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Feed/iTunes question

HMTKSteveHMTKSteve
edited January 2007 in Everything Else
Why does iTunes often go back in the feed and download shows from months ago?

Hard drive space is at a premium for me and I have walked away from my computer after deleting all of the recently listened to podcasts to find it downloading all of the shows from Sept-Oct and complaining about disk space being low!!!

Comments

  • AprecheApreche
    Why does iTunes often go back in the feed and download shows from months ago?

    Hard drive space is at a premium for me and I have walked away from my computer after deleting all of the recently listened to podcasts to find it downloading all of the shows from Sept-Oct and complaining about disk space being low!!!
    Everyone has this same problem with iTunes, including me. It seems to not have anything to do with the podcast or the feed. It's just iTunes not being perfect. This is why I configure iTunes to not download new episodes automatically. I tell it to only download something if I click the "get" button. The only other fix is to use something besides iTunes.
  • SailSail
    Wow. I never have this problem. Ever.
  • navelfluffnavelfluff
    Everyone has this same problem with iTunes, including me. It seems to not have anything to do with the podcast or the feed. It's just iTunes not being perfect.
    I have the same problem with Juice. If it's not a problem with the feeds, there is probably a weakness in the RSS technology that is difficult to deal with.
  • AprecheApreche
    Everyone has this same problem with iTunes, including me. It seems to not have anything to do with the podcast or the feed. It's just iTunes not being perfect.
    I have the same problem with Juice. If it's not a problem with the feeds, there is probably a weakness in the RSS technology that is difficult to deal with.
    There's really nothing wrong with RSS that could cause this type of problem. RSS is just a list of items in XML. A feed reader reads this list and it is up to that reader to remember which items it has already seen. Unless you change items in your feed, which we don't, then old items suddenly appearing as new can only be the fault of the feed reading software.
  • tuttle88tuttle88
    It is annoying. It means you have to read the date carefully before you download.
  • Hitman HartHitman Hart
    Something weird happened with me and Juice too. I had moved a ton of episodes off my computer to my external hard drive, and then one day it decided to go and check all the episodes for download that weren't on the computer, whereas it usually only picks the new ones. Also, the feeds have become corrupted, and episodes from one podcast are becoming mixed into others. I hate it because I haven't found another podcatcher I like as well as Juice.
  • AprecheApreche
    Yeah, this issue with shitty podcatchers it sort of a problem. There really just aren't any good ones. Maybe it's finally time for me to make one.
  • HMTKSteveHMTKSteve
    Yeah, this issue with shitty podcatchers it sort of a problem. There really just aren't any good ones. Maybe it's finally time for me to make one.
    I was just thinking the same thing! It should not be that hard to write one.
  • AprecheApreche
    Yeah, this issue with shitty podcatchers it sort of a problem. There really just aren't any good ones. Maybe it's finally time for me to make one.
    I was just thinking the same thing! It should not be that hard to write one.
    It's harder than you think. The problem is that not everyone follows the RSS standard perfectly. Everyone does their feed a little bit differently. Plus, you have the problem of people changing their feeds. How do you figure out which episodes are new? What if someone changes the title of an episode that is already downloaded? These are not always easy problems to solve. The best solution would be to write special handlers for each and every podcast, but it just isn't feasible to do that.

    Until such a day comes when every RSS feed follows the standard to the letter, and nobody screws up their feeds, RSS readers of any kind will always be fickle.
  • Loganator456Loganator456
    I haven't run into this problem at all.
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