RSS Not Loading Properly
I have a RSS widget running but it only works some times. It will load for a bit then will just go blank. No specific amount of time, just happens. I've tried a few feeds for our local news such as http://rss.cbc.ca/lineup/canada-hamiltonnews.xml and also https://news.google.com/news/rss/search/section/q/Hamilton%20Ontario/Hamilton%20Ontario?hl=en-CA&...
I understand that the first isn't valid according to the W3 validator but the second is(with some recommendations), so I don't think that's the issue.
I've also tried fiddling with the time of the widget changing from PUD to different times to maybe help it refresh but it doesn't seem to work.
Any suggestions?
I understand that the first isn't valid according to the W3 validator but the second is(with some recommendations), so I don't think that's the issue.
I've also tried fiddling with the time of the widget changing from PUD to different times to maybe help it refresh but it doesn't seem to work.
Any suggestions?
-
Hi BayBrook,
Since the first RSS feed doesn't validate, let's eliminate that from the mix. The second does validate, but one of the recommendations is that is has a security concern for potentially dangerous content. This could be where you're running into the issue. Rise Player itself isn't blocking this content, but there are many variables in the mix that could be, like your network, or permissions on the Media Player itself.
Could you try testing with this feed? https://www.nasa.gov/rss/dyn/breaking_news.rss This is one of the feeds that we use for testing of the RSS Widget. We'd like to know if that one loads 100% of the time.
Thanks. -
No, it doesn't load in the preview either.
http://preview.risevision.com/?type=presentation&id=722d9ca2-7cbf-4da0-9f4f-efc741cd0ae8 -
I do not see anything of RSS. Is this ticker style RSS feed? I do not use it myself, but from what I have learned in the past when was testing this option... there were publishing issues with larger fonts. RSS ticker was not working with the larger font size, reducing the size solved this problem. That was months ago, not sure if this problem has been addressed since then. Also, the height of the placeholder and the font size is relevant here. -
OK, so I am testing that initial RSS feed and it is working for me, no matter what font size: http://preview.risevision.com/?type=presentation&id=49921362-ef87-42fa-9975-fcc7b8bad401&sho...
Like Blake has said, it can be network/device problem or something silly as leaving RSS placeholder blocked by the content with higher Z-order value -
BayBrook,
Your RSS placeholder is only 50 pixels high. That would explain why only some of the content from the other feeds is showing up, and nothing from the NASA feed is appearing. The placeholder is not big enough to display 100% of the content that is being served by the RSS Widget.
The RSS Widget is not a "responsive" Widget. Meaning it won't automatically resize content to fit the placeholder. If an RSS Feed serves an article that contains an image (which almost all of the NASA feed does) nothing will appear because the placeholder is too small.
From the design of the Presentation, it looks like you're expecting the RSS Widget to serve up content like a Ticker, horizontally scrolling to the left. Unfortunately that's not possible with the RSS Widget at this time. -
Blake, well that is weird thing to hear from you. I just tried and posted the preview that contradicts what you are saying. I can tell that ticker style scrolling left IS possible with the RSS Widget layout IS at least partially responsive because no matter how large font size I set, it will 'make' itself fit within the placeholder boundries. In that particular example the font size is 72px in H80px placeholder. -
OK, I need to correct myself. Blake and I were right. I increased the font size to crazy 120px and the RSS stopped publishing. However, it was still publishing at 96px font size, which made the bottom portion disappear already. So RSS is not adoptable, and it will stop publishing when the font size is extremely too large for a placeholder.
Currently I was able to fit 96px font size into 80px high placeholder http://preview.risevision.com/?type=presentation&id=49921362-ef87-42fa-9975-fcc7b8bad401&sho... -
Darius, Baybrook,
Sorry about that. I completely forgot about the update made to the RSS Widget some time ago that DOES allow ticker type of functionality. I see you have that set up My mistake and apologies!
I'm taking a look at the Presentation now. I think there may be an issue with displaying certain types of feeds with the scrolling left transition. I'll report back my findings. Thanks for providing the URL! -
It looks like the problem involves selecting Scroll direction left, and show full description. When both are selected, only certain stories will display. I assume this is because there is less content on some stories rather than others. If I select show description snippet, and set the character length at 120, all of the stories show, but their entire text doesn't show up.
I have a little bit of testing to do, but I will likely log a defect for our developers on this problem. I'm not certain if this is a defect or simply a constraint of this setup. I'll report back when I find out more.
For now, I'm done testing with your Presentation. Thanks for being a guinea pig! -
After further investigation, the RSS Widget while set to scroll to the left will only support "Show Description Snippet" up to 211 characters. Anything above 211 characters will result in nothing showing.
I think this explains why your original feeds were only sometimes working. Some of those stories are less than 211 characters. The ones with more than 211 would not render.
I'm going to log a defect for the developers to investigate. Again, I'm not sure if this is something that can be fixed at this time, but I'll report back with their findings! -
I did a bit of testing myself in relation to the font size. It's almost like its the total size of the text is what's stopping it. I'll try to explain. - Change dimensions to 1920 width & 400 height - Still didn't work.
- I chopped the description down to 120 characters - Worked
- Bumped the font sizes up a lot (72 px header, 48 px desc and left 14px for time/author) - Stopped working
- Kept the fonts large but put the max items in queue from 10 to 2 - Worked
-
BayBrook,
It looks like we had a similar issue logged some time back. https://github.com/Rise-Vision/widget-rss/issues/83
Our developer confirmed that the max width/height of canvas in Chrome is 32,767 pixels. It's possible that the amount of stories in the RSS feed, combined with the amount of characters in each story is much larger than the 32,767 pixels, which would cause this error.
They have not responded to the new defect I have logged yet, but in the meantime, I would suggest limiting description snippet to 211. -
BayBrook,
I would say it's unlikely that this could be causing a Media Player to freeze.
I've spoken with the developers and at this time it's a matter of the maximum width/height in Chrome. They recommend you either display snippets, or instead cut your queue down from 10 to a lower number of stories. You may find a magic number that works for the RSS Feed that you use by tinkering with this number.
Thanks.
Please sign in to leave a comment.
Comments
16 comments