Certain feeds will download the latest episode once but not again

[yamatt]

I have 2 feeds in my list that have worked once (maybe twice) when I added them but never download a new episode:
Astronomy Cast: http://www.astronomycast.com/feed/
The Skeptics Guide: http://www.theskepticsguide.org/feed/rss.aspx?feed=SGU

What's notable about these feeds is that they don't use feedburner. All of my other podcasts are feedburner ones and they work fine. It may not be specifically feedburner related but something feedburner does that raw feeds don't.

[yamatt]

The Astronomy Cast one started downloading again this weekend. Will have to see if it does it again. Skeptics guide still didn't download.

[thasmin]

Do you mean it doesn't update the RSS, doesn't put new episodes in the queue, or that it doesn't download the podcasts when they're in the active downloads list?

[yamatt]

They download the first episode fine, but when the next episode is released it doesn't appear in the episode list for that subscription.

[thasmin]

Questions:

1. When you go to Subscriptions then choose the right one, is the newest podcast in the list? Is it on top?
2. Is it in the list when you go to active downloads?
3. Is it in the queue?
4. If it's not in the queue and you add it, is it in the active downloads list?

[yamatt]

Answers:

1. When I go to that feed in the subscriptions for said podcast it does not display the newest podcast. So right not the latest episode from The Skeptics guide (as of time of writing) and viewing http://www.theskepticsguide.org/feed/rss.aspx?feed=SGU is episode 347 but on Podax the episode on the top is 343 which is the one Podax downloaded when I added the feed.
2. No.
3. No.
4. Can't add it :)

BTW the Astronomy Cast podcast seems to be working now. I suddenly have 3 episodes in my list.

Having a look at http://validator.w3.org/feed/check.cgi?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theskepticsguide.org%2Ffeed%2Frss.aspx%3Ffeed%3DSGU there doesn't appear to be anything that stands out in the that might break this.

[thasmin]

I just added this podcast and my top episode is 346. The validator says 347. Interesting.

[thasmin]

Podax uses the lastBuildDate element to see if it should download a new podcast. The lastBuildDate for SGU is in 2009. If they're not changing it then Podax won't process the RSS. I'll take this feature out for now. Done in 463ba89.

[yamatt]

I would look for whatever GUID that has not been seen.