RSS feed works in browser and through cURL but not on Newsblur

problem
#1

Hi,

I tried to add https://ronjeffries.com/feed.xml to Newsblur and noticed that it has been failing to fetch for a while (https://newsblur.com/site/7366/ronjeffries.com) but when I try to load the file in my browser it loads fine. Similarly, it loads fine when I try to cURL it from my machine. :slight_smile:

I tried the options under fix a misbehaving site but got that an unhandled exception was thrown. :frowning:

#2

Hmm checking that URL in W3C says it has some issues with it being well-formed. I’m guessing because of the weird character and the slightly incorrect Atom URI. But nothing big and should still work. I just tried it in Inoreader and works fine so looks like it’s an issue related to Newsblur app.

#3

Well that’s interesting. It works on my local machine just fine:

Screenshot 2023-12-12 at 10.51.32 AM
Screenshot 2023-12-12 at 10.51.32 AM2990×2862 847 KB

But when I try fetching it from their site, it times out:

[Dec 12 15:52:06]  ---> [Chrome] [0.04s] [samuel^] Forcing refreshing feed: 7366: ronjeffries.com - 224/22/20/1/0 489 stories (17100823 bytes)
[Dec 12 15:52:06]  X ---> [7366: ronjeffries.com - 224/22] Fetching feed (7366), last update: 15:49:38.719567
[Dec 12 15:52:06]    ---> [7366: ronjeffries.com - 224/22] Forcing fetch: https://ronjeffries.com/feed.xml?_=9649
[Dec 12 15:52:15]    ---> [7366: ronjeffries.com - 224/22] Page fetch failed due to timeout
[Dec 12 15:52:15]    ---> [7366: ronjeffries.com - 224/22] Fetching icon: https://ronjeffries.com/
[Dec 12 15:52:15]    ---> [7366: ronjeffries.com - 224/22] Page fetch failed using requests: HTTPSConnectionPool(host='ronjeffries.com', port=443): Max retries exceeded with url: / (Caused by ConnectTimeoutError(<urllib3.connection.HTTPSConnection object at 0x7f09daa412b0>, 'Connection to ronjeffries.com timed out. (connect timeout=10)'))
[Dec 12 15:52:15]    ---> [7366: ronjeffries.com - 224/22] No original page: Page fetch failed / https://ronjeffries.com/
[Dec 12 15:52:15]    ---> [7366: ronjeffries.com - 224/22] Counting any errors in history: 25 (0 non errors)
[Dec 12 15:52:20]    ---> [7366: ronjeffries.com - 224/22] Feed fetch timed out...
[Dec 12 15:52:20]    ---> [7366: ronjeffries.com - 224/22] Counting any errors in history: 25 (0 non errors)

Which means that their site is purposefully slowing down their connection to NewsBlur. Probably an automated bot trap, but you should reach out and let them know so that they can unblock NewsBlur.

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