RSS Aggregator Forums

RSS Feed for BaseCamp (password protected) not working

Andy Henderson — Tue Apr 08, 2008 10:00 am

Author: Andy Henderson
Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 10:00 am

I'm sorry but the password protected access feature covers just the ability to read the feed.

It's possible that the remote site will use a cookie to allow subsequent access to a page from the feed but, if not, there's nothing my code can do. That's because when you click a link in the Aggregator's window, you are dealing with Internet Explorer - not the Aggregator. IE sees the link being clicked and tries to respond to it. Unless the site stores an authentication cookie, you will get challenged for the id and password again.

RSS Feed for BaseCamp (password protected) not working

jamuller3 — Thu Apr 03, 2008 9:44 pm

Author: jamuller3
Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 9:44 pm

Just installed RSS Aggregator V2.7 today here in Chicago.

Marvelous product.

Works like a champ for non-password -protected RSS feeds.

I have a corporate account with BaseCamp that requires a login ID and password.

I logged into my BaseCamp site and generated an RSS-feed URL.

I then invoked the RSS Aggregator V2.7 "Options" popup, using the "Channels" tab, and pasted the URL into same.

I then input the Login ID and password for that secured site/page.

I then saved those specs.

Next, I invoked the "Update All Channels Now" option, and got a red-colored "Off" indicator next to my new channel.

That state of affairs continued despite a couple of attempts to re-do the "Update All Channels Now" sequence.

I then logged into the BaseCamp site manually, using my IE7 browser, in a totally separate window.

I then invoked "Update All Channels Now" again.

This time, RSS Aggregator picked up the proper Title for the Channel and picked up the several dozen item banners.

I then modified the RSS Aggregator "options" (Channels) popup once again to identity the RSS Feed's page-title "[Hull House] Login", and viewed the source code on the BaseCamp RSS Feed page, to discern the field names "user_name" and "password", all of which went into the section on Automated Sessions Access; thinking that all of that would be sufficient to allow me to click on any of the Item Titles (banners), and then to be directed to the message/item page in question.

Instead, I was asked to log in again (by BaseCamp), and the RSS Aggregator utility did not (seem) to be recognizing any of that in order to perform automated / transparent input of User Name and Password.

I exited the RSS Aggregator utility and re-launched it, and, this time, when I attempted to "Update All Channels Now", I received a red-colored "Off" icon next to my BaseCamp channel's name. It was getting Error 401 (not authorized) messages visible as a baloon when I passed my mouse-pointer over the Feed Name. And, of course, I still could not click on an Item/Message banner and automatically see the details. I was once again being prompted for site password and name.

I suspect that my novice status with this (and other RSS) product is working against me and that I am making a mistake somewhere.

Can you tell what it is from what I've sent to you so far?

Can you be of any assistance with this.

Thanks!

I am getting an error message when opening the Aggregator

Andy Henderson — Sun Jan 20, 2008 11:12 pm

Author: Andy Henderson
Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2008 11:12 pm

It appears that your settings file (which contains all the data the aggregator has collected) is corrupt.

This can happen in two ways:

The program was interrupted (by a power failure, for example) while it was saving the file.
A programming error on my part.

Reinstalling the aggregator doesn't work because it takes pains to ensure your settings are preserved!

Did you try restoring the backup copy? The aggregator automatically copies file Settings.rssa to Settings.rssa.bak each time it starts. Take a copy of Settings.rssa before you do anything else. Delete Settings.rssa and rename Settings.rssa.bak to Settings.rssa. Then try to run the aggregator again.

You'll find the files in directory C:\Documents and Settings\OwnerApplication Data\CITA\RSSA. 'OwnerApplication Data' might be a hidden directory. Let me know if it is and you don't know how to make it visible.

[NB to others reading this message, the location of the settings file is Operating System and configuration dependent]

If restoring the backup doesn't work, send me a copy of Settings.rssa and I'll try to recover as much data as I can. If the restore does work, I'm still interested in seeing the settings file to investigate what caused the problem.

I am getting an error message when opening the Aggregator

MarkStrobel3367 — Sat Jan 19, 2008 11:05 pm

Author: MarkStrobel3367
Posted: Sat Jan 19, 2008 11:05 pm

I have been using your aggregator for several months problem free until today. When I attempted to open the software, a window appeared say the following:

-----------------
Problem in the setting file. Program cannot proceed. Restore a backup of C:\Documents and Settings\OwnerApplication Data\CITA\RSSA\Settings rssa or reinstall the Aggregator.

Problem is: This is an unexpected token. The expected token is 'EndElement'. Line 117214, position 24.
-----------------

I have .Net Framework 1.1 and 3.5 installed on my computer.

I've attempted to reinstall the software several times with the same results. What should I do to correct this problem? Thanks.

Integrating with the Ten Foot BitTorrent client

Andy Henderson — Mon Oct 22, 2007 9:19 pm

Author: Andy Henderson
Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2007 9:19 pm

Constructive IT Advice also publishes a set of Ten Foot Products. These are designed to be viewed on a Television connected to a Media Centre PC and operated by just a remote. These include a BitTorrent client.

The next version of the Aggregator will detect the presence of the Ten Foot BitTorrent client automatically. In the mean time, you can connect the two by entering the following in the 'BitTorrent command' box of the 'General settings' page:

"C:\Program Files\CITA\Ten Foot Products\TFBT.exe" &1

This will run the TFBT program with the address of each new torrent file. TFBT copies the torrent file to the client's Torrents folder and runs the client if it is not already running.

RSSA does not recognise existing files

ahuser — Sat Oct 13, 2007 7:39 am

Author: ahuser
Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 7:39 am

Thanks for the work around Andy.

RSSA does not recognise existing files

Andy Henderson — Fri Oct 12, 2007 11:23 am

Author: Andy Henderson
Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2007 11:23 am

You'll probably want to use channel settings (Main screen -> Tools -> Options -> 'Channel settings' tab) to check 'Suppress download alerts' for the relevant channels - at least until your feed is up-to-date. Otherwise you'll see a ton of alert messages telling you about problems with downloads.

RSSA does not recognise existing files

Andy Henderson — Fri Oct 12, 2007 11:06 am

Author: Andy Henderson
Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2007 11:06 am

I understand what you are saying about downloads that are already present in the download directory. I can see it would be good to check and offer to suppress a download if the file already exists and perhaps provide an option so it doesn't bother asking.

I'll include that in the next release.

For the time being you can simulate that behaviour by setting the 'read only' flag on your downloaded files. Use Windows Explorer to navigate to the relevant directory(s), use Ctrl-A to select all the files, right click one of the files and choose properties, check 'Read-only', and click 'OK'. That means you can play the files but you can't change or overwrite them. When you run the Aggregator to download a file that is already there, it will fail to overwrite it because of the 'Read only' flag. It will mark that download as a problem and carry on with the next automatically. It won't retry the problem download unless you ask it to.

When you're up-to-date with the feed you can unset the read only flag using the above procedure but deselect the 'read-only' check box.

I hope that helps.

Thanks for your feedback,

RSSA does not recognise existing files

ahuser — Fri Oct 12, 2007 4:34 am

Author: ahuser
Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2007 4:34 am

I have a huge folder of pod casts I have collected and today I installed and started using RSSA. The problem I have encountered is that even though the files already exist in the desired RSS feed folder RSSA does not recognise them and attempts to download again.

Is this because the criteria for file detection does not match the feed and so it thinks the file is not the same or does it just ignore the fact that the file is already there?

I am looking for a product which knows not to download an existing file.

Shutdown not possible whilst downloading feeds

ahuser — Sat Oct 13, 2007 7:37 am

Author: ahuser
Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 7:37 am

Thanks I'll give it a go.

Shutdown not possible whilst downloading feeds

Andy Henderson — Fri Oct 12, 2007 10:52 am

Author: Andy Henderson
Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2007 10:52 am

That behaviour is by design because I figure that if you are downloading something you won't want to shut the Aggregator down until you're done.

However, it would be good to have a 'suspend all downloads' feature and I'll add that to the list for the next release.

When starting a new feed that you have already started with in a different Aggregator (or you aren't interested in older content) I suggest you set the download settings (Main screen -> Tools -> Options) to 'Auto download if less than 0 bytes'. This will inhibit automatic downloading.

If you then add the feed (in your case you can just right click the feed in the main window and select 'Reset this channel'. The downloads will appear in the downloads summary but will not be queued). You can then decide which to ignore. You can then queue the ones you are interested in manually if you want to download just a few at a time.

When you've caught up with the feed you can switch back to automatic downloading if you want.

Shutdown not possible whilst downloading feeds

ahuser — Fri Oct 12, 2007 4:48 am

Author: ahuser
Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2007 4:48 am

Well I think I have found a major bug with the shutdown.

Due to the source feed being so extensive (The Naked Scientist), I had something like 30-40 items queued for download. Attempting to shutdown RSSA only gave me the option of cancelling the current feed. As soon as I did this, it proceeded to start another download. So, unless I want to repeat this action for each and every queued item, I had no choice but to let it continue.

In the end I ended the task from Task Manager.

Also I could not see any suspend option, which I can use to temporarily halt all downloads.

Time of Day for Downloads function

Andy Henderson — Fri Jul 13, 2007 5:25 pm

Author: Andy Henderson
Posted: Fri Jul 13, 2007 5:25 pm

I just released version 2.7 that formally includes this feature in the Aggregator.

Time of Day for Downloads function

Andy Henderson — Thu May 17, 2007 12:48 pm

Author: Andy Henderson
Posted: Thu May 17, 2007 12:48 pm

Check out the beta version (2.6b) released via the announcements forum today. It implements the time of day feature you are looking for.

Time of Day for Downloads function

phaydock — Sat May 12, 2007 5:46 am

Author: phaydock
Posted: Sat May 12, 2007 5:46 am

Andy,
An admiral solution, if possible and worthwhile. Thanks