Premium Podcast Problems

Hey all!

I’m trying to produce a secure podcast feed using s2member. The podcast feed lives in protected space (S3 in my case) and so do the files for the episodes. Everything works great using iTunes on my Mac, but iOS is another story all together.

I’ve managed to get podcast apps to access the RSS feed by including my username and password in the URL. However, none of them will download an episode. I have the links in various formats on my feed so I can try several, but none of them work. I think there’s a 401 error coming back, but I’m not sure. I’ve tried linking to the files specifically on S3, and I’ve tried linking to them on CloudFront. I’ve tried linking to them directly, and by including the queries in the URL. Nothing works. On iOS and Android. Like I said, it all works great on iTunes.

If any advice could be offered I’d really appreciate it.

As further information, I had to add the following to my .htaccess to get all of the podcasting stuff to work at all:

RewriteRule .* - [E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization},L]
RewriteRule .* - [E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization}]

I got that from here - https://github.com/symfony/symfony/issues/1813

Richard, as you’ve already discovered, GoDaddy really isn’t geared up for more advanced uses of WordPress. Yours is a prime case for moving to a different host who is.

Such as who? I always hear people telling me I need to get away from GoDaddy but they never say where I should go.

I use Lightningbase and strongly recommend them. That’s an affiliate link; if you don’t want to use it, just Google.

In probably the only true independent tests of such things that have been published on the web, Review Signal has consistently found Lightningbase to be the best or one of the best for both speed and reliability. Here’s a link to the 2016 tests: https://reviewsignal.com/blog/2016/09/14/25-month-wordpress-hosting-performance-benchmarks-2016/ You can look up their performance in previous years too, if you wish.

And their customer service is second to none.

I’m having trouble connecting my hosting provider to the source of this problem. Like I said, everything works fine in iTunes on my Mac. It’s just iOS that seems to have a problem.

I’ve just found this exact same reply in a post from over a year ago. Are you actually offering help or are you trying to sell some hosting services? Now this is all just a discussion about GoDaddy and I’m not even slightly close to solving my problem.

Have you counted my replies in this forum? Try doing so.

Now count how many times I’ve recommended Lightningbase. I won’t get very rich, will I?

Now tell me how many times I’ve reported a problem with my files not opening in six years of using s2Member, and compare that to your experience.

Finally, please explain why those who did switch to Lightningbase haven’t come back to complain that they are having problems.

Yes but I’m no closer to a solution and you haven’t offered an explanation about the problem. Please can you leave me alone and leVe room for somebody who can help me.

Sure. But next time don’t complain when you ask for information (e.g. host) and the person whom you asked provides it. You won’t get anyone helping you if you do that again.

1 Like

You’re basically saying that the reason this feature won’t work is simply that I’m hosted on GoDaddy. No further explanation so I can’t do anything to attemp to fixit, and I don’t even know what to look out for with any other potential hosting provider. Plus, given the popularity of GoDaddy as a host, wouldn’t you think that people would want to know if a feature of s2member has no chance of working? How many s2member users are with GoDaddy? Have they all run into the same problem as me? Shouldn’t there be some sort of explanation as to what’s wrong?

So do you want me to respond to you or not? Please make up your mind.

Surely now you’re just trolling me. I’ll start a new post and ask again.

You really are more concerned to be right than to be helped, aren’t you?

You ask for details about a host, then complain when you get the answer.

You ask me to stop responding, which I say I’ll happily do. Then you ask me a question! If that’s not trolling, I don’t know what is! So I asked if you seriously wanted me to answer, and then you complain about that!

Ok. I have no where else to turn so I’ll ask you the question. What is it about godaddy hosting that makes it impossible to use this feature of s2member?

I don’t know (not that I claimed to know) that it is impossible to use with GoDaddy because I am not privy to how they have their infrastructure set up. What I do know is that GoDaddy disables by default many features that are important for more advanced uses of WordPress.

I also know that asking their support reps to investigate is almost always a waste of time. (Yes, I do have direct experience of that, but you can try for yourself.) Even telling them what they need to do in order to make something work is typically akin to beating one’s head against a wall. For that reason, I now refuse to work on any site that is hosted with them unless and until it is moved somewhere else.

A good managed WP host, on the other hand, will help you identify any problem and then resolve it for you if it’s at their end, because they specialize in hosting WordPress. GoDaddy doesn’t: it would much prefer you to use its own in-house web-builder.

That’s why, as you said before, others have told you to move from GoDaddy. But Lightningbase isn’t the only managed WP host around (and GoDaddy isn’t the only problematic host). You could always try a managed WP host for a month – most offer money-back offers – and then see what you think.

I’m sorry but that’s not even close to being a good enough answer for me to undertake something as massive as moving hosting provider, on the off chance that they don’t do whatever mystery thing godaddy do. Neither you or I know if this problem is in any way related to my host, you’ve just read godaddy and decided that it is. I’m used to it. Whenever I’ve looked for help on a forum, I always have to wade through the initial load of godaddy blaming posts. They never have been a problem, it’s like asking for help with an AMD graphics card. You’ve just got to put up with all the people who tell you to buy an Nvidia card before anyone is interested in helping you.

You have no need to be sorry, just as I have no need (or desire) to persuade you to do something you don’t want to do.

I’ve just finished moving my site to a new host. I’m now with UK2.net. They aren’t running PHP in an odd way like GoDaddy, and I’m now running PHP 7 instead of 5.6.

I haven’t had to make any changes to my .htaccess file to get the remote auth to work like I did with GoDaddy.

Hasn’t solved my problem. Turns out that whatever mystery thing GoDaddy do to make this not work, UK2 also do. Of course I have no idea what that might be, so I don’t know. It’s almost as if it’s a problem with something else.

I’ve just found the server scanner page, which will allow you to test if your server is compatible with s2member. You’d think that would be a good thing to get people to try before you just blame their server and try to get them to move. For the record, the GoDaddy shows up as totally compatible.