Brief no longer updates feeds
I updated brief about a week ago (maybe a bit less) when automatically prompted to do so. After this update I noted that all my feeds no longer had a checkmark next to 'Check for updates every ...' in Properties. It was somewhat annoying to go through them all and click that checkmark, but it only needed to be done once. A much more serious problem is that none of my feeds updates automatically now. I can manually go through each feed and tell it to update and it will, but obviously that defeats the purpose of RSS; if I have to do it manually I may as well visit the website. In short, I think this is a very serious bug, just short of crashing in the list of serious problems. I do not think I am the only person to observe this, as there's currently a negative review on the top of the list complaining of just this issue.
I am using Firefox 3.5.3 on OS X 10.4.11 and Brief 1.2.3.
Re: Brief no longer updates feeds
http://brief.mozdev.org/drupal/node/451
http://brief.mozdev.org/drupal/node/541
Anything in these two threads of help to you?
=====
Moderator of Brief's Forums
E-mail - Site
Re: Brief no longer updates feeds
I do not think so.
The first thread involves a situation where some feeds are updating and others are not, caused by either feed errors or automatic checking being turned off. I have 30+ feeds, all of which were working prior to the Brief update (and no longer work), and all of which find new content if I go to the individual feed and click on 'Update feed'. I think this rules out feed errors. As I mentioned, with this Brief update, all the 'Check for updates' boxes became unchecked. When I noticed this, I went through and manually rechecked them all, but this did not solve the issue. I naturally also checked the main setting, where feeds are scheduled to be checked hourly. This is exactly as it was.
The second thread deals with feeds not being visible in the left sidebar. All my feeds still appear in the left sidebar. Therefore this does not describe the symptoms I am experiencing with Brief.
Re: Brief no longer updates feeds
Oh either I wasn't clear enough or you misunderstood me. Sure the problems listed in those threads are different from yours, but the troubleshooting steps offered in those threads can apply to your problem (things like trying a new profile to see if you have conflicts in the original profile). Just try out the general Brief troubleshooting mentioned in those threads. If they don't work, then we'll try specific troubleshooting (if it's possible).
=====
Moderator of Brief's Forums
E-mail - Site
Re: Brief no longer updates feeds
I know that at least one feed is valid for certain, as I maintain it and tested it with the w3c validator when I created it (and I have not modified the code). I tested about 5 feeds I am subscribed to and was informed that they were valid. This is what I expected, as (a) the feeds all worked before I updated Brief, and (b) the feeds can all be manually updated. It seems much more like a problem related to updating feeds than with the feeds themselves, both because of the timing of the problem and the fact that manual updates are successful. The only other potential source of the problem I can think of is an Apple security update which was applied around the same time; nothing else has been modified in the time period. (I suppose it is possible that the security update could have blocked certain types of automated outgoing connections, but this is pure speculation--since Brief was updated as well it seems a more likely source of the problem.)
If I delete a feed and then add it again I need to manually update it for the articles to appear. When said feed is set to update every 5 minutes and new content has indeed been created, a manual update is required to see the content. In short, deleted and re-added feeds behave exactly like the existing feeds. When I added a totally new feed, it did appear with articles visible; I cannot say at this point whether it updates because there has been no new content.
That pretty much exhausts the suggestions in the first post. As for the second post, I should make my position clear. I'm not interested in trying to fix "my problem." I don't care if my installation of Brief works or not. I'm interested in discovering what went wrong: why did this happen? I'm not the only person it happened to. I don't want to come up with a complicated work-around which involves uninstalling and reinstalling and so on because most people won't bother to read these instructions or apply them, they'll just install different RSS readers.
Re: Brief no longer updates feeds
While I have nothing substantive to add to this thread, I'd just like to add my voice, as I'm having similar troubles. None of my feeds on Brief are automatically updating. With a manual refresh, new content is showing up fine, but even though I have it set to check the feeds every 5 minutes, no new content is appearing.
Re: Brief no longer updates feeds
By any chance do you have your Live Bookmarks set to automatically refresh? If no or you're unsure, then you should get an extension called LiveClick. It has the ability to automatically refresh all your Live Bookmarks at a general interval you decide on (though again -- it's all or nothing with this).
There's another catch though: Just like Brief may cause some slowdown in the middle of checking feeds for items, LiveClick may add to that checking Live Bookmarks for new items. So even if you pass on LiveClick, manually reloading the Live Bookmarks on your own or trying about:config to tell Firefox to do it for you will still cause some slowdown while checking is going on.
Also LiveClick has some RSS feed reader features of it's own, but if you wish to use it with Brief, you may want to turn those RSS reading features off in LiveClick.
=====
Moderator of Brief's Forums
E-mail - Site
Re: Brief no longer updates feeds
But that doesn't deal with the core problem. That means I'll download another extension to provide functionality that Brief already has, or did have until I updated recently. One of the reasons I decided to use Brief originally was due to its ability to automatically check feeds. And now, for some uspecified reason, one of the core features of the program has stopped working. Sure, it can be worked around by piling more bloat onto Firefox, but that hardly seems to help matters.
Re: Brief no longer updates feeds
I have updated to Brief 1.2.4 and the problem persists. However, I have observed that if I quit Firefox and restart it, Brief will refresh my feeds (just once; each time I want to refresh them all I must restart Firefox).
Re: Brief no longer updates feeds
Hi AE3nn.
It's difficult to fix the problem when I can't experience it myself. I could reverse the changes to updating, which were made between 1.2.1 and 1.2.2, but they were necessary to fix another bug. It's not a good option and I need to figure out the real cause.
It would be very helpful if you provided me with the list of your feeds. If you are willing to do it, please export them using the Brief's options window and send the file to ancestor (at) o2 (dot) pl.
ancestor,
creator of Brief
Re: Brief no longer updates feeds
Hi,
I have exactly the same problem. When I start Firefox then Brief updates RSS-feeds. But only once. Then I need to update manually. I think this started two versions ago. Latest update didn't make things better.
I have latest Firefox with latest Brief running on Mac OS X 10.6.1
- Aksu
Re: Brief no longer updates feeds
Aksu, have you tried a new profile with nothing but Brief and a few Live Bookmarks? This is to check and see if perhaps add-ons are conflicting with Brief in your original profile.
=====
Moderator of Brief's Forums
E-mail - Site
Re: Brief no longer updates feeds
Hi,
I created new profile. Added some feeds - worked just fine. Imported my original full feed. Still worked nicely.
Went to original profile, disabled all the other add-ons. Didn't work. Uninstalled and then installed Brief - still don't work. Which files should I manually delete to completely uninstall Brief if try one more fresh install? As it seems that uninstalling from Firefox don't delete all the files.
- Aksu
Re: Brief no longer updates feeds
Hi,
I noticed that in the new profile when feeds where updated the blue progress line went away. With my normal profile blue progress bar stays in approx 95% and never goes away even though it went through all the feeds and updated them. And this happens when I launh Firefox as it don't updates feeds after first round. I guess Brief thinks it is still updating feeds and that's it can't start new update when old update is still in progress.
- Aksu
Re: Brief no longer updates feeds
Hi,
I exported my RSS feeds from Brief. Then deleted all the feed bookmarks from Firefox. Imported again using Brief and now updating feeds work again automatically. Strange thing. All the Firefox Add-Ons are enabled like before.
- Aksu
Re: Brief no longer updates feeds
As requested, I've sent you an export of my feeds. Please check to ensure that it didn't get caught in your spam filter; topic is 'Brief feeds'.
Re: Brief no longer updates feeds
Hi All,
Well after 2 weeks Brief stopped updating the feeds again. Haven't added/removed any feeds and the symptoms are exactly like I wrote above.
Anyone interested about this bug? I think I have made my share of testing but haven't had any feedback?
- Aksu
I also have this problem.
Exactly the same for me, I'm using Mac OS X 10.4.11. None of my feeds are working now.