Troubleshoot RSS and blog subscription emails

If you encounter sending issues after you set up RSS or blog subscription emails, or the frequency of a notification email for your blog subscribers doesn't match what you expect, try following the troubleshooting steps below.

Republishing a blog post doesn't trigger a new notification email

Once you've set up daily, weekly, or monthly blog subscription emails, each published blog post from the associated blog will only be sent once through each notification email you've configured. Making changes to a published blog post, such as updating the publish date, will not include the post in future email sends in cases where it was already included in a previously sent notification email.

If you want to share the same content from a notification email after it's already been sent, you should clone the blog post which will trigger a new notification email.

Blog notification email not sent

The blog notification email will include any new posts since the last blog subscription email, up to the maximum number you configured. For example, for a weekly email, HubSpot will include any new blog posts published in the past 7 days. If no new blog posts have been published no email will be sent.

Backdated blog post publish dates

HubSpot uses the publish date set on each blog post to determine whether to include it in a notification email. If the publish date of a blog post has a backdated publish date outside of the time range of the latest notification email, it will not trigger a send. For instant notification emails, backdating the publish date by 30 minutes or longer will prevent a notification email from being sent.

RSS formatting and feed errors

The email tool automatically checks you RSS feed URL to ensure proper formatting. If you see an error message after adding your RSS feed URL, troubleshoot the feed using the resources below.

Common troubleshooting steps 

• HubSpot RSS emails require a feed that is W3C valid. You can check the syntax of your RSS feed URL using the validator on the W3C website. 
• After you confirm your feed is valid, be sure that there is a unique Guid for each post entry item to avoid the risk of duplicate sends. 
• If your see a warning in your HubSpot email editor about Missing fields, be sure that the feed is formatted and nested properly as illustrated in the example below. The Title and Link fields are required for the feed to be treated as valid. 

Example of valid RSS formatting

The list below provides an example of valid formatting for each field. Depending on the format of the feed, each field (e.g., summary, link, title, published, and author) can originate from different nodes of the xml. 

• Author
• /atom10:feed/atom10:entry/atom10:author
• /atom03:feed/atom03:entry/atom03:author
• /rss/channel/item/author
• /rss/channel/item/dc:creator
• /rss/channel/item/dc:author
• /rss/channel/itunes:author
• /rdf:RDF/rdf:item/dc:creator
• /rdf:RDF/rdf:item/dc:author

• Summary
• /atom10:feed/atom10:entry/atom10:summary
• /atom03:feed/atom03:entry/atom03:summary
• /rss/channel/item/description
• /rss/channel/item/dc:description
• /rdf:RDF/rdf:item/rdf:description
• /rdf:RDF/rdf:item/dc:description
• Published (in your account timezone)
• /atom10:feed/atom10:entry/atom10:published
• /atom03:feed/atom03:entry/atom03:issued
• /rss/channel/item/dcterms:issued
• /rss/channel/item/pubDate
• /rdf:RDF/rdf:item/dcterms:issued
• Link (required field)
• /atom03:feed/atom03:entry/atom03:link[@rel=_ѝalternate_ѝ]/@href
• /atom10:feed/atom10:entry/atom10:link[@rel=_ѝalternate_ѝ]/@href
• /atom10:feed/atom10:entry/atom10:link[not(@rel)]/@href
• /rdf:RDF/rdf:item/rdf:link
• /rss/channel/item/link
• Title (required field)
• /atom03:feed/atom03:entry/atom03:title
• /atom10:feed/atom10:entry/atom10:title
• /rdf:RDF/rdf:item/dc:title
• /rdf:RDF/rdf:item/rdf:title
• /rss/channel/item/dc:title
• /rss/channel/item/title
   

Example Valid HubSpot Blog Feed:

Please note: if you can't identify the problem using the resources above and continue to experience issues with sending the RSS email, start a discussion on the Community or contact Support.