UBB.Developers Forums UBB.threads 7 Development Addons and Modifications [7.4+] RSS Topic Creator v1.1

Also, its a wordpress feed so don't know if that's an issue

And now it works but with only one feed.

I'm puzzled.

Shouldn't make a difference.

I'm not sure on this one, I went and googled it and found this that references that it's likely a permission issue.

Yeah, I checked that too.

But UBB states that cache_builders has to have a CHMOD permission of 0777

I set it at 0755 and nothing happened and then set it back to 0777 and then one feed worked but not the other

So, I changed the permissions to 0755 of cache_builders and then back to 0777 and the other rss feed is now produced.

Even more puzzled than before.

How do I get it to show the full text of the article?

It SHOULD post the entire body of the "description" field of the feed in question; if the feed truncates the display (which they commonly do) you can't import what's not there...

Oh well. I just can't get it to work.

Pity.

I really liked this mod.

I cant believe only 36 downloads have taken place.
This is so cool this add on and should be stock my 2p.

Ive just tested it on my dev board and works great.
I just need to find the time to update my main site.

Good work Giz

Hey Gizmo,

Does this work with 7.6.0?

Better to ask than try to upgrade and break the board

Cheers!

I did not write this script, I simply ported it up through the v7.4 system in 2010; you're going to have to try it out yourself to see if it works as I don't have it configured anywhere.

I can tell you that very little has changed in the database from v7.5.9 and v7.6; so if it was working in v7.5.9 for you it should continue to do so once it's reinstalled on v7.6.0.

As an FYI, RSS Topic Creator does work with 7.6.0

I had to re-patch the files required to be edited.

Then, spend several frustration hours tracking down a typo I introduced.....

But, it does work when the files are modified correctly....

RSS Topic Creator 1.2 - Updated for UBB.threads 7.7.0+

If you had been running version 1.1, your topics were being prevented from displaying on the News Portal. This release fixes that 1.1 bug, along with several other minor issues such as encoding corrections and images within the RSS feed, especially html5 img tags, and respecting responsive design guidelines.

Run the following SQL from Control Panel / Database Tools / SQL Command to retroactively correct the News Portal bug from version 1.1

Fix missing TOPIC_STATUS created by RSS Topic Creator 1.1

Thanks Isaac been awaiting this :-)

Thanks guys. I have made the necessary entries into the templates / php and created the new table. How long does it take to start populating? Within 30 mins ?

IIRC as long as the cache time of the feed has passed it should insert data; this should trigger when there is activity on the forum (the file is called on every page view)... So if you've never inserted data and the feeds are valid it should insert data as soon as a page on the main forum is accessed.

This script is simple and maintained just as required, so your mileage will vary.

Thanks Gizmo :)

Call the XML sections of your RSS feed that you want to display.

Example "Format Of The Posts"

A respectful feed update interval would be 60 minutes. Possibly 120 minutes or even 180 minutes.

Also, your feed source should be RSS 2.0 format, not ATOM.
https://problogger.com/rss-vs-atom-whats-the-big-deal/

There is a fun story behind the two. I believe it is here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom_(Web_standard)#Atom_compared_to_RSS_2.0
Additional reading here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS

Its been updated is as needed here and there. The current version compatible with UBB.threads 7.7.x (and newer) shortly after 7.7.0 was released :)

Sorry, I do not do support in private messaging. More people can benefit from a support reply by making it public, keeping related questions within the correct thread, and on the correct domain.

From your PM to me on UBBCentral.com:

If you added cache_builders/rss_topic_creator.php to your footer file, the RSS feed will update when your page footer is viewed and the "Feed Update Interval" timer expires.

You can view ubbt_TOPIC_FEEDS to see what is/is not happening. I believe that if you set LAST_BUILD to 0, the script force itself to run again.

If nothing is populating the database, you may have any of the following issues.
1/ Source feed is ATOM and not RSS 2.0.
2/ Source feed has an error in it.
3/ Source feed is empty.
4/ You are using a bad URL.
5/ You missed part of the directions within the rss_topic_creator.txt documentation.
6/ You have not set a User ID that the feeds should be posted by.
7/ You have not set a forum to put the feeds in to.
8/ Your "Format Of The Posts" is empty or incorrect.
9/ The Topic Feed is not enabled.

TIP: Create an RSS TEST FORUM so you can repete your feed fetches until you have them displaying exactly as you desire. Then you can easily delete the entire forum and all of your test posts in a single swoop of deleting that entire forum. You can also prune your tests with Control Panel > Prune Threads.

But first things first, watch your ubbt_TOPIC_FEEDS database to see if it is getting populated upon 1/ refreshing of a forum page with a footer (usually category page is easiest to do) 2/ setting LAST_BUILD to 0 to the feed in the database.

Ya ok they are atom feeds.. I need to find the same feeds in RSS 2.0 OR better yet you build atom capable switching formats and I buy it. :) Need to know costs..

1/ You could modify the script to support ATOM instead of RSS.
2/ You could modify the script to do #1, and along side the current RSS script, so you'll have two different processors.
3/ You could install a 3rd party feed agitator that exports everything in to an RSS 2.0 template.

I currently do #3 using https://tt-rss.org/
This also gives me the benefit of having feeds from multiple sources with hundreds of posts daily. Then applying a filter, for example, "Pixel" or "Nexus" and must include "Google." Then the UBB.threads RSS Topic Creator only downloads those items from custom feed that TTRSS made for me, with its own URL, in RSS 2.0 format.

LOL I keep finding out more and more haha :) I will look into your suggestion.. I am trying to get a rss 2.0 to work right now before I look at other options

You have to remember I haven't had a working forum in like 10 plus years :) I am slowly getting back into it.

thanks for all the help guys :) I honestly appreciate it.

Its working. I am going to look into your option 3 and see if it makes sense or worth doing :)

Ok for number 2.. who can do it and how much :) I want less complexity.. need it to work with atom and rss 2.X

While there are many initial intents for providing/serving RSS feeds, please keep in mind that that the RSS TOPIC CREATOR script provides something that is somewhat of a grey area with respect to taking someone elses content, hosting it on your server, and presenting it as your own content.

RSS is for news syndication. Not free web content for your website.

Game scores, weather, news snippets pointing back to the source...etc. Basically being responsible with the content someone else created and is sharing.

as far as your other question on who can write this for you, feel free to open the script and look at its bits. the script is rather short. Pull up a sample RSS 2.0 and ATOM (rss/xml) file and read them. its straight forward.

its one of those things where once you set it up and it is working, there is no further adjustments needed its low level "take from column A put in to column B." stuff.

If I wanted to figure out why it's just not doing anything, though the topic feed shows up as enabled and it's standard WordPress RSS2 (?feed=rss2), and works in desktop RSS viewers - what would I do? Is there a good place to put in a "log errors" command?

Never mind - it's adding threads, but they're not visible. Also generating this:

[02-Mar-2021 17:33:30 UTC] PHP Fatal error: Uncaught --> Smarty: Unable to load template 'file:not_right_bare.tpl' <--
thrown in /home/public_html/forums/libs/smarty/sysplugins/smarty_internal_template.php on line 195

... also, instructions here suggest changing the nulls in the topics to 0s or Os. Any new topic appears as a null, though. If I change it, it seems to lock the topic.

Make sure you are using the current version, which is posted further down the thread.

direct link
https://ubbdev.com/forums/ubbth...4-rss-topic-creator-v1-1.html#Post323151

Prior versions of the script will not work on current UBB.threads. You need to be using the current version of RSS Topic Creator with current versions of UBB.threads.

The current version discussion started in 2019.

It sounds like you're using v1.1 from the OP, which is a direct port of Ian's original; instead you should be using Isaac's v1.2 which includes bugfixes and further upgrades for compatability.

Also, ensure you're not trying to use an ATOM feed, ATOM and RSS are different structures and this script (by default) will parse RSS only.

I just moved my server. The Topic Creator was running fine on the old server. Its running CentOS7 so old stuff.

New one is RedHat 9. Now I'm running old php for ubbthreads and the restored back runs perfectly. Everything runs, except the Topic Creator isn't creating posts off the feeds.

I'm suspecting I'm missing a php or perl library it needs for downloading, etc.

Can you give me all the required libraries please? I had issues getting dadamail but found those in the program itself so that's easy.

Cheers,

David

Found the issue. Its running great again.

Cheers,

David

What ended up being the issue, out of curiosity?

Hey Gizmo,

Issue was the domain its-self was running php 7.4, but the servers root didn't have php installed as it isn't serving out anything. But as cron runs some jobs there was no path to php.

Wasn't an issue early days of course, when it was all php 5 right :-)

I do love the Topic creator and will anxiously await its update for php8 as its a real great feature.

Appreciate the effort.

Cheers,

David

Hey Gizmo,

I just upgraded to ubbthreads 8.0.0 and the RSS Topic Creator has stopped. I've triple checked the few modified files and of course the added files were already there.

Has anyone noticed anything? I first turned php version up and the forum all worked, but no more posts with the mod. So I was thinking this might be the issue went back to php 7.4.33 but it still won't post RSS feeds.

If I put back the files from 7.7.5 it starts working again.

Cheers,

David