RSS Feed does not validate using Views RSS module

Question

Drupal version: 7.14

Views RSS version: 7.x-2.0-rc3

I am trying to validate an RSS feed in feedburner for a drupal blog. When I try to validate de xml file at feedvalidator.org I get this error

line 3, column 0: XML parsing error: <unknown>:3:0: XML or text declaration not at start of entity

The xml file is well written (I compared it against another one which validated) and the error I found is that that xml file generated by Views RSS puts three blank lines at the beginning and therefore I think the file does not validate.

I've looked for answers in the oficial Views RSS module issue track but unsuccessfully. I've also created many feed views using Views RSS module, but all of them provide the same error at feedvalidator.org.

I'd like to correct this through the source code of the module, but I do not know where to start or which file I should edit to correct that mistake, just if only through code I could solve this validation.

Answer 1

In some cases this error will be caused by space in one of your modules. Best way to find the issue is to edit module.inc file in includes folder and add this after the drupal_load function in the module_load_all function:

print $module.'|';

you will probably get a huge list but one that starts on line 3 will be the issue.

Answer 2

The cause of the problem is a 'SPACE' at the beginning of a unknown module script.

1. Find the script causing this problem:

   grep -n -o -R \ \<\?php * |grep :1:

2. Delete 'SPACE' at the beginning of the found script

3. Delete Cache

Answer 3

Try changing the file Steven mentioned in the comments (views_rss/theme/views-view-views-rss.tpl.php) from this

<?php
/**
 * @file views-view-views-rss.tpl.php
 * Default template for feed displays that use the RSS Fields style.
 */
?>
<?php print "<?xml"; ?> version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" <?php print "?>"; ?>
<?php print $rss_feed; ?>

to this

<?php
/**
 * @file views-view-views-rss.tpl.php
 * Default template for feed displays that use the RSS Fields style.
 */
?><?php print "<?xml"; ?> version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" <?php print "?>"; ?>
<?php print $rss_feed; ?>

If that does work, I'm sure the views_rss maintainers would be very grateful if you'd submit a patch :)

Answer 4

I'd like to add more insight about @pgrujic solution. We use Services to generate custom RSS feeds and we faced the exact same problem with blank spaces at the beginning of the XML document. Once you added the following line of code to the file -

print $module.'|';

• It printed out a line with the name of modules separated by a pipeline. You'll have to find a blank space before of a name of any module.

For example, if you find something like this:

ckeditor| color|comment|

It means the color module has a blank space. Remove it and happy feed!

Sorry, couldn't reply in the same treat because the low reputation

Answer 5

It mostly due to spaces at start before <?php tag in module or no ending tag in tpl file.

Mostly it is module file so...

grep -R -H '^  <?php' modules/**/*.module

This will check all module files withing your module folder ( i am a step back in my sites/all folder in my linux terminal to find culprit.) If you find two spaces leave two space between ^ and

If you just get the filename you can find its path via

locate -br 'culprit.module'

After correcting clear cache. :)