Roku Direct Publisher

[mediadisconnect]

Can anyone tell me if after a Direct Publisher App is published will it auto refresh its contented from the feed on a periodic basis?  

My app was published on the 22nd and I see no indication from the dashboard that it has tried to refresh its contents from an updated feed ever since.  Is it broken, am I doing something wrong, or am I supposed to submit a new "build" of the app to get it to refresh?  Any help would be appreciated.

[37mediagroup]

You do not need to resubmit your site when only inserting a new feed. Typically the devices auto update periodically ( I think a few times a day) searching for a new feed. If you submitted a new url and it accepted it (green check mark, no errors) I suppose I would try going into Setting > System update or something to see if that pushes it thru. Could be a cache issue but ideally they should catch the new feeds url every so often. 

[mosafer]

Just update your feed with a new one (Same address and same name) in your side.
Roku will read the feed every 6 hours or so. it will be green if the file is correct.

[mediadisconnect]

When the app is "Published" you don't have the option to refresh the feed on the developer website like you do when your app is in preview mode.

I made some changes to the feed to include closed captioning.  I setup a test app so that I could validate the feed.  Both the test app and the "Published" app look at the same feed.

On Friday in the test app my videos had closed caption working.  In the "Published" app it was not.  When I tested them again on Monday (72 hours later), the test app was still working with closed captioning but the "Published" app still did not have closed captioning.  Again they are both looking at the same feed file.  So the "Published" app can't be updating every six hours.

There is a problem with Direct Publisher.  I just don't know how to get Roku to realize there is a problem.  

[mosafer]

I'd never used captions before. but in other cases mine will update every 6h.
One question: in your feed status page do you get any red flag or everything is green? and look at the time stamp this shows the time your feed has been updated.
try to change the feed name and update feed URL.

[mediadisconnect]

My app miraculously started updating every six hours over the weekend.  Maybe Roku developers do read these forums....    

[jsonnentag]

My published channel stopped updating a month or more ago and supposedly a week ago they did something to fix it.  It isn't fixed though and I'll have to let them know yet again. . . .

For example, I updated the feed last Wednesday morning and after 24 hours it still listed the same files on the Roku device.  Manually doing the Roku update and then restarting the Roku didn't help (although it did help when I updated the graphics one time, but that was for graphics in a feed already up-to-date).

The only way I have been able to FORCE it to update things is to do something so that it thinks there is a new channel version to publish (I either add a screen view or delete one).  I then go to the feed status and click to update it and wait around a while with periodic web page updates until I can see the feed was read in right with the new items added to it.  After I know the feed is updated and read in right I then go and publish the channel update.  It is the only thing that works to get the feed updated!  Very disgusting.  I'm at channel version 25 now and at the rate things are modified (about 2 different times per week) there are 2 new channel versions per week. . . .

[mediadisconnect]

Contact RokuPam on this board and let her know what is going on.  She should be able to help you out.

[jsonnentag]

"Roku Pam" knows all about it and is the one that told me it was supposed to be fixed.   😄

Here's a fine copy of that e-mail:
-----
Pam Pauley (Roku Partner Success)
Aug 10, 16:43 PDT
if you have any questions moving forward. 
Best,
Pam
-----

I can also report that it STILL doesn't work.  I uploaded an updated feed last Wednesday and waited until Saturday to see if it would "auto-update" and it never did. . . .  So I continue on with my manual forcing up an update by changing something in the channel (so you get the option to force a feed check and update) then updating the feed and checking back in a few minutes to make sure everything read in without any errors.  That is then followed by yet another new published version of the channel.

[mosafer]

Same here. After updating I have to publish it again.
If you read from a dynamic feed, it would be impossible to get auto update every 6 hours.