Fix for WordPress not recognizing RSS enclosures

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If you use WordPress and have found out that for some reason it is not automatically recognizing certain file extensions as enclosures (my personal experience was that it did not recognize .wmv files) it’s because your server doesn’t have the proper MIME-TYPE setting for that file extension.

The way WordPress automatically creates enclosures is that is queries the server with the URI of your linked file (e.g. an mp3 file) and then parses the server’s returned MIME-TYPE. If it discovers the MIME-TYPE is of either audio or video, it then creates the appropriate enclosure entry.

So, if you ain’t gettin’ your RSS enclosure automatically created, it’s because the MIME-TYPE is missing from the server. But how do you fix that? Every server is different so the fix below only applies to an Apache server with the .htaccess feature enabled.

Here’s the fix:

Just edit the .htaccess file on the local home directory of the Web server that is hosting the audio/video files and add the proper MIME-TYPE that corresponds to the file you’re trying to access. In my case I was adding a MIME-TYPE for WMV (Windows Media Video) files. I added the following line into my .htaccess file:

AddType video/x-ms-wmv .wmv

Here’s a table of other mimetypes. You can also of course Google around and find more.

CAUTION: you need to be careful/aware if you already have an .htaccess file and if so, make sure you edit that file and ADD the above line instead of OVERWRITING that file. Of course if you’re sure that file doesn’t exist then you should be able to create it.

2 replies
  1. Waz says:

    Tried this solution at my site but it didn’t work. I put the .htaccess file in the htdocs folder, I’m assuming that is the right place. My videos still don’t show up in FireAnt.

  2. Peter Kay says:

    First make sure that WordPress is recognizing the enclosure. Pull up the post with the video link and check to see if the enclosure has been created (look in the custom fields section and it should be there).

    If the enclosure has not been recognized, your problem is that the MIME-TYPE is not being properly processed and talk to your system administrators.

    If the enclosure is there, then your problem may be with your feed. Try testing it out with feedvalidator.org or use feedburner.com

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