- Step 1: Create the Podcast File
- Step 2: Set Episode Options (Optional)
- Step 3: Upload the Podcast File to Your Server
- Step 4: Configure Your WordPress Blog for the Podcast Category
- Step 5: Create an Entry for your Podcast Episode
- Step 6: Create the Podcast Feed
- Step 7: Subscribe to Your Feed
- Step 8: Troubleshoot
- Step 9: List Your Podcast on iTunes
- Step 10: Tweak
Step 8: Troubleshoot
If step 7 didn’t work, it’s time to troubleshoot the problem. I hope you don’t have to do this step. This is the step that took me the longest.
Start your troubleshooting process in FeedBurner.
- Log into your FeedBurner account.
- Click the My Feeds link.
- Click the name of your podcast.
- Click the Troubleshootize tab.
- Click the PodMedic button.
The PodMedic report should shed some light on the problem. I won’t go through all the possible error messages; that would take too long. Besides, I didn’t see all of them—although it sure seemed that way.
Here’s a list of what typically goes wrong:
- You forgot to upload the podcast file to your server (step 3). Silly you. Be sure to give it an Internet-friendly name before you upload it.
- You entered an invalid URL for the podcast episode’s .m4v file when you created the podcast entry in WordPress (step 5). Check to make sure that it’s correct now.
- Your server might not be configured for the correct mime types. This was my
problem—although I didn’t realize it for a few hours. (I was
convinced that I had the wrong file format for the podcast movie file, but it
was perfectly fine.) You need to edit an invisible file called
.htaccess, which should reside in the root directory for your
server—specifically, the place where the .m4v file has been
uploaded. Add the following text on its own line in the file:
AddType video/mpeg m4v
- If the .htaccess file doesn’t exist, you have to create it. All it needs is that one line.
If you’ve made any changes to your settings based on the list of what could go wrong above, resynchronize your podcast.
- Log into your FeedBurner account.
- Click the My Feeds link.
- Click the name of your podcast.
- Click the Troubleshootize tab.
- Scroll down until you see the Resync Now link and click it.
When FeedBurner tells you that you’ve resynchronized your feed successfully, go back to iTunes and click the Refresh button in the bottom of the window where podcasts are displayed. If you fixed the problem, your podcast should appear and download.