mini-Tutorial for LeBlanc's Podcast Suite v1.1

[jlleblanc]

Quick update: beta of Podcast Suite for Joomla! 1.5 now available: http://www.jlleblanc.com/blogcategory/0/

[akonar]

How is the Published/Not Published status determined? I'm finding (with the 1.5 beta on Joomla 1.5.6 with PHP 5.1.6) that when I add an MP3, then publish it, it shows up in the feed. When I return to the admin interface, it goes from Published status yes to no, then isn't visible from the podcast feed. Further, when I click to edit the clip, a subset of the edit interface is presented.

[akonar]

One more note. Figured out what triggered the behaviour. After publishing the article, I changed it from Access Level Public to Registered (I need to since I'm using this for an intranet site).

[akonar]

So, as long as I'm having a conversation with myself (isn't that a sign of insanity--up there with PHP sripting?), figured out my issue. feed.php (in %joomla dir%/components/com_podcast/) and files.php (in %joomla dir%/administrator/components/com_podcast/models/) includes the line . "\n AND access = 0", which limits what's output to only public articles. I changed it to . "\n AND access = 1 or 2" (registered or special) to suit my needs. Now, I just need to figure out how to set this feed up as authenticated.

[webman911]

Can someone please tell me how I get PodCast suite to recognise and include files on a remote server so it can build the required files for iTunes recognition?

david -

i'm not sure if this will work, but give it a try: in the podcast settings, in the "path for uploaded media" box, try entering the URL pointing to the *directory* where your files are now stored. for example, if they're in the "podcasts" directory under http://www.mysite.com, put in "http://www.mysite.com/podcasts" - just make sure to *not* enter the trailing slash.

it may not work, but give it a try and see!

cheers,
mike

[webman911]

It works but i get some error message at the top of every page which says

"Warning: Call-time pass-by-reference has been deprecated; If you would like to pass it by reference, modify the declaration of [runtime function name](). If you would like to enable call-time pass-by-reference, you can set allow_call_time_pass_reference to true in your INI file in E:\wamp\www\GPTest\mambots\content\podcast.php on line 24 "

melissa -

i'm only speculating here (i haven't seen this sort of error before), but this looks to me like it may be an issue of some sort with your web server PHP settings. i can't tell you exactly what or how to fix it, but that's where i'd start looking first...

cheers,
mike

[webman911]

Hi, Thak u for your tutorial, but In my site podcastingis working IE only, in mozilla after clicking onthe podcast image that is not connecting with itunes, can u please tell me what is the problem.

I observed some example websites, which u have given (podcasting implemented sites)), in those sites also podcasting is not working, can u please tell me what is the problem.

smily -

i'm wondering if there may be a setting on your mozilla browser that isn't set correctly, or perhaps a plug-in that you need to install? if the podcast seems to be working for IE, that indicates to me that the problem isn't on the server side. so double-check how your mozilla browser is set...

cheers,
mike

[jpmoretti]

Hey,

So I've been reading the forum and trying to figure out what's up with my podcast suite. I'm having a problem similar to the ones I've seen, but not exactly the same. The suite works great for embeding the podcasts in an article (unless they are very long), but I can't get my feeds working.

First off, I'm just starting podcasting, so I'm not sure if the goal is to get the podcasts to show on the feed for the site, or the "Full Feed" from the module. When I look at the feed for the site, I just see the {embed code and not an mp3 like some other sites have. The "Full Feed" from the module just shows errors in IE and Firefox. Both are different and say there are xml declaration errors in differnt lines/columns. I tried to download the podrss20.xml and edit it to see If I could make some changes, but it just creates a new one every time. So I'm not sure what to do at this point?

My goal is to get a podcast channel on my site to submit to iTunes.

Any help would be great. Thanks

[webman911]

jpmoretti -

what's the URL for your site?

also, the deal with the podrss20.xml file is that it stores the "chapter" information for each of your podcast episodes (in other words, each content item that contains a podcast). that is basically the file that your podcast info points to, telling the podcatchers (which includes iTunes) what podcasts are available and their associated metadata (title, description, etc.).

a couple things just to double-check: make sure your cache directory under joomla is writeable, and the same for the podrss20.xml file. some server setups also may have a problem with allowing those sorts of open permissions, so you'll have to check and see.

cheers,
mike

[jpmoretti]

Hey mike,

Thanks for the quick reply.
http://www.12steprecovery.com and there are multiple buttons to feeds on the home page
The url for the "Full Feed" is

http://www.12steprecovery.com/index2.ph ... &no_html=1

I changed the permissions to 777 for both by the way

Thanks again
Jonathan

[webman911]

jonathan -

okay, do you have just one podcast chapter (content item) or two? i'm able to "see" the full link fine on safari, but there are two entries (or so it seems). you might try deleting that content item and starting fresh now that the xml file is writeable...

cheers,
mike

[jpmoretti]

Mike -

I deleted the old podcasts and re-uploaded my test mp3. Now I have one podcast. I'm still unable to see the "Full Feed" from the module in IE and Firefox, but I installed Safari, and I can now see it as well. That's awesome, but I definatly want to get IE and Firefox working.

In IE and Firefox I'm just getting Invalid xml declaration errors.

The podcasts won't show in the site feeds either, they still just show the {enclose .mp3} code.

Thanks again Mike
Jonathan

[webman911]

jonathan -

okay, well, i pulled it up in my IE and the XML looks okay. of course, you're not supposed to see the XML, but you will - unless you have a podcatcher installed. remember that these aren't really regular RSS feeds (although that's what it's based on), so folks are going to need a podcatcher and not just their browser (or iTunes, which is really just a big podcatcher for this kinda stuff).

i'd recommend trying Juice (http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net/) - it's free and works well. load that up and see if it'll load your podcast. if it does, then you should be okay... :-)

cheers,
mike

[jpmoretti]

Mike -

Thanks so much dude. I'll take a look and post how it turns out. Thanks again for all your help!

Jonathan

[jpmoretti]

Mike -

Hey man. The Juice catcher worked great and finds the feed right away, but when I submit to iTunes I still get the xml errors. I don't see the xml on my IE or Firefox. Strange. Any ideas? Thanks.

Jonathan

[webman911]

jonathan -

what errors exactly? and also verify that the link you're entering in iTunes is the one you get by hovering your mouse over your "podcast" icon, right clicking, and "copy link". that should then be pasted into the iTunes link box... :-)

mike

[jpmoretti]

mike -

Here are the errors from trying to put the feed into iTunes and the IE and Firefox errors.

Using the URL
pcast://www.12steprecovery.com/index2.php?optio ... &no_html=1

iTunes error "We had difficulty reading this feed. Bad http result code: 502"

with the same url with http instead of pcast

iTunes error "Error parsing feed: Incalid XML: Error on line 2: The processing instruction target matching "[xX][mM][lL]" is not allowed."

error from viewing full feed in IE

Invalid xml declaration.
Line: 2 Character: 3

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>


Finally the error from Firefox

XML Parsing Error: xml declaration not at start of external entity
Location: http://www.12steprecovery.com/index2.ph ... &no_html=1
Line Number 2, Column 1:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
^

That's allot of errors ha ha.

Thanks again
Jonathan

[webman911]

jonathan -

yikes! okay, that's beyond my skill level. hopefully leblanc is still periodically checking this thread - he may or someone else may have a clue!

mike

[jpmoretti]

No worries man,

Thanks for all the other help. I'll wait and see.

[Wisdom Hunter]

Hey, Webman - thanks so much for the great tutorial. Just installing podcast for the first time, and noticing step 3. It mentions that the podrss20.xml file should exist in the cache directory. You may have already answered this question (but I did check all the references in the thread to podrss20.xml and didn't find an answer). The question is : if this file wasn't created during installation - where can I get it from ? Can I download from Leblanc's site ?

[webman911]

wisdom - if i remember correctly, the suite will create the xml file after you create (and publish) the first podcast "episode". then it will update the xml file when you add new ones - that file tells the podcatchers and itunes what podcasts you have available and the metadata that goes with them (title, description, etc.). :-)

cheers,
mike

[Wisdom Hunter]

Thanks, that's exactly what happens. Your instructions were great. Much appreciated.

[buzzworkers]

Any chance to get this working for the latest 1.5 beta ?

i would love to have the 1pixeloutplayer or dewplayer for this version too

[stumpydan1]

OK

I have read this thread and and searched this thread and tried to follow all the steps. I can make an article with a podcast in it but when I try to click on the module the RSS page does not show any of the content... I'm not sure what I am missing. The two file sI have uplaoded are mv4 files and I am using Joomla! 1.0.15 Stable

The link to the RSS is as follows: Have a look and you will see what I mean..
http://ibikeride.com/index2.php?option= ... &no_html=1

Any ideas what I am missing . I have chmods the podrss20.xml and podrss200.xml files to 777 (not sure why I have two so similar!)

You can see the module on the left hand side of any page of my site (at the bottom)
http://ibikeride.com

Any help appreciated.

thanks
.

[jpmoretti]

Hey guys I'm back,

I've been using the podcast suite for a while and it's been working great since fixing the first few errors I ran into.

Quick question, does anyone know how to get it to recognize longer audio clips. The longest I got to work was 28 minutes. I have some that are an hour or so and I'd like to get them on there, but when I upload them they don't get picked up by iTunes and they just show an attached file on the feed. When I click to download the attached file, it just goes to the homepage.

Any ideas?
Thanks for any help.

[jpmoretti]

Hey, I actually figured it out on my own and wanted to put it up for anyone who runs into this issue.

I had to re-render the mp3 at a smaller bit rate, which in turn made the file size smaller.

For example: I had an mp3 at bitrate = 128kbps and a filesize of 57.9 MB

I re-rendered it to 16kbps and a filesize of 7.23 MB and it worked great.

Hope this is helpfull to someone. I used sony vegas movie studio 8.0 to re-render by the way. It's a great program I use to edit digital video.

[driftme]

Great tutorial, and great module!

Small question: How do I make the feed RSS 2.0? The address of my feed is:
http://www.chrisslowik.com/index.php?op ... format=raw

Shouldnt the format be RSS 2.0?

[sharlo_davis]

http://www.hillsboropresbyterian.org

I have read through all of the posts here about this Podcast suite and cannot find an answer for my question so, I apologize if this is a repeat ...

I followed all of the instructions for the min-tutorial for this podcast suite (thanks!) and thought everything was working fine but, then I opened my site in IE and nothing happens. When I click on the "full feed" link from my frontpage in IE nothing happens. As far as I can tell everything is working fine in Firefox so I'm not sure what the problem is.

Any help is much appreciated.

[buddhaji]

podcast loaded fine - I see the videos - but there is no podrss20.xml file in the root cache folder - or anywhere. I created one but still when I click on the podcast link I get the home page.

http://integrativehealthcareinstitute.com

this is a wonderful component and a wonderful tutorial (I already set up the itunes)

Please help get this working - it is too great a program!
Many thanks in advance.

[gringo1300]

Please help get this working - it is too great a program!

That would be great