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Why is Twitterfeed pulling old posts from my RSS feed?
Twitterfeed is pulling seemingly random old posts from my RSS feed. It pulls new posts just fine, but in two instances it has pulled posts from yesterday's feeds.
Those old posts (blog entries) are showing up in my Twitter feed.
Those old posts (blog entries) are showing up in my Twitter feed.
I’m confused
4
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I have this problem, too!
Tell me when someone solves it.
The more people who report this problem, the more it gets noticed.
The more people who report this problem, the more it gets noticed.
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Inappropriate?Is it possible that the blog was republished and the date stamps updated as part of that (I sometimes see this in my feed reader, when suddenly seemingly old post appear as new again). If you want me to take a closer look, let me know the twitter account you're posting to, and the feed URL.
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Inappropriate?This has happened to feeds run by one of my companies and has become extremely embarrassing as old headlines have repost to Twitter (and the press sees this; they watch our feed). I checked the RSS feeds that the articles came from and the pubdates are still old (late last year in fact). Doesn't Twitterfeed check pubdates if articles have posted before? What would cause this? In my case, five tweets went out in quick succession from five different feeds monitored by Twitterfeed. I checked all of them... none have been changed in any way recently. I had to delete the tweets from the company profile to prevent public confusion but I am attaching a screenshot of the tweets with dates shown.
I’m extremely embarrassed, frustrated
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Yes, twitterfeed checks the publish date (or "updated") element, as well as the GUID (if present) and the shortened link, to avoid double-posting of content wherever possible. Since you have 25 feeds posting to this account, could you let me know which one the old posts came from, and I'll take a closer look. -
It's happened again!! This time it posted over a dozen OLD stories. This is getting ridiculous. What is causing this?
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Inappropriate?Hi, thanks for the response. The feeds that had old news posted unintentionally were:
1. http://feeds.feedburner.com/portsd-cvbmp
2. http://feeds2.feedburner.com/portsd-e...
3. http://feeds.feedburner.com/portsd-la...
4. http://feeds.feedburner.com/portsd-su...
BTW, the company has mentioned they are willing to pay subscription for reliable twitterfeed service with the hope that it may scrape the feeds in intervals less than 30 mins... hope that helps your evaluation of that idea...
I’m unsure
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Inappropriate?another old story just went out on Twitter and came from this feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/portsd-nevp
I deleted the actual tweet but saved a screenshot. I noticed that mavrev was used. In the event of a URL shortener going dead, does Twitterfeed check for previous posts with the same base URL before sending out the tweet?
I’m frustrated
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No, it just checks the shortened link, so you're right in that one level of checking won't work if the shortener used has changed. What I can't see at the moment is why it would have tried to post the item again though, if the pubDate hasn't changed - I just tried to process this feed manually for testing, and the pubDate check works as expected (i.e. it won't try to repost this newest item because its pubDate is not newer then the previously posted pubDate in this feed).
One thing to check (just in case) is that there are definitely no cross-posts in these 25 feeds? If the same item appeared in more than one feed, then it could be posted more than once, since the check only works on a per-feed basis, not a per-twitter account basis. -
Inappropriate?Hi Mario. There is no cross posting as each of these feeds comes from a different section of our website. In Joomla, articles cannot exist in more than one category in any given section. Could it have anything to do with Feedburner-based feeds? Each of the feeds from our site is fed through Feedburner. Unfortunately I couldn't spot anything wrong by looking at the raw XML that is output by Feedburner. It all looks normal.
I’m unsure
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It's very strange.. as I said, if you choose the "select by pubDate" option, the process goes something like...
- sort the items in the feed by pubDate
- for each item, compare its pubDate against the "last posted" value for this feed in twitterfeed (i.e. the pubDate of the newest item that has previously been posted to twitter)
- if the item is new (at least 1 second newer than "last posted"), compare the GUID (if present - I think your feeds may not have them), and if that GUID has been posted before, don't post the item even though it's new according to pubDate
- if the link is posted, shorten the link and compare it against previously posted links from that same feed, and don't post the item if that link was previously posted even if the item is new
As you mentioned, that last safeguard currently doesn't work if the URl shortener switches as it compares the shortened rather than the original links, but unless for some reason the pubDate value has changed in the feed, it should never really come to this.
One thing that you could try (but it's a lot of fuss) would be to keep a record of the exact pubDates in a feed, and then when an item is reposted, compare its current pubDate to what it was originally, just in case it was somehow changed. As I said, even a difference of 1 second can make it be treated as new, but typically pubDates are not updated at all, unless the item is edited, or a feed re-published with new dates. -
Inappropriate?I checked one of the stories that went out twice. The bit.ly shortener had some interesting info on the one story, which went out with two different shortened links from twitterfeed. Maybe it's Feedburner related?
I’m anxious
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The thing that's interesting is that the original (long) link appears to have changed. I'm not totally sure how feedburner works, but perhaps this is an indication that something has been re-published, and perhaps as part of that the pubDate was also changed (even if only slightly). I'm not saying this is definitely the case, but I wonder why there are 2 different feedburner links for this item..
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Inappropriate?As you know, Google transitioned the Feedburner service and moved it all under its domain. In bit.ly I've noticed that some links will come in with either feeds2.feedburner.com or feedproxy.google.com and I can't predict when this happens. According to Google, RSS still using feeds.feedburner.com will continue to work. I just don't understand why the feedproxy address kicks in occasionally. Is this somehow related?
I’m doubtful
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I'm not really sure, to be honest. If the links change, then the link check wouldn't necessarily work anymore (as twitterfeed wouldn't know that it has posted this link before), but as this is only the last check in the process, it should never get to this point unless the publish date timestamps have also changed.
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Inappropriate?Holy smokes it happened again! And it's getting weird. Six old stories went out over Twitterfeed. The bizarre thing is (“Spirit of Imperial Beach” Dedicated Could not connect to database. WTF?) and (Learn about the Port's Urban Trees via Your Phone Could not connect to database. WTF?) What service adds a "WTF" to an error message? How embarrassing for us!
Notice that mavrev and cli.gs are suddenly popping up. What's causing the rotation of URL shorteners and is there a way to not do anything if the main shortener is unavailable? We would rather that NOTHING go out than an alternative service blurting out obscenities.
I’m wholly embarrassed
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Hmm.. let me find out. Not sure which service that comes from, but once I know I can handle it - in this case it should just skip to the next shortener anyway, to try and get a link from a different shortener.
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Inappropriate?After searching on Google, it appears other customers have seen this and it may be from mavrev. If at all possible, we request that URL shortener NOT be used because silly error statements like that in people's tweets are very unprofessional and reflect badly on the publishers.
I’m frustrated
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I've contacted mavrev, and have also added some code to catch this return value and skip to a different shortener if this happens.
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Inappropriate?I've noticed that when I edit an old post with a link correction or to fix a typo, it will repost through Twitterfeed (I'm using Movable Type 4.23-en with: Professional Pack 1.21). Is there any way to prevent this from happening?
I’m confused
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twitterfeed checks a number of things before re-posting, so if at least one of these checks fails, then it shouldn't repost:
- checks the unqiue ID (GUID) of the item, if present
- check the shortened link of the item, if you choose to post the link to twitter
- checks the publish date (if present) against the newest previously posted item, and won't post the item unless its publish date is newer
Hope this helps.. -
Inappropriate?I have the same problem and none of those three conditions mentioned by Mario Menti are applicable.
I have lost followers because information was outdated and confusing, is there any other reason this might happen?
The only thing that seems to correlate to the times that the old content is re-posted is when a comment is left on that particular blog entry.
For now, I have deleted my feed from your site until I can get to the bottom of this.
I’m frustrated
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Could you let me know the feed URL you were using? It may be hard to diagnose now, but I can take a look - e.g. there are some feeds that contain new comments, but I guess you'd have checked that already..
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Inappropriate?Over a dozen posts from Twitterfeed went out today from really old stories... this is the third time in about a year this blitz of random old posts happened. Does anyone have a solution? I'm almost considering switching to HootSuite because of this unresolved nonsense. We even offered to pay Twitterfeed for a premium service. We're going to lose subscribers by the dozen today and our managers are breathing down our necks to explain why these headlines went out.
I’m frustrated, embarrassed, infuriated
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and today we tried to login to twitterfeed to somehow stop this flood and the site was down "We're sorry, but something went wrong.
We've been notified about this issue and we'll take a look at it shortly." -
Inappropriate?I'm having the same issue today. Twitterfeed published a bunch of old messages from my feed. Lots of people on Twitter are reporting the same issue. On top of that the Twitterfeed website appears to be down so I can't change my settings!
http://twitter.com/search?q=twitterfeed
http://mashable.com/2009/10/15/twitte...
I’m frustrated
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This solves the problem
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This is very embarassing for both my clients and myself. For now I have revoked Twitterfeed's access to my Twitter account and will be seeking out alternative services. There should be safeguards against errors like this.
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Inappropriate?Looks like this problem is now affecting the US Coast Guard twitter acct from TwitterFeed:
I’m suspicious, quickly losing confidence in this product
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Inappropriate?Happening to me to and documented here: http://mashable.com/2009/10/15/twitte...
I’m pissed
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Inappropriate?Apologies, this was an issue caused by some backend changes which weren't caught immediately - it meant that for some accounts, old posts were posted, if your feeds were being processed during this 10-15 minute period. The issue was quickly fixed - but apologies again to everyone.
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