How To Fix RSS Feed Errors In WordPress?

RSS feeds on your website are used to assist readers in subscribing to your blog via news reader applications. Publishing RSS feeds is done via the XML markup language. A single error in the stream might render it illegible as a whole. This means that users of your website won’t be able to see the information in their news feeds that they have subscribed to.

Your website’s content updates are accessed by other programs through your RSS feeds. For example, IFTTT would also cease to function if you were using it to share your content on social media.

This post explains the reasons of WordPress RSS feed issues and how to repair them quickly. Continue reading…

The Most Common WordPress RSS Feed Errors:

The most frequently occurring and common RSS feed errors are caused due to poor formatting. The RSS feed outputs are implemented through XML in WordPress and XML is a markup language. If there is a missing line, a line break or an extra tab, the RSS feed can break completely.

You will come across the following RSS feed error:

XML Parsing Error: XML or text declaration not at start of entity

Location: http://example.com/feed

Line Number 2, Column 1:

Your RSS feed error message might vary in accordance with the browser that you are using. You can also view this error message when you view your feed in the browser.

Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at /home/username/example.com/wp-content/themes/twentysixteen/functions.php:433) in /home/username/example.com/wp-includes/pluggable.php on line 1228

If you make use of ‘FeedBurner’, then you will get different error messages.

Now let’s have a look at the causes of RSS feed errors and solutions for fixing them:

As was previously indicated, the most frequent reason for RSS feed failures is improper formatting. Incorrect formatting resulting from the function.php file formatting in your theme or from a plugin that leaves a blank space after a PHP closing tag.

You need to verify and make changes to your functions file once again if you have added any code snippets to either your theme or the functions.php file of the child theme.

If your functions file has a closing PHP tag at the end, make sure there isn’t a line break or more space following it.

Ideally, there is no need to have a closing PHP tag at the end of your functions file. It is recommended to remove the closing php tag completely.

This will fix the issue in most of the cases; however after doing this if you still encounter RSS feed errors then read further…

Disable The Plugins Related To RSS Feeds

If you have installed any WordPress plugin that automatically modifies the RSS feed of your website or if it creates a new RSS feed, then you must disable this plugin.

If you are not sure about which plugin is causing the RSS feed error, then you can temporarily disable all the WordPress plugins.

Your next step is to analyze your RSS feed for the error. If the error is not shown anymore, then the cause of the error was one of the plugins that you are using.

Now that the error has disappeared, you can activate all your plugins again. However, make sure that you activate the plugins one by one and simultaneously keep checking on your RSS feeds after activating every plugin. In this way you will be able to determine the exact plugin that was causing the RSS feed error.

Once you find out the respective plugin, you can get in touch with the plugin’s support team for an update or you can use an alternative plugin that does not cause any RSS feed error.

Switch To A Default Theme Temporarily

Your website’s RSS feeds may be impacted by a badly written WordPress theme feature. You need to revert back to the default WordPress theme in order to see if your theme is the source of the issue.

You must enable the default theme by going to Appearance > Themes for this.

Twenty Nineteen, Twenty Seventeen, Twenty Sixteen, and so forth are among the default themes. If your website doesn’t already have a default theme, you’ll need to install and activate it by clicking the “Add New” option.

Once you switch to the default theme, check your WordPress RSS feed for any error. You can check your feed in a browser window or you can test it through a feed validation tool.

If the error is not shown, then it means that it was caused due to your WordPress theme. You can contact the creator of the theme for support or you can opt for a new theme for your website.