RSS link on self-hosted Ghost blog opens raw XML - No option to open on RSS reader unlike on Ghost(Pro)

Hello guys,

I am new to the forum and to Ghost. I have recently created a self-hosted Ghost instance on DigitalOcean.

I have noticed that when clicking on the RSS link on my website to test that it works, instead of prompting me to open my installed RSS reader, I am redirected to a page that shows me the website’s raw XML feed.

I know that and RSS feed is essentially XML and that it depends on the browser you are using on how RSS is treated. On Safari, however, which is the browser I am using primarily, when I click on an RSS link it always prompts me to open my RSS reader.

I have see other Ghost blogs hosted on Ghost(Pro) that their RSS link works like that (ie prompting to open the RSS reader and not just show the raw XML). This made me curious to see if my RSS will work like that on Ghost(Pro). I created a trial account on Ghost(Pro) and uploaded my website’s theme file and indeed when clicking on the RSS from the same browser, I was prompted to open it on my RSS reader.

DigitalOcean support confirmed that there is no issue with my Droplet and that the issue must lie with the “Ghost application configuration/settings”.

I am not sure what’s happening, but this is very bizarre to me.

I know that some Ghost themes use Feedly for their RSS but I would prefer to not do that.
I would appreciate any help I can get. I hope that someone from Ghost can also advice on this.

Many thanks

Nick

————————

Website URL: https://nickofmanytrades.com/

Ghost version: 4.3.3
Ghost-CLI version: 1.16.3
Environment: Production

OS: Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS
Node version: 14.16.1
NGINX version: 1.18.0
mySQL version: 8.0.23

Droplet size: Basic (Shared CPU) Premium Until with NVMe SSD ($6 per month)
Droplet CPU: 1GB (1 Intel CPU)
Droplet storage: 25GB NVMe SSD
Droplet transfer: 1TB
Droplet datacenter Region: London (LON1)
Droplet VPC: default-lon1
Droplet authentication: SSH key
IPv6 address enabled

CDN used: Cloudflare
Cloudflare SSL/TLS encryption mode: Full

I think it’s because Casper uses Feedly for the RSS URL - e.g.

http://feedly.com/i/subscription/feed/https://nickofmanytrades.com/rss

If you open the feedly URL do you get the expected outcome?

Well Feedly would work I’m sure. The thing is, as I mentioned on the thread above, I don’t want to use Feedly for my RSS feed.

I want to be able to click on the RSS link and be prompted to open my installed RSS reader.
As I explained above, this is the case on the test blog I created hosted on Ghost(Pro). However, on my self-hosted blog on DigitalOcean (with the exact same theme file as the Ghost(Pro) blog) the RSS link doesn’t work by prompting me to open it on my RSS reader and instead shows me the raw XML

Aah totally missed that as it was at the end :grimacing:

Do you have an example of a site (even if it’s your trial site) that prompts?

Yeah sure. The link for the trial site is: https://test-90.ghost.io

Here are also some images so you can understand better the issue.
This is my actual website after clicking on the RSS link (where it shows the raw XML).

That’s the image from the test website and what happens when I click on the RSS link (prompts me to open my RSS reader as you cans see).

Sorry for sending two replies but for some reason it didn’t let me add it together with the other one because “I am a new user”.

The only major difference I’m seeing is that Ghost has a 60s cache time while your site has a 0s cache time :confused: I feel like that shouldn’t cause the issue

Hmm… Well I am not sure if I can even edit that? Since the RSS is generated by Ghost automatically.

Is there anyone from Ghost or any other user that has an idea about this issue? Many thanks