Bug 150175

Summary:	slashdot main atom feed weirdness
Product:	[Applications] akregator	Reporter:	Joe <joe>
Component:	general	Assignee:	kdepim bugs <kdepim-bugs>
Status:	RESOLVED INTENTIONAL
Severity:	normal
Priority:	NOR
Version:	unspecified
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	unspecified
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed In:

Description Joe 2007-09-25 03:49:22 UTC

Version:           unknown (using KDE 3.5.6, Kubuntu (feisty) 4:3.5.6-0ubuntu14.1)
Compiler:          Target: i486-linux-gnu
OS:                Linux (i686) release 2.6.20-16-386

When trying to add the atom feed for the Slashdot main feed from http://slashdot.org/faq/feeds.shtml#fe100 I instead get the <bold>RSS</bold> feed for the section of the most recent article... for example I add the main feed, but instead get the rss feed "http://rss.slashdot.org/Slashdot/slashdotPolitics"

I am not sure what is happening or why, but it seems like it must be related to the reader, as I would imagine that slashdot readers would be in an uproar if it was the site... they are a finicky group.

I have tried manually adding the feed by pasting "http://rss.slashdot.org/Slashdot/slashdotatom" into the url box, and the same thing happens.  If I edit an existing feed and correct the url to "http://rss.slashdot.org/Slashdot/slashdotatom", I get an error symbol when I try to fetch the feed.

Any suggestions would be welcome... slashdot's RSS 0.9 feed seems not to update as frequently as I would like, and their RSS 1.0 feed doesn't include the articles with the headlines... so I would like to see if the ATOM feed meets my expectations.

Thanks!

Comment 1 Eckhart Wörner 2007-09-26 00:13:21 UTC

Actually it's quite funny what's going on:
- Akregator tries to read http://rss.slashdot.org/Slashdot/slashdotatom and fails, as this is in fact no valid Atom feed at all (this is the main reason everything goes wrong, so blame Slashdot)
- Akregator assumes the page being HTML and tries to find a <link rel="alternate"> element, but fails as there's no such link in the "HTML"
- Akregator now tries brute force method and search for <a href=""> elements where the URL ends on RSS, XML or RDF - and finds one, e.g. http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/25/0037241&from=rss (*)
- Akregator tests whether that page is a valid feed and fails (as this is an HTML page)
- Akregator now (correctly) assumes the page being HTML and tries to find a feed inside, and finds http://rss.slashdot.org/Slashdot/slashdotPolitics (*)

When you manually try to change an existing feed the process stops after the first step.

(*) Not that it's just a coincidence that you get the politics feed - that depends on the latest headline (which provides the first <a href=""> in the feed)

Comment 2 Eckhart Wörner 2007-09-26 00:18:35 UTC

Closed it for now, it's not Akregator's fault. ;-)