Google Reader doesn't properly read the feed that I programmed, with my programming

Question

(I previously asked this question which was somehow considered more applicable to superuser, and after it was migrated there, it was closed as not applying to superuser. Let me make it clear up front, then, that I'm asking if the feed that I have created in php, with a program written by me, has some problem with Google Reader. Or if Google Reader has some special requirements of which I, as a programmer, using php, should be aware. While I'm programming.)

I have two sites with RSS feeds. In each site, I gather the data and then pass it off to a simple formatter I wrote that does the work of creating the RSS format, so each site is essentially using the same code to generate the feed.

I subscribe to both of them in Google Reader. One (scribs) works fine, but the other (amusing.org) doesn't. It shows the most recent update as Nov 7 2009, and somehow the most recent updates (jan 22 and previous) get stacked up behind Oct 31 2009. As such, it never shows that the feed has updated.

Both feeds validate through Feed Validator, and just eyeballing it, all the dates and formats look right to me, but I can't work out where the problem is.

The feed that works: http://scribs.us/feed.php
The feed that doesn't: http://www.amusing.org/feed.php

Answer 1

FeedValidator is what you want to be using to diagnose many feed problems.

Try fixing these issues (first feed):

This feed is valid, but interoperability with the widest range of feed readers could be improved by implementing the following recommendations.

line 113, column 412: description should not contain relative URL references: /?c=170 [help]

... t;border:none 0px;" /></a></description> ^ line 118, column 4: Missing atom:link with rel="self" [help]

</channel>

And this one (second feed):

This feed is valid, but interoperability with the widest range of feed readers could be improved by implementing the following recommendations.

line 138, column 4: Missing atom:link with rel="self" [help]

</channel>

I would find out if once you fix those warnings, the errors persist.

That said, is it possible that you're dealing with a sorting issue inside Google Reader? There are options at the client end to sort by different criteria. The view you're looking at may be off?

Answer 2

If you hover over the date on an item in Reader you'll see a mouseover that shows a "Received" date and a "Published" date. The "Received" date is when Reader first saw that item while crawling your feed. The "Published" date comes from the feed itself.

Taking a look at the item with guid == "http://www.amusing.org/?1308" ("What happens outside of Vegas...") Reader claims it first "received" that item on Nov 5, but shows the Published date as Jan 29. Since you say this item really was published on Jan 29, and since Reader's crawler doesn't use time travel (you'll have to trust me on that one... :-) ), my guess is that this item is reusing the guid of some other item in that feed that Reader crawled on Nov 5. Is it possible that your system is somehow reusing old guids?

If you need more help, you might want to try asking in the Google Reader Help Forums.