RSS Feed Issues

March 29, 2007 7:31 AM

RSS gone bad? Metafilter Jobs, Ask Metafilter, and Metatalk are showing front page Metafilter posts instead of their respective posts. I'm using Google Reader, if that matters. I tried adding the feeds using Sage to see what was up, and it finds feeds but won't find any actual posts.
posted by schnee to bugs at 7:31 AM (19 comments total)

Status.
posted by bru at 7:53 AM on March 29, 2007

Ah, thanks bru. I forgot about checking there.
posted by schnee at 8:10 AM on March 29, 2007

I'm having the same problem --- I don't quite understand Bru's response, though. That link shows a post from yesterday saying there was some server maintenance, but it'd be back in the hour. Yes, I'm new 'round these parts.
posted by prophetsearcher at 8:14 AM on March 29, 2007

Google reader might have checked mefi during the hour that it was down, when everything was redirected to mefi.

If you click the little orange icons in the footer of this page, you'll see the jobs feed is showing jobs, metatalk showing metatalk, etc, so the issue is with Google Reader, nothing on the server.
posted by mathowie at 8:17 AM on March 29, 2007

Did this maintenance have anything to do with the mass outbreak of Jruns earlier today?
posted by davehat at 8:22 AM on March 29, 2007

Nope, I was fixing an issue with the db server, as I said on the status blog. I'll try a fix for the jrun stuff today.
posted by mathowie at 8:27 AM on March 29, 2007

thanks for using status again, matt.
posted by boo_radley at 9:06 AM on March 29, 2007

Ok I was having the same problem and I use NetNewsWire. I checked the URL of the feeds and they all show metafilter: http://xml.metafilter.com/rss.xml

It is as if the URLS somehow got changed. I dont know enough about RSS to know what happened. The way to fix it does seem to be to reset the URLs to those at the footer of this page. But, again, I didnt do anything and the fact that it appears on NetNewsWire and Google Reader does indicate that something happened on the server...
posted by vacapinta at 10:11 AM on March 29, 2007

It is as if the URLS somehow got changed.

Some RSS readers will change the URL if the server tells them to, without asking you. These RSS readers suck.
posted by cillit bang at 10:57 AM on March 29, 2007

I have no idea if that is a veiled snark or not. Perhaps you could elaborate?

I admitted to not knowing much about RSS so if its a snark, I think its undeserved. I'm simply reporting what I see and hopefully someone more knowledgeable might explain what might have happened. The Ask Metafilter feed was indeed pulling Metafilter posts as schnee and others report. Everything's fine after I manually changed the incorrect URL - something I havent done in years...
posted by vacapinta at 11:23 AM on March 29, 2007

(it's not a snark at you, it's a snark at NetNewsWire, since I'm responsible for a Mac newsreader that does bother to ask)
posted by cillit bang at 11:31 AM on March 29, 2007

Existing discussion in the previous thread
posted by Rhomboid at 4:28 PM on March 29, 2007

And matt the problem isn't what the page is saying now. The problem is that if just once in the past, when trying to load ask.metafilter.com/rss.xml, the server gave a redirect to www.metafilter.com/rss.xml, most feed readers/aggrigators will store that redirect as a permanent change in their configuration. So, nothing to be done on the metafilter end, but users of those readers need to jiggle the handle.
posted by Rhomboid at 4:30 PM on March 29, 2007

Some RSS readers will change the URL if the server tells them to, without asking you. These RSS readers suck.

If Matt supplied 301 redirects, then those servers were behaving perfectly correctly. If he didn’t supply a 307 redirect, there’s a decent argument for their behaviour.
posted by Aidan Kehoe at 2:56 AM on March 30, 2007

If Matt supplied 301 redirects, then those servers were behaving perfectly correctly.

Bah, s/those servers/those RSS readers/.
posted by Aidan Kehoe at 3:50 AM on March 30, 2007

Client applications that silently and irretrievably overwrite users' data because of a temporarily misconfigured server are not "behaving perfectly correctly". The behaviour for 301s is a "SHOULD" not a "MUST", which means developers have a choice in their implementation, and some of them don't seem to be thinking it through.

Essentially these developers trust your data to whichever random network you plug your PowerBook into. This works great until you hook up to a hotel Wi-Fi network that 301s your entire subscription list to their landing page. I can't think of any other circumstances where programs will overwrite their configuration data because the internet told them to.
posted by cillit bang at 3:53 AM on March 30, 2007

Essentially these developers trust your data to whichever random network you plug your PowerBook into.

Na und? The feed protocols provide means for people to update posts, and that this is the case, means that any site you subscribe to should be able to overwrite data (that is, the previous version of the post saved on your machine) that you may have preferred to keep.

With two-directional protocols, there’s always some level of trust you’re placing in the server administrators, and allowing them to migrate their feed users to a new URL using 301 redirects is a reasonable thing to do, and is functionally identical with this misconfiguration. MetaFilter was broken, not the feed readers. Just like people’s browsers are not broken for serving a JRun error instead of the last cached version of the front page when MetaFilter is broken in that particular way.
posted by Aidan Kehoe at 5:08 AM on March 30, 2007

Na und? The feed protocols provide means for people to update posts, and that this is the case, means that any site you subscribe to should be able to overwrite data (that is, the previous version of the post saved on your machine) that you may have preferred to keep.

No. The user is fully aware that the view of the content of the feed is under the control of the publisher and changes from day to day. What I'm talking about is a permanent change being made to an area ostensibly under the user's control without their knowledge. There's a normally strict divide here (cf /var/ vs /etc/, data vs code) that's being mindlessly broken.

allowing them to migrate their feed users to a new URL using 301 redirects is a reasonable thing to do

Asking first doesn't stop that.

MetaFilter was broken, not the feed readers.

That would only be true if the HTTP spec said "servers MUST NOT send a 301 response unless they really mean it". There is no such rule. Since servers are free to send a 301 willy nilly, automatically trusting it is broken behaviour.
posted by cillit bang at 5:47 AM on March 30, 2007

(Actually, scratch that last bit. The "clients SHOULD" line places an implicit constraint on servers not to. So Metafilter and the feed readers are broken)
posted by cillit bang at 9:11 AM on March 30, 2007