Feedburner Not Working? Get Rid Of This Problem Once And For All In 5 Minutes (Or Less)!

Hi dear subscribers! You didn’t get my previous (extremely interesting) post: How To Enjoy The Early Days Of Blogging Even When It Sucks, delivered in your inbox because my FeedBurner was not working properly.

FeedBurner not working… really?

Yes, even stuff from the mighty Google can mess up. Not their fault though.

To monitor such issues, I’ve also subscribed to Writers Blog.

When I didn’t get the email, I knew there’s something fishy. I checked my RSS feed and discovered that FeedBurner is not updating it.

After a little probing, I realized it’s a common problem. So I wanted to share the solution with you. In case you ever face it, you would already know what to do.

What caused this issue?

The culprit here is usually any of the two famous caching plugins meant to speed up your WordPress site: W3 Total Cache or WP Super Cache (I use and recommend Super Cache wordpress plugin for writers).

What to do when FeedBurner not updating ?

Follow below given steps to resolve this matter:

Delete the cache

The first thing you need to do is clear your cache from the WP dashboard’s home.

Clearing Cache

When I tried to clear the cache, I came across another problem:

Error: Your cache directory (/public_html/blog/wp-content/cache/) or (public_html/blog/wp-content need to be writable for this plugin to work. Double-check it.

Cannot continue… fix previous problems and retry

To get rid of this problem, you need an FTP client program (I use and recommend FileZilla). Using your FTP client, open wp-content which contains the cache directory. Right click on ‘cache’ folder and choose File Permissions.

You need to edit the Numeric Value field: current value will be 755 (read only), change it to 777 (read, write).

Now go back to your WP dashboard and clear the cache.

Mistakenly, in addition to updating the permission settings of cache folder, I changed the permissions of wp-content to 777 also.

Thanks to the intelligent plugin, it quickly gave a warning that wp-content should not be writeable i.e. 777. So I changed it back to 755.

Pinging your RSS feed

Browse to your FeedBurner control panel, click Troubleshootize and then click “pinging FeedBurner”. Key in the RSS feed address  in the “Web site address” field and strike Ping FeedBurner.

Check your RSS Feed, it should be updated now.

Still the feed not updated?

If your feed isn’t still updated, its’ time to try the so-called “Nuclear Option”!

Scroll the Troubleshootize page all the way down and click on “Resync Now” button.

The Nuclear Option

As per FeedBurner, Resync actually:

Clears our cached version and refreshes its content from your Original Feed

Creates podcast enclosures for items that did not previously have them and contain links to podcast content

Reports any feed formatting problems encountered during the resync

How to avoid “FeedBurner Not Working” in future

Two steps can ensure you won’t encounter this nuisance ever again:

1. Go to your WP caching plugin settings and uncheck the option to “Cache Feed”.
2. Open your FeedBurner control panel, click on Publicize, then hit Ping Shot and activate this service.
   It will update your RSS feed as soon as you publish something new. Normally, it’s updated every 30 minutes.

Have you really got yourself off the hook?

Just publish a test post to see if your Feed is instantly updated or not. If it isn’t, drop a line in the comments and let’s see how to get it fixed.

Please share this post with others who use FeedBurner to syndicate their content.