Front page deals repeated in RSS on Google Reader
 

The past week or two, I've noticed that I've been getting multiple items from the front page RSS feed for the same deal in Google Reader. For example, I got 5 different RSS items for the same Ghiradelli chocolate front page deal last night. Each one has a slightly different title ("Ghirardelli 5.3oz (6-pack) $9", "Ghirardelli Chocolate 5.3 oz (6-pack) $9", etc.), but they all go to the same deal, so I'm guessing that it might be an issue with Google Reader. Has anyone else seen this? It's getting pretty annoying, and it doesn't happen with any other feeds in Google Reader.

Edited at 12:18 pm Eastern, to add:
The following can explain part of what is going on (see next couple of posts below this one)

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Hi willdude :)

Here is what is happening:

• A deal is front-paged.
• Additional threads are started for similar items (such as in this case, another type of chocolate)
• That deal is added to the original FP post and a link is inserted and marked as a "[Discuss]" (see here for an example)
• The new deal is then "tagged" as a FP deal and a tiny blue "SD" icon is attached to it.

When the deal is added and tagged, it resubmits that new deal to Deal Alerts & RSS Feeds, etc.. hence, what sometimes seems like the same deal being resubmitted, but it is actually just a similar deal, linked to the original one.

This happens in only a small percentage of FP'd Deals, as most don't have a secondary deal added.

Fair enough, but like the OP said, this has been really noticeable over the past week or two, so something must have changed. Plus a couple times, including just a few minutes ago, I've gotten a flood of old deals on my "SD Front Page" RSS feed. I was all caught up on them, and then all of a sudden the last 47 front page deals all got sent to me again.

Again, for the most part things are working fine, but over the past 2-3 weeks things have been acting a little funny. We just want to bring this to your attention so that it can be looked at.

Thanks guys.

Ah, ok ...so it must be a combination of what I mentioned plus some technical problems. The admins read this forum regularly, so I am sure they will look into it.

And, yes, thank you for bringing it to our attention .. we appreciate it :nod:

I just experienced the same thing, where 40+ items showed up as "new" in Reader. When I look at the feed itself in the browser, I don't see those repeats at all. When other feeds update their title/content in Reader, it changes the actual item rather than showing up as a new one. I'm not familiar with the mechanics of RSS, but something's changed such that the updating of existing items is interpreted by Reader as a whole new item.

We just reverted back to the old system, so it shouldn't happen anymore. Let us know if it continues to happen.