Comments on: Stop the repetition!

Question: Stop the repetition!

serazin — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 09:42:01 -0800

My blog seems to be 'reposting' its feed regularly. Why, and how do I stop it? I read a number of blogs through Live Journal's syndication mechanism and periodically, they seem to 'resyndicate' a million posts from a particular blog. That is, I see a dozen old posts all at once as if they were brand new. I've always assumed that this happens if the blog owner somehow edits old posts, and although I know that can happen (I check my own blog through the LJ syndication, and have seen specific individual old posts reappear if I edit them), yesterday my entire blog 'reposted', and I hadn't changed anything at all. My blog is hosted by blogger.

I use LJ as a feed reader because it gives me access to some real-life friend's 'locked' private entries.

There is nothing on the help pages of either Blogger or LiveJournal that explains this issue.

My questions:
1) Why is this happening?
2) Does this problem happen with other feed-readers?
3) How can I stop this from happening?
4) Or, at the least, is the problem located with my blog (on blogger) or with the LJ's syndication function?

Thanks!

By: chrisamiller

chrisamiller — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 09:48:04 -0800

2) Does this problem happen with other feed-readers?

Yes. Sometimes, as you suspect, it's because they edited/republished an entry. Other times it happens for no reason that I can discern.

I use Bloglines, FWIW

By: mjgrady

mjgrady — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 10:21:48 -0800

I used to use Netvibes as my reader, and this happened almost daily, for several different sites. I switched to Google Reader a few months ago, and the problem almost vanished - there is still one particular site where this issue pops up, albeit far more rarely than before.

I have no clue what causes this problem, but it certainly seems to hit most if not all readers.

By: almostmanda

almostmanda — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 12:30:58 -0800

With Bloglines, you can choose whether or not to display "updated" articles in the feed reader (it's an option when you first add the feed). Maybe look into the LJ options and see if you can turn it off?

By: Good Brain

Good Brain — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 13:18:47 -0800

I don't know what is causing this problem in your specific instance. It could be that livejournal is forgetting the last modified times or GUIDs on RSS items they have already retrieved. It could be that blogger is changing the GUID or last modified times on items that haven't actually changed.

One thing though. If you use a desktop RSS reader, there is a way to login to live journal so you can get protected feeds from your friends. Check the help. Unfortunately this isn't much good with online feedreaders since they don't support handling HTTP auth for private feeds (nor am I convinced that they should).

By: serazin

serazin — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 14:22:17 -0800

Thanks everyone. Unfortunately, my concern is mostly that other readers will see my blog posts a million times than that I have to look at other people's blogs multiple times, if that makes sense.

I'll keep digging.

By: squink

squink — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 14:30:58 -0800

I just unsubscribed from Zeldman for this reason. I am using NewsFire on a Mac. His feed constantly resets itself in my reader. Not sure why.