A variety of different errors

[dngray]

Hi,

When importing my RSS feeds I noticed a variety of different errors. They all seem to work in Newsboat. (This is under a local account).

Maybe you could take a look?

Feed	Error
andrew pillar (RSS)	Failure when parsing feed
andrew pillar (Atom)	Works
Cory Doctorow's craphound.com	Failure when parsing feed
Ctrl blog	Failure when parsing feed
DUALUSE	Failure when parsing feed
Deeplinks	Failure when parsing feed
Fastmail blog	Failure when parsing feed
Full Disclosure	Failure when parsing feed
Latacora	Failure when parsing feed
Mailfence Blog	Failure when parsing feed
Signal Blog	Failure when parsing feed
Stephen Mann	Failure when parsing feed
TED Talks Daily (SD video)	Failure when parsing feed
Tencent Security Xuanwu Lab	Failure when parsing feed
VICE US - undefined US	Failure when parsing feed
xda-developers	Failure when parsing feed
news.ycombinator.com	Failure when parsing feed
Bryan Braun - Designer/Developer	Network failure when accessing feed
Dan Luu	Network failure when accessing feed
Google Online Security Blog	Network failure when accessing feed
IEEE Spectrum Recent Content full text	Network failure when accessing feed
Linux Kernel Newbies	Network failure when accessing feed
WeeChat news	Network failure when accessing feed
Wired: Feed: All Latest	Network failure when accessing feed
dkg's blog	Network failure when accessing feed
AnandTech	Validates but seems to be empty
Dark Reading:	Validates but seems to be empty
Debian News	Validates but seems to be empty
Debian Security	Validates but seems to be empty
Discover Dev	Validates but seems to be empty
Disroot Blog	Validates but seems to be empty
HashiCorp Blog	Validates but seems to be empty
Image Sensors World	Validates but seems to be empty
Neopythonic	Validates but seems to be empty
O'Reilly Radar	Validates but seems to be empty
Project Zero	Validates but seems to be empty
Techdirt.	Validates but seems to be empty
Threat Research	Validates but seems to be empty
meli MUA	Validates but seems to be empty
LWN.net	Attempt to invoke virtual method 'int java.lang.String.length() on a null object reference
Slashdot	Attempt to invoke virtual method 'int java.lang.String.length() on a null object reference
has_many :codes	Attempt to invoke virtual method 'int java.lang.String.length() on a null object reference
Level1Techs (Youtube)	Attempt to invoke virtual method 'int java.lang.String.length() on a null object reference
Posteo.de - Aktuelles	length=194902; index=-1

[Shinokuni]

Wow, thanks for the list. I will definitely check them all.

[dngray]

Wow, thanks for the list. I will definitely check them all.

No problem I figured it would be helpful. Main reason I switched to readrops is it seems to be the only RSS client in f-droid that supports grouped folders.

Curious question about that, is it legal to have groups within groups? According to the newsboat docs it seems possible: 3.3.2. Other readers (via OPML).

[Shinokuni]

Hello,

So I've tested all your feeds. You can take a look below.

Feed	Error	Status
andrew pillar (RSS)	Failure when parsing feed	Works
andrew pillar (Atom)	Works	/
Cory Doctorow's craphound.com	Failure when parsing feed	Works
Ctrl blog	Failure when parsing feed	Works
DUALUSE	Failure when parsing feed	Works
Deeplinks	Failure when parsing feed	Works (but creator tag support lost)
Fastmail blog	Failure when parsing feed	Works
Full Disclosure	Failure when parsing feed	Works
Latacora	Failure when parsing feed	Has empty titles
Mailfence Blog	Failure when parsing feed	Works
Signal Blog	Failure when parsing feed	Works
Stephen Mann	Failure when parsing feed	Expired certificate
TED Talks Daily (SD video)	Failure when parsing feed	Works
Tencent Security Xuanwu Lab	Failure when parsing feed	404 not found
VICE US - undefined US	Failure when parsing feed	Works
xda-developers	Failure when parsing feed	Works
news.ycombinator.com	Failure when parsing feed	Works
Bryan Braun - Designer/Developer	Network failure when accessing feed	Now works
Dan Luu	Network failure when accessing feed	No more network failure but has a wrong rss url
Google Online Security Blog	Network failure when accessing feed	Works
IEEE Spectrum Recent Content full text	Network failure when accessing feed	Works
Linux Kernel Newbies	Network failure when accessing feed	No more network failure, but RSS 1.0 is not supported
WeeChat news	Network failure when accessing feed	Works
Wired: Feed: All Latest	Network failure when accessing feed	Works
dkg's blog	Network failure when accessing feed	Works
AnandTech	Validates but seems to be empty	Works
Dark Reading:	Validates but seems to be empty	Works
Debian News	Validates but seems to be empty	RSS 1.0 not supported
Debian Security	Validates but seems to be empty	RSS 1.0 not supported
Discover Dev	Validates but seems to be empty	Works
Disroot Blog	Validates but seems to be empty	Weird redirection to https://disroot.org/en/blog
HashiCorp Blog	Validates but seems to be empty	Works
Image Sensors World	Validates but seems to be empty	Works
Neopythonic	Validates but seems to be empty	Works
O'Reilly Radar	Validates but seems to be empty	atom link is https://www.oreilly.com/radar/feed/ which returns 403
Project Zero	Validates but seems to be empty	Works
Techdirt.	Validates but seems to be empty	Works
Threat Research	Validates but seems to be empty	Works
meli MUA	Validates but seems to be empty	Works
LWN.net	Attempt to invoke virtual method 'int java.lang.String.length() on a null object reference	RSS 1.0 is not supported
Slashdot	Attempt to invoke virtual method 'int java.lang.String.length() on a null object reference	RSS 1.0 is not supported
has_many :codes	Attempt to invoke virtual method 'int java.lang.String.length() on a null object reference	Works
Level1Techs (Youtube)	Attempt to invoke virtual method 'int java.lang.String.length() on a null object reference	Works
Posteo.de - Aktuelles	length=194902; index=-1	Works

Thanks to that, I was able to fix those errors:

• absence of guid tag (optional tag but Readrops relied ont it for every feed item)
• favicon fetch bug fixed for #71
• unsupported multiple creator tags
• unsupported multiple image tags in RSS channel
• enclosure tag required attributes
• unsupported date formats
• ATOM format detection bug

I wasn't able to fix them all because of various issues. The main one is that Readrops doesn't support RSS 1.0. Some feeds have their embedded RSS url unreachable (wrong url, 404, 403, etc). There could be a fix for this case but I'm unsure about what to do here.

I wonder if I shouldn't replace SimpleXML which is the XML framework Readrops currently uses as it is unreliable for this kind of use case and as I'm really fed up of fixing things because of it.