* WordPress FeedBurner FeedSmith Plugin Test Results

A combination of plugins is causing the FeedBurner FeedSmith plugin to break with WordPress 2.7.1 running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES release 4.

Here’s what I know for certain:

  1. The current combination of plugins I am using works without breaking FeedBurner’s feed.
  2. Enabling the Post-Plugin Library plugin broke my FeedBurner feed; disabling it fixed it.
  3. Enabling the WordPress Database Backup plugin broke my FeedBurner feed; disabling it fixed it.
  4. Your mileage may vary.

I was using 19 WordPress plugins. With 19 plugins, there are 19! (19 factorial) possible combinations of plugins, which is 121,645,100,408,832,000 combinations. If I tested one combination per second, then it would take me 3.9 billion years to test them all. I don’t have that kind of spare time.

Other observations:

  • Not all plugins behave nicely. Most are administered from the Settings menu, but Akismet is administered from the Plugins, and others from the Tools menu (e.g. Excerpt Editor).
  • Excerpt Editor forgets its setting when you disable and then activate it. Excerpt Editor provides the “[click here to read more]” text on the home page so that the full text of each article is not displayed. This should be a built-in feature of WordPress.
  • Everything appeared to be working after the last round of updates. Appearances can be deceiving.
  • Plugin writers should have their version numbers mirror WordPress version numbers. So if you were using plugin version 2.6, then you’d know that it only works with WordPress 2.6 (and may not work with version 2.7).
  • I need a blog platform that doesn’t take 3.9 billion years to test.
  • I decided not to activate a few plugins that I am no longer using (e.g. Collapsible Categories Widget).

Currently Active Plugins

FeedBurner FeedSmith 2.3.1
Exclude Pages from Navigation 1.4
Akismet 2.2.3
All in One SEO Pack 1.4.7.4
Different Posts Per Page 1.7.6
Do Follow 3.1
Excerpt Editor 1.3
Fix Database 1.0
Google Analyticator 2.40
Google XML Sitemaps 3.1.2
Tweetbacks 1.5.3
Unfancy Quote 2.3
WP-Stats 2.40
WP-Stats Widget 2.40

Currently Suspect Plugins (Disabled)

Post-Plugin Library 2.6.2.1
Similar Posts 2.6.2.0
WordPress Database Backup 2.2.2

Inactive Plugins

Collapsible Categories Widget 1.1
Hello Dolly 1.5


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4 Replies to “* WordPress FeedBurner FeedSmith Plugin Test Results”

  1. Hi, I am getting the same feedburner error message: “An error occurred connecting to the URL: Read timed out” I have WordPress 2.8 and am using 16 Active wordpress plugins.

    I am still trying to figure out how to get rid of this error. Did you upgrade to WordPress 2.8 yet?

  2. I have the same problem since I updated my blog to 2.7.1

    I have no idea. I have these plugins installed

    Akismet 2.2.3
    All in One SEO Pack 1.4.9
    BM-TrackPing 1
    Breadcrumb Navigation XT 1.8.0
    Contact Form 7 1.9.3
    Dagon Design Sitemap Generator 3.15
    FeedBurner FeedSmith 2.3.1
    Flickr Manager 2.3
    flickrRSS 5.0
    Google Analytics for WordPress 2.7
    Google XML Sitemaps 3.1.2
    Lightbox 2 2.8.2
    No Ping Wait 2.0
    ShareThis Classic 1.5.2
    Wordpress Video Plugin 0.69
    WP-ContactForm 1.5.1
    WP-Polls 2.40
    WP-PostRatings 1.40
    WPhone 1.4.2

    and I have no updates in rss feedburner feed and if I try to refresh saving feed details I always get the error msg “An error occurred connecting to the URL: Read timed out”

    Could you give me any idea?

    Thanks in advance for your support.

    Cheers!

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