I get this error on some feeds which stops Awasu from working with it. For example on



I get this error when Awasu tries to read the feed :



This is the only thing that will make me think twice before I buy Awasu as couple of good feeds aren't accepted by Awasu. Is this a bug? Can it be resolved?

Thanks

In the Details tab of the channel's Properties dialog, there is a <i>Validate</i> button that you can click to send the feed to the Feed Validator for checking. This is the de facto standard for checking feeds and it says exactly the same thing.

If you scroll to the bottom of its report, you can see that there's a bit of extra HTML after the closing <tt><rss></tt> tag and the rules of XML are very clear, this kind of thing must be flagged as an error. Having said that, if the feed can't be fixed and you absolutely want to subscribe to it, Awasu allows plugin channels to be written so you could have one that strips off this trailing stuff and make the feed valid.

Ok I understand that the feed itself is invalid but as a user it would be brilliant if Awasu just handled it somehow. Is it really so invalid that Awasu can't do anything with it? Is it a common type of invalid rss feed that can be worked around so you can support these type of real-world rss feeds?

I can add the feed to My Yahoo without problem

Hope this is constructive, I want to buy Awasu

There are good reasons why it's not wise to accept invalid feeds like this. Awasu does try to do some automatic fix-up of certain feed errors but this one is not common enough to warrant such hackery.

However, I said it would be easy to write a plugin that worked around the problem and to prove it, I went ahead and did it. Source is included so you can see just how simple it is. Have fun

FWIW I emailed the guy at the Squared Root blog and told him his feed was invalid. I even sent him the link to Feed Validator:
http://www.feedvalidator.org/check?url=http://feeds2.feedburner.com/SquaredRoot/

This is actually the best thing you can do for the feed publisher; let them know that they have a problem so they can fix it and it'll be useable by a wider range of software.

Accepting mal-formed feeds is kind of like accepting mal-formed HTML, like Netscape and Microsoft did in the '90s; it wasn't good for the art and craft of HTML authoring.

@Taka I don't see the source code in the ZIP file. Understandable, as you whipped it together so quickly!

Oops Try again

Got it!

GazNewt get it, and begin to wonder... is there anything that Awasu can't do?

BTW, make note of the excellent Awasu support!

FWIW I tested the new "Remove Junk After Document Element" Channel Plugin on Squared Root feed and it worked great.

kevoclone: thanks for pointing out the issue, which I've now resolved. one of my blog posts contained text copy & pasted from another site (microsoftpdc.com). unfortunately this text seems to have contained a bunch of crap MS Word markup that caused the feed validation to fail.

you know what would be cool? if someone developed a validation "watcher" that you could have watch certain URLs and email you if validation started failing for any reason. =)

Yah, that would be very cool indeed

Yes this is very cool!

Once again Awasu's various extensibility mechanisms are astounding and of course the prompt support ain't bad either.

Feeling somewhat inspired I added a page to Awasu's wiki that lists the different ways that Awasu can be extended and the skillset needed to create or modify an extension:
Extensibility Skillsets

I'm not sure that the list is complete or 100% accurate, so Taka if you'd be kind enough to review it and make any needed edits or let me know what I've missed and I'll updated it; It'd appreciate it.

It's really nice that most extension mechanisms are not tightly tied to any specific programming language, library or virtual machine.

I noticed that page went up, thanks. There was one small omission which I've updated the page to include...