RSS Feed Not Working for Discourse Forum

Support
1

I’m having trouble fetching RSS feeds from my Discourse forum, thePros, and I’m hoping to get some guidance on resolving the issue.

Issue Description:

I am using RSS to fetch data from my Discourse forums. In my Mamapedia forum, all RSS feeds are working fine. However, in ThePros forum, no RSS feeds are working—including the latest posts feed and category-specific feeds.

Working Example:

Issue with thePros Forum:

  • Forum: ThePros
  • Latest RSS Feed URL: https://forum.get.it/latest.rss
  • Category RSS Feed URL: https://forum.get.it/c/hydrologist/32.rss
  • Validation Report (Latest RSS): W3 Validator Report
  • Validation Report (Category RSS): W3 Validator Report
  • Error Message: “It looks like this is a web page, not a feed. I looked for a feed associated with this page, but couldn’t find one.”
  • WordPress Error: "RSS Error: A feed could not be found at https://forum.get.it/latest.rss or https://forum.get.it/c/hydrologist/32.rss ; the status code is 403 and content-type is text/html; charset=UTF-8 "
  • Observed Behavior: When I open the RSS link in a browser, it does show RSS code, but it is still not recognized as a valid feed by the W3 Validator.

Troubleshooting Steps Taken:

  1. Checked Other Feeds:
  • All RSS feeds from ThePros forum fail to load.
  • Mamapedia RSS feeds work fine.
  1. Verified Permissions:
  • The forum and categories are publicly accessible without login.
  1. Checked Site Settings:
  • Ensured RSS feeds are not disabled.
  1. Tried Different Categories:
  • None of the categories in thePros forum have working RSS feeds.

Please let me if there any solution for this issue. Thanks in advance.

2 Likes
2

Is is possible there is some sort of rate limiting on the rss feeds? Perhaps they are getting pulled too much on forum.get.it and somehow discourse throttles that?

3

This appears to be a cloudflare related item, we will post over in that forum to see if they have any insight.

4

https://forum.get.it uses Cloudflare Bot protection, and it blocks your RSS app from reaching the feed. They need to add exceptions to rss routes.

5 Likes
5

I’m thrilled to report that the RSS feed issue on forum.get.it has been completely resolved! I want to express my sincere gratitude to Jacob Peebles, Falco, and Laudian for their invaluable assistance.

Initially, I was struggling to understand why Cloudflare was blocking my RSS feeds.

  • Jacob Peebles started the discussion by suggesting the possibility of rate limiting on the RSS feeds, which prompted us to investigate potential Cloudflare-related issues.
  • Falco then pinpointed that Cloudflare Bot protection was blocking the RSS app and suggested adding exceptions to RSS routes, providing the crucial direction.
  • Laudian followed up with detailed, step-by-step guidance on creating a specific WAF rule to bypass the bot protection for RSS requests. They helped me understand the process and ensured I implemented the solution correctly.

Thanks to their combined expertise, I was able to create a WAF rule that specifically targets requests to forum.get.it ending in .rss, and set the action to “Skip” Super Bot Fight Mode. This allowed the RSS feeds to function perfectly while maintaining the security of the rest of the site.

I’m incredibly grateful for the prompt and accurate support from all three of you. Your contributions were essential in resolving this issue. Thank you again for your outstanding assistance!

The solution link: https://community.cloudflare.com/t/cloudflare-interfering-with-rss-feed-for-thepros-discourse-forum/771346/7

2 Likes