satisfied with the way Podcast Addict works even with the minor annoyance of having to update older episodes if I want to download them.

Thanks for your work!

[WavelengthZero]

byte9, if you are streaming then you will have problems. You need to download the whole episode as soon as the new episode appears, then listen to it whenever you want after that. Most apps should allow you to automatically download new episdoes as soon as they appear. That's how I set my app up.

[skidder]

last night i had a dream that i used a windows phone and loved it.  again, it was just a dream.

Windows is the future and a good couple of percent of the population agree with me

[sbaustin]

I was reading some of the info here: http://www.rssboard.org/

It doesn't sound like RSS was intended to be used with things that expire or change, so there's no standard way to handle that, and each app will handle it in its own way, but I didn't see anything about items being immutable.

Getting the feed to work reasonable well with several of the most popular apps might be the best you can do (or hope to do). Like I said, I'm satisfied with the way Podcast Addict works even with the minor annoyance of having to update older episodes if I want to download them.
To
Thanks for your work!

Yeah that was my conclusion although the podcast addict dev was arguing otherwise. If it works for you that is what is important although for someone new the extra steps might be too hard.

[sbaustin]

As it stands right now streaming won't work.  Keith mentioned to me he is considering changing the expire time to 3 hours  or something to accommodate the streaming ability in every app.   Please download them first and then listen.  Unless you are one of the couple million old people still on AOL dialup, it only takes about a minute or two to download them.

[Demontooth]

These expiring link are why I download the episode into Pocketcasts and then it goes away and I have to download it again after a certain amount of time?  I don't understand these expiring links...are they afraid of piracy? 

[Demontooth]

byte9, if you are streaming then you will have problems. You need to download the whole episode as soon as the new episode appears, then listen to it whenever you want after that. Most apps should allow you to automatically download new episdoes as soon as they appear. That's how I set my app up.

I download the new episode but it keeps disappearing and I have to keep downloading it.

[byte9]

As it stands right now streaming won't work.  Keith mentioned to me he is considering changing the expire time to 3 hours  or something to accommodate the streaming ability in every app.   Please download them first and then listen.  Unless you are one of the couple million old people still on AOL dialup, it only takes about a minute or two to download them.

No, i have strong LTE and strong WiFi in my life without caps on either. The kinks are being straightened out now as far as stream/dl reliability. My contention is that streaming is ideal, and if it's loosened to 3hrs to allow for streamers not wanting to download it'll be great.

[byte9]

Further, BeyondPod (4.0 beta)constantly errors downloading. Podcast Maniac reports a server download refusal. Pocket Cast works but it's just all over the place a mess as far as downloading is concerned.

[sbaustin]

Further, BeyondPod (4.0 beta)constantly errors downloading. Podcast Maniac reports a server download refusal. Pocket Cast works but it's just all over the place a mess as far as downloading is concerned.

Are you trying the beta version in the app store (.44) or .47 which is a manual sideloaded install?

[byte9]

.48 manual sideload.

[sbaustin]

.48 manual sideload.

Oh 48.. That must be new.. I'll check it out.. BP has been unstable as of late unfortunately.. 

[byte9]

It's not BP that's unstable. It's the authentication handshake being wonky. I get the same authentication errors on/off with Podcast Addicts, Pocket Casts and a few others. Where as the same applications handshake and download just fine every other stream. This isn't uncommon though, there is a lot of meat to configuring a podcast on AWS S3.

[sbaustin]

It's not BP that's unstable. It's the authentication handshake being wonky. I get the same authentication errors on/off with Podcast Addicts, Pocket Casts and a few others. Where as the same applications handshake and download just fine every other stream. This isn't uncommon though, there is a lot of meat to configuring a podcast on AWS S3.

The other streams probably don't have middleware which is essentially what we have here.  To be honest, in all my tests I've never had a single issue with the authentication (except for encoding problems), but plenty with downloading, streaming and historical issues.  That's not to say there isn't an issue, as the RSS generator actually has to make a couple POST/GET requests to DMDN as if it was a browser and these take time and can timeout as well.

Every app doesn't something different and this process has been a royal pain in the ass.

[byte9]

I have no doubt it's been a pain in the ass, podcasts were essentially never meant to be security auth'd so with the few of them (Streamlink/Coast Insider was one of the only ones I ever had) that exist there have always been bumps due to the layering to attempt to mitigate bandwidth/content loss. Ironically it works JUST FINE on iOS. -_- so there are probably a lot more users on Podcasts iOS than us group of Android users.

Let me ask, have you used even one application that just WORKS at this point in time? Because while this interests me from the development side, I already am a developer and handle plenty of my own bugs. So i just want something to work. This is not a finger pointed at you at all, rather- I've paid for about every premium app thinking i'd give it a chance and every-single-one has issues. So if something is work i'd just hush up and wait for the kinks to iron out.