How to Fix WordPress Feedburner Plugins After Converting to Google Feedburner

I ran into (yet another) Feed Count + Feedburner problem recently, shortly after writing my last article on accounting for Feedburner’s subscriber count mistakes. And since I heard from a few people who are also using the Feed Count plugin, I thought I should share this info.

The Backstory

As I’m sure all you Feedburner users out there are well aware, Google purchased Feedburner quite some time ago. But until recently, that didn’t mean much: the same people were working on the code, your information was stored in the same place and was represented the same way, and so on.

But recently Google has begun bringing Feedburner more fully into the fold. As a result, all Feedburner users are being required to convert their Feedburner accounts into Google accounts. That created quite a few headaches for lots of people (including myself) right off the bat, as it took a good week for Google to nail down my subscriber numbers with any accuracy – one day I would have thousands of subscribers, the next I might have zero, and the day following only a few hundred.

A New Problem

However, even once Google started reporting my Feedburner numbers correctly, I still had a problem: my Feed Count plugin no longer grabbed my subscription statistics. Now, this wasn’t as huge a problem as it could have been, because I had my jQuery Feeburner fix in place… but I still wanted my real subscriber stats back at some point.

After a bit of digging, I found the problem: as part of their conversion from Feedburner to “Google” Feedburner, Google changed the location of their API. Thus, any plugins that used the old Feedburner API ceased functioning once that user’s account was successfully ported to Google.

The Solution

Long-term, the best solution would be for the plugin developers to update and release new versions of their plugins. But as of now, the Feed Count plugin has not been updated – and since it hasn’t seen an update since last July, I’m not going to hold my breath on a new version. So I decided to take matters into my own hands and edit my copy of the Feed Count plugin.

Note: this solution is specific to the Feed Count plugin, but any brave souls out there could probably modify and use this information to update other plugins as well.

I opened up my copy of the Feed Count plugin file (feedcount.php) and found this function:

function mapelli_fc_get_defaults() {
	return array(
			'map_fc_feedurl' => '',
		  'map_fc_queryurl' =>'http://api.feedburner.com/awareness/1.0/GetFeedData?uri=',
			'map_fc_lastcount' => 'N/A',
			'map_fc_lastupdate' => 0,
			'map_fc_updateinterval' => 60, // 1 h
	    'map_fc_error_updateinterval' => 5, // 5 min
		  );
}

This function mostly sets all the plugin defaults, but it also sets the “queryurl” – the website that the plugin hits to find your subscriber count information. This URL is not customizable anywhere inside WordPress, and since this URL has now changed, we’re forced to edit the plugin itself.

All I had to do was change the “map_fc_queryurl” line to read this instead:

'map_fc_queryurl' =>'https://feedburner.google.com/api/awareness/1.0/GetFeedData?uri=',

Then I saved the plugin, uploaded it to my server, and my stats started showing up again! However, it’d still recommend putting something like this JavaScript fix in place for those random times when Feedburner drops the ball (and your subscriber count).

Note: Your stats probably won’t start showing up again instantly. You’ll have to wait for the duration of your “update interval,” which can be configured in WordPress under Settings -> Feed Count:

If you’re using a different plugin and have run into this same problem, please give this solution a try and let people know in the comments if it worked. Thanks!