Third party RSS Import Error

[AWS]

Affected version

2.1

I am trying to add new RSS feeds and get this error.

Error message: Will not follow more than 5 redirects

I noticed some of the older feeds are no longer being imported. When I run them manually I get the same error.

I have made no changes to the server.

The feed I am trying to add is:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/feed/f/windows/windows_11

 

[Chris D]

Can you share the feed URLs you’re struggling with?

 

[AWS]

I edited the first post to add the feed URL.

 

[Chris D]

That particular feed does indeed do a bunch of redirects.

 

[Chris D]

There isn’t really a way around this. We limit the HTTP client to a maximum of 5 redirects. It would be somewhat insane not to as otherwise you could potentially get into an infinite redirect loop. The limit has to be set somewhere and it is 5, by design. Could be argued that is generous as it is.

These redirects seem to be something Microsoft is trying to do in order to try and log you in to their site. RSS feeds don’t usually try to do that.

Could there be any URLs that return the feed content without the rigmarole of trying to log you in?

 

[AWS]

No there isn't. Is there a way I could edit a file to change the limit or to add credentials to log in?

 

[AWS]

Is there a way I can authentication to the feed importer to get it working again?

 

[Chris D]

Nope there isn't really a way to do that. The question has to be "why are Microsoft doing that" more than anything. It's extremely counter-intuitive. Not really sure how you'd go about bringing it to their attention though.

Unfortunately there's a slightly wider problem.

It doesn't really matter how much you increase the maximum allowed redirects it keeps redirecting:



There's something wrong with the way that Microsoft are processing the request. It might be that it doesn't any longer like requests coming from certain HTTP clients or they've introduced a bug in their code that doesn't know how to handle maybe clients without JavaScript or something like that. It could be anything but it isn't totally clear.

And therein lies the exact reason there's a limit. If there wasn't then your server could open a HTTP request that would never close and may slow down your server if it kept happening over and over.

There's not really anything we can do at this point. I'm going to have to suggest you try to get in touch with Microsoft in some fashion and report this to them.

Worth noting XF isn't the only RSS reader that is affected. Popular online RSS feed reader Feedly is affected to:



And Inoreader:



It's highly unlikely this can be fixed without intervention from Microsoft so unfortunately we'll have to close this for now. Please do reply and let us know if/when it gets fixed though.