This update is targeted for site owners/editors who use RSS feeds that pull list content from PubMed. If you do not have any instances of this set up, please feel free to ignore this message.
What’s happening?
Users who pull PubMed article lists into a website via the RSS feed shortcode may notice their feeds are erroring. Error messages include:
- “Feed unavailable. Check back soon.”
- “Due to PubMed processing times, the latest publications may not yet appear.”
The feeds are throwing a 500-level error, which indicates that something is wrong on the PubMed side of things.
Other tools pulled into RSS feeds are working as expected. This appears to solely be an issue with PubMed.
Why is this happening?
We believe that something has occurred on the PubMed side. Banner alerts on their website indicate it could be related to recent changes to government funding:
“Because of a lapse in government funding, the information on this website may not be up to date, transactions submitted via the website may not be processed, and the agency may not be able to respond to inquiries until appropriations are enacted.”
What can you do?
We recommend updating your pages to include a direct link to the PubMed feed you are trying to display. While the RSS technology is down for their site, the overarching PubMed tooling is still resolving at the moment and can be linked out to.
If you have any questions, please contact us via our Customer Support Form.