My feed not refreshing new podcasts on iTunes, even after 2 months. help

Question

hi All
I'm very new at this, but I have been battling to get my feed refreshed on iTunes for over 2 months. but nothing has happened.
podcasting feed: http://www.badilishapoetry.com/podcasts/podcast.xml
itunes page: http://itunes.apple.com/za/podcast/badilisha-poetry/id369675119
(i have the Feed Validator report if that helps at all?? it doesn't help me much)
I initially posted the first batch - 23 to itunes using the free version of Lemondreamz' Podcaster. I then posted the next batch, importing the Podcaster feed, into Reinvented Software's Feeder software. But now here is my problem ...
it won't refresh the information on iTunes, or upload any of the new episodes. And now, having spent 2 months trying, I am more confused than I was when I started it.
I've tried pretty much everything that I can to sort it out, and two podcasters have tried to help, to no avail, what do I do to sort this out? Can anyone help?

Answer 1

In fact iTunes is not looking for the feed at the URL you give, but at
http://www.badilishapoetry.com/
This of course brings up a web page which obviously iTunes does not recognize. I can't say how tit comes to have this address. However the feed you link to has this tag in the top section:
<itunes:new-feed-url>http://www.badilishapoetry.com/podcasts.xml</itunes:new-feed-url>
And this will have redirected iTunes to a non-existent feed at that address.
Furthermore, the feed at
http://www.badilishapoetry.com/podcasts/podcast.xml
reads in Firefox and validates in FeedValidator, but I could not subscribe manually to it (from the 'Advanced' menu in iTunes) - iTunes complained it could not find the file. I can't explain this unless your server is doing something very odd.
I'm afraid you are now painted into a corner. In order to get iTunes back on track you would have to place a working feed with the redirect tag at the URL it now has, and I doubt you can do this.
This leaves you with only two options: one is to abandon the podcast (you should ask to get it removed - details here: you would need to change the title slighly or you will be told it has already been submitted.
Your second option is to ask the iTunes Store to redirect the feed to the actual feed address: I have to say they are often not very helpful, tending simply to send back standard answers (or redirect you back to this forum), but someone did manage to get this done so I suppose you lose nothing by trying. Their Support is at http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/ - click on 'Other iTunes Store Features' in the list and then on 'Podcasts'.
However, you first need to get the feed working. You should test it choosing 'Subscribe to Podcast' from the 'View' menu in iTunes. If this isn't working there's no point in following either option until it is. I can't explain why it's working in browsers but not in iTunes: if you have some sort of redirect in place to another URL where the feed is actually situated (such as a web.me.com address used with Personal Domain) try manually subscribing with that.
On top of all this, the links to the media files in your feed, e.g.
http://www.badilishapoetry.com/june/liesl.mp3
don't work and bring up your domain name provider's 'not found page.