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How to Troubleshoot Feed and Player Issues in PowerPress

Mike Dell
Updated

Most feed or player issues in PowerPress are caused by caching, plugin conflicts, theme conflicts, or server settings. This guide walks you through the most common troubleshooting steps so you can narrow down what is causing the issue.

Start here: If you are troubleshooting a feed or player issue, begin by clearing all caching and testing for plugin conflicts. Caching and plugin conflicts are the most common causes of PowerPress issues.

Common Causes of Feed and Player Issues

PowerPress works inside WordPress and relies on your theme, plugins, and server to display content and generate RSS feeds correctly. Issues usually happen when something else changes the page, player, or feed after PowerPress has added the podcast information.

Common causes include:

  • WordPress caching plugins
  • Server-level caching
  • Theme conflicts
  • Other plugins modifying post content or RSS feeds
  • Security plugins or server rules blocking podcast app requests
  • CDN or optimization services modifying feed or player output
  • Incorrect or unsupported media hosting setup

Step 1: Clear Caching

Before disabling plugins or changing settings, clear all caching that may affect your site or feed.

Clear the following if available:

  • Your WordPress caching plugin cache
  • Your web hosting cache
  • Your CDN cache, such as Cloudflare
  • Your browser cache

After clearing cache, test the affected page or feed again.

Important: Some hosts and CDN services use server-level caching. Clearing your browser cache or WordPress cache may not be enough. Contact your web host if you are not sure whether server-level caching is active.

Step 2: Check for Plugin Conflicts

To find out whether another plugin is causing the issue, disable plugins one at a time and test the affected page or feed after each change.

We recommend testing plugins in this order:

  1. Disable caching plugins first.
  2. Disable plugins that have not been updated recently.
  3. Disable plugins that are related to media players, feeds, SEO, security, optimization, or redirects.
  4. If the issue continues, disable the remaining plugins one at a time.

Keep a list of the plugins you disable so you can re-enable them when testing is complete.

Testing tip: After each plugin change, clear cache again before testing. You can also use a private or incognito browser window to reduce browser caching issues.

Step 3: Check for Theme Conflicts

If the issue remains after disabling other plugins, test for a theme conflict.

  1. Leave PowerPress active.
  2. Temporarily switch to a current default WordPress theme.
  3. Clear cache.
  4. Test the affected page or feed again.

If the issue goes away after switching themes, your theme may be modifying the page content, feed output, scripts, or player display.

Step 4: Test with Only WordPress and PowerPress

If possible, test with only WordPress, PowerPress, and a default WordPress theme active. This helps confirm whether the issue is caused by PowerPress or by another part of the site setup.

If the issue only happens when another plugin or theme is active, the issue is likely a conflict with that plugin or theme.

If the issue still happens with only PowerPress active and a default WordPress theme, the cause may be:

  • A missing or corrupt PowerPress file
  • A WordPress installation issue
  • A web server configuration issue
  • Server-level caching or optimization

Reinstalling PowerPress

If you suspect a missing or corrupt PowerPress file, delete the PowerPress plugin folder and reinstall PowerPress from the WordPress Plugins screen.

Important: Reinstalling PowerPress should not remove your podcast settings, but it is always a good idea to back up your WordPress site before making plugin changes.

Feed Is Not Updating in Podcast Apps or Directories

If your podcast feed or artwork is not updating in directories such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or other podcast apps, check the following:

  • Validate your feed with Cast Feed Validator.
  • Confirm your web server supports HTTP HEAD and GET requests.
  • Confirm your server supports byte-range requests for media files.
  • Check whether a caching plugin or CDN is serving an old version of the feed.
  • Make sure security plugins or firewall rules are not blocking podcast app requests.
  • Check that no plugin is adding HTML comments, scripts, or extra output to the feed.
Note: Podcast directories do not update instantly. If your feed validates and is accessible, allow time for podcast apps and directories to refresh your listing.

Artwork Is Not Updating

If your podcast artwork is not updating, make sure the image meets current podcast directory requirements and is accessible from the artwork URL in your feed.

Check that your artwork:

  • Is square
  • Uses RGB color space
  • Is saved as JPG or PNG
  • Is accessible from a public URL
  • Is not being cached by your website, host, or CDN
  • Supports HTTP HEAD requests from the server where it is hosted

If the artwork file was recently replaced, clear all caching and allow time for directories to update.

Server or CDN Issues

Some feed and player issues are caused by web hosting, CDN, firewall, or optimization settings. These tools can improve website performance, but they may also modify RSS feeds, JavaScript, CSS, or media delivery in ways that affect podcasting.

Ask your web host or server administrator to check for:

  • Server-level caching
  • CDN caching
  • Security rules blocking non-browser user agents
  • Blocked podcast app or directory requests
  • mod_security or similar firewall rules
  • mod_pagespeed or other code optimization tools
  • OPcache, FastCGI, or file system caching that may need to be restarted
Important: During troubleshooting, temporarily disable CDN, optimization, and aggressive security tools when possible. This helps prevent misdiagnosing the issue.

Check Your .htaccess File

Your .htaccess file can affect how WordPress pages, feeds, and media URLs are served. Caching, redirect, or security plugins may add rules to this file.

If your .htaccess file contains many custom rewrite rules, contact your web host before making changes.

To rebuild the standard WordPress permalink rules:

  1. Go to Settings > Permalinks in WordPress.
  2. Click Save Changes without changing anything.

If WordPress has permission to write to the file, this refreshes the default permalink rules.

Blank Lines at the Beginning of a Feed or Page

Blank lines at the beginning of a feed or page source can cause validation issues. RSS feeds should begin immediately with the XML declaration.

This issue is usually caused by:

  • A plugin outputting extra whitespace
  • A theme file with extra whitespace before or after PHP tags
  • Whitespace in wp-config.php
  • A modified WordPress core file

Check that wp-config.php begins with the opening <?php tag on the first line. There should be no spaces or blank lines before it.

Media Playback or Download Issues

If the podcast episode does not play or download correctly, the issue may be related to the media file or the server hosting the file.

Common causes include:

  • The media file is not in a podcast-friendly format, such as MP3 for audio or MP4 for video.
  • The media file is not optimized for internet playback.
  • The media server does not support HTTP HEAD or byte-range requests.
  • The website server cannot handle podcast media bandwidth.
  • The media file is being served from a web host that is not designed for podcast delivery.
Using Blubrry Hosting? Blubrry-hosted media is configured for podcast delivery, including proper media handling for podcast apps.

MediaElement.js Player Does Not Appear

If the MediaElement.js player does not appear and a different browser-style player appears instead, there may be a JavaScript error on the page.

To troubleshoot:

  1. Open your browser’s developer tools or inspector.
  2. Check the console for JavaScript errors.
  3. Temporarily disable other plugins and test again.
  4. Switch to a default WordPress theme and test again.

You can also test the default WordPress audio player by adding the WordPress shortcode to a test page. If the default WordPress audio player also has issues, the problem is likely not specific to PowerPress.

Admin Area Issues with PowerPress

If you see errors in the WordPress admin area while using PowerPress, enable WordPress debugging to gather more information.

To help Blubrry Support diagnose the issue, collect:

  • The exact error message
  • The page where the error appears
  • Your WordPress version
  • Your PowerPress version
  • Your PHP version
  • Your active theme
  • A list of active plugins

When to Contact Blubrry Support

Contact Blubrry Support if you have completed the troubleshooting steps and still cannot identify the issue.

When contacting support, include:

  • A link to the affected page or feed
  • A description of the problem
  • What you have already tested
  • Whether the issue happens with only PowerPress active and a default WordPress theme
  • Any error messages from WordPress or your browser console
Tip: The more details you provide, the easier it is for support to reproduce and diagnose the issue.

Reporting Plugin or Theme Conflicts

If you confirm that another plugin or theme conflicts with PowerPress, please report the conflict to Blubrry Support.

Helpful information includes:

  • The name and version of the conflicting plugin or theme
  • The steps needed to reproduce the issue
  • Screenshots or error messages
  • Whether the plugin or theme is available from WordPress.org

If the conflict is caused by a third-party plugin or theme, you may also need to contact that plugin or theme developer for support.

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