Roku Direct Publisher

[tomjoht]

I'm trying to create a channel with Roku Direct Publisher, but I keep getting an error that says "Unable to download feedUrl." My feed is here: http://idratherassets.com/calm-meditation/feed.xml. This is hosted on Bluehost. I turned off mod_security (a tip from another forum thread about this issue), but the problem still persists.

I also put the feed on GitHub but ran into a different error. On GitHub, Roku said it had trouble downloading my thumbnail images and reaching my video URLs. 

I didn't see any information about host requirements to allow Roku to access the feed. Is that posted anywhere? 

Is there a web host where this issue doesn't happen?

[Baradanikto]

I took a look at your feed file.  It does not conform to the Roku MRSS spec.  Is this possible a FireTV feed file?

[tomjoht]

Thanks for looking at my feed. Yes, I originally designed the MRSS feed for Fire TV but was hoping to multi-purpose it for Roku. I looked more closely at Roku's MRSS requirements and updated my feed: https://github.com/rokudev/feed-specifications/blob/master/mrss-feed-specification.md

When I preview the app on my Roku device, all the thumbnails and descriptions load, but the videos don't play. I wonder if there's something wrong with my video hosting? I have the videos on Cloudfront (which pulls from an AWS S3 bucket). Here's a video capture of what happens when I try to play a video: https://www.screencast.com/t/f59wZpLsBt

Any ideas on what might be wrong? 

[Baradanikto]

I took a look at your updated feed and was able to view a video in a browser, so, I'll assume your files are public. I've seen this problem before but can't quite remember what causes it. A couple things to try... Rename your feed file and upload it again. Feed updates are not immediate if you use the same name and are using CloudFront. The caching gets in the way at times. If that fails, turn on the S3 logging for more info on the problem.

On a side note, I am developing the second release of a software product that can read an Amazon feed and convert it to Roku. I've also got another product that converts from Roku to Amazon.

[tomjoht]

Thanks for taking a look at it! I appreciate your response. 

I took at look at your software site -- looks cool. I'm glad to see development in this area. There are many ways to create feeds, and my approach has been to generate feeds through Jekyll, since I'm most familiar with it. It's pretty flexible and fairly easy to generate feeds for different requirements. Ideally, I'd like to have one Jekyll project that generates valid MRSS feeds for Roku, Amazon Creator, Fire App Builder, and iTunes.

[tomjoht]

I switched from MP4 to M4v and now my videos play fine. Not sure why Roku is refusing to play MP4 videos.

[Baradanikto]

I'd be surprised if this is a Roku problem. Especially when you consider that mp4 is supported by Json and is listed as a supported file type in their docs. You may be masking the real problem.

[tomjoht]

I would really like to understand what the issue is. Are these forums monitored by Roku employees, are is it just peer-to-peer interactions here?