RSS Code Showing in Firefox 3.5.2

XML code showing in browser window

[Ann_G]

I have a RSS feed people can subscribe to on my website. It works fine in Internet Explorer and certain versions of Firefox, but with the latest Firefox (5.2.3) the RSS entries do not show but instead the xml code comes up. Does anyone know what could cause this? I know the code is correct. Any feedback is very much appreciated.

[bill]

You say that you know the code is correct. I assume you mean that you have validated your RSS [validator.w3.org].

The first thing that would come to mind is invalid code of some sort. Is your install of FF 3.5.2 having trouble with other feeds as well, or is it just this particular feed?

[Ann_G]

I ran it through the validator and it passed. The validator said this: "This feed is valid, but interoperability with the widest range of feed readers could be improved by implementing the following recommendations." And then it says I should change the mime type because feeds should not be served with the "text/plain" media type. I haven't done that yet (not knowing exactly what to change it to) but I don't think that will solve the problem since I'm not viewing the feed in a feed reader.
This is the only feed I have on my site. It was working until I upgraded to Mozilla Firefox 3.5.2.
Thanks for the tip on using validator. And many thanks for responding.

[bill]

These days a browser can be a feed reader as well. Opera has had that built in for years. Newer browsers these days will display a feed using their own formatting. That's another type of feed reader.

What version of RSS are you using? How are you generating this feed?

[Ann_G]

I use rss version="2.0" and RSS DreamFeeder to generate the RSS feeds. It's Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 version 9.

[bill]

I'm not familiar with that tool. It does look like it has a lot of feature options that would let you fine tune your feed though.

Why not take the validator's advice and address the MIME type issue?

Another option might be to generate an Atom feed instead of RSS with the same tool. When I hand code I use RSS by habit, but if I have a tool that will generate a feed for me I'll often go with Atom. It has a bit more functionality available compared to RSS.

[encyclo]

it says I should change the mime type because feeds should not be served with the "text/plain" media type. I haven't done that yet (not knowing exactly what to change it to) but I don't think that will solve the problem

It will solve the problem. You need to use the mime type

[b]application/rss+xml[/b]

for RSS 2.0 feeds - the details of how to achieve this depend on your server environment (the problem is a result of a server misconfiguration).

[Ann_G]

I believe that's might be the problem. I'll let you know how it works out. Thank you so very much.

[Ann_G]

You were right. I accessed my server account and it had an area where you could add user defined mime types. I entered the mime type, application/rss+xml and then was asked for an extension so I inputted .rss. It worked. Now the feed in regular text comes up and not the code.
You saved me a lot of headache. Many thanks!