Feeds not updating?

We've received some reports of users noticing that their feeds subscription stop updating after upgrades. Our investigations show that these tend to occur after upgrades from one pre-release build of Windows Vista to another version.

If you're encountering this issue, first make sure that the feed URL is still valid by manually updating the feed (press F5 while viewing the feed in IE7). If no error shows up, then the following steps might help diagnose and fix the issue. Please let me know if they help/not help.

Note: The following steps are *not* addressing Outlook 2007's RSS support. If you are having issues with feeds in Outlook please refer to the Outlook blog.

Actions

  1. Check if Task Scheduler is running

    sc queryex schedule

    Look at the "STATE:" line, it should read "4 RUNNING" if it's not running, then start it

    sc start schedule

  2. Check if RSS Download Engine is running

    reg query HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Feeds /v SyncStatus

    Look at the "Status" line, it should read "0x01" or "0x1". If it isn't enabled, then enable it

    msfeedssync enable

  3. Check if task is corrupted

    schtasks /query | findstr /i "user_feed"

    Look for

    ERROR: The task image is corrupt or has been tampered with.

    ERROR: Task cannot be loaded: User_Feed_Synchronization-{..

    If corrupted, then delete and re-create the task

    msfeedssync disable

    msfeedssync enable

If your feeds are still not updating in the background after following these steps (you'll have to wait for the download interval to pass to make sure), please send us an email at teamrss[at]microsoft.com.

   
 

- Walter vonKoch

Program Manager

[4/2/2007] Updated step #2 that "0x01" and "0x1" are possible values. This are the same in this context.

[10/12/2007] Inserted a note that this post does *not* help with Outlook 2007, this post is focused on the Windows RSS Platform and applications built on top of the platform, for example: Internet Explorer 7, Vista Sidebar Feed Gadget, …