Google Chrome rendering XML as text for RSS feed

Question

I have this script to generate an XML file for an RSS feed. Works great in every browser except Chrome. Chrome just renders the XML as text. Something to do with header("Content-Type: application/rss+xml; charset=ISO-8859-1"); possibly?

This is the code I'm using:

<?php

$linkUp = "http://localhost/sites/myBlog/";

header("Content-Type: application/rss+xml; charset=ISO-8859-1");

$rssfeed  = '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>';
$rssfeed .= '<rss version="2.0">';
$rssfeed .= '<channel>';
$rssfeed .= '<title>Mytitle</title>';
$rssfeed .= '<link>' . $linkUp . '</link>';
$rssfeed .= '<description>Mydescription</description>';
$rssfeed .= '<language>en-us</language>';
$rssfeed .= '<copyright>&copy; ' . strftime('%Y') .  ' . " " . ' . $linkUp . '</copyright>';


$query = "SELECT * FROM rss";
$result = $db->query($query);

while($row = $db->fetch_array($result)) {

    $rssfeed .= '<item>';
    $rssfeed .= '<title>' . $row['rss_title'] . '</title>';
    $rssfeed .= '<description>' . $row['rss_description'] . '</description>';
    $rssfeed .= '<link>' . $row['rss_link'] . '</link>';
    $rssfeed .= '<pubDate>' . date("D, d M Y H:i:s O", strtotime($date)) . '</pubDate>';
    $rssfeed .= '</item>';
}

$rssfeed .= '</channel>';
$rssfeed .= '</rss>';

echo $rssfeed;

?>

Answer 1

This is a known bug in chrome that has yet to be fixed, chrome does not display xml rss feeds with any formatting whatsoever.

Update: There is now an RSS subscription / reader extension for Chrome.

Answer 2

I had this same problem and I used "application/xml" and it fixed it right up. Chrome doesn't like "application/rss+xml".

Answer 3

Bottom line, RSS support isnt used by "majority" of users, and as such they are only implementing it as an extension, for now. The extension is available here: RSS SubscriptionExtension

There's a detailed discussion of this on the closing comment for the bug - you can read the developer notes here: Comment 149

Answer 4

Try changing the header to text/xml and see if it helps:

header("Content-Type: text/xml; charset=ISO-8859-1");

Answer 5

try the chrome extension "XML Tree"

Answer 6

Short answer: add "view-source:{feedurl}"

Note that when the url ends with .xml and is recognized as a feed by chrome, Chrome annoyingly opens a Save File dialog. But many feed urls don't end with an extension (i.e. .xml), such as:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/ScottHanselman

At root, that url is still a regular, xml feed, but for us coders who just want to see the real xml, Chrome and the others in this case show you a human readable display of the feed (very annoying!).

So the answer to both of these problems is contained in the comment above given by Arne Roomann-Kurrik. He should have put it as an answer, because it works!

view-source:http://feeds.feedburner.com/ScottHanselman You don't even need "http://".