A feed whose domain has lapsed looks like a quiet feed, not a failing one #119

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opened 2026-10-04 15:41:46 -07:00 by rays · 1 comment
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Found on 2026-10-04. daily-quests (http://daily-quests.com/comic/?feed=atom) and hots-dots (http://www.hotsdots.com/feed/) have 0 items and no last error, so their subscribers see a feed that has never posted instead of one that is broken.

Both domains have lapsed: public DNS points daily-quests.com at exp.gname.net (the registrar's expired-domain page) and www.hotsdots.com at NameBright's comingsoon page. On this network NextDNS blocks parked domains and answers with its block page (certificate CN=blockpage.nextdns.io), which over http is a 200 with an empty body. scan_one treats a body that is all whitespace as Outcome::Empty, 'nothing yet', and records no error (src/main.rs, the bytes.iter().all(u8::is_ascii_whitespace) check), so the failing-feed mark never shows.

An empty body from a feed that has never stored an item, seen over several scans, is worth showing as an error the subscriber can act on (unsubscribe or find a new address). Before #92 daily-quests answered 503 and did show as failing.

Found on 2026-10-04. daily-quests (http://daily-quests.com/comic/?feed=atom) and hots-dots (http://www.hotsdots.com/feed/) have 0 items and no last error, so their subscribers see a feed that has never posted instead of one that is broken. Both domains have lapsed: public DNS points daily-quests.com at exp.gname.net (the registrar's expired-domain page) and www.hotsdots.com at NameBright's comingsoon page. On this network NextDNS blocks parked domains and answers with its block page (certificate CN=blockpage.nextdns.io), which over http is a 200 with an empty body. scan_one treats a body that is all whitespace as Outcome::Empty, 'nothing yet', and records no error (src/main.rs, the bytes.iter().all(u8::is_ascii_whitespace) check), so the failing-feed mark never shows. An empty body from a feed that has never stored an item, seen over several scans, is worth showing as an error the subscriber can act on (unsubscribe or find a new address). Before #92 daily-quests answered 503 and did show as failing.
rays added the bug label 2026-10-04 15:41:46 -07:00
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Fixed in c63f70a: a body of nothing from a feed that has never stored an item fails with "the feed's address answered with nothing at all", explained on its page as an address that answers with nothing, the site maybe gone; from a feed with items it is still "nothing yet". Released in 0.10.1, deployed 2026-10-05: daily-quests and hots-dots show as failing at their next check.

Fixed in c63f70a: a body of nothing from a feed that has never stored an item fails with "the feed's address answered with nothing at all", explained on its page as an address that answers with nothing, the site maybe gone; from a feed with items it is still "nothing yet". Released in 0.10.1, deployed 2026-10-05: daily-quests and hots-dots show as failing at their next check.
rays closed this issue 2026-10-05 12:58:44 -07:00
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Reference: rays/ipx#119