You're right, they're working for me now too -- maybe I had a short connection problem.
(Not Christmas, but summer holidays...)

@Emka
Is it Christmas already?

BTW, links work for me.

links are broken

Blimey.

So, recently I've noticed I have not been receiving my daily podcast downloads on my computer.

I tracked the problem down to the fact that my robert's_podcatcher_background_service.exe program was missing!

Symantec Endpoint Protection had now decided and that the robert's_podcatcher_background_service.exe program was a Trojan horse. I think it termed it Trojan-GEN. It removed all copies of robert's_podcatcher_background_service.exe from my computer - including all my backup archives. I had to go in and manually exclude my Run directory, and my development directory, as well as my backup directories, in order to get my own application to live on my system.

This is a change in threat management software that happened recently, and it has nothing to do with my software being a Trojan, as it has been released for four years now, and I wrote it myself, and it's not a Trojan, etc.

Technically speaking, what robert's_podcatcher_background_service.exe does is takes a list of RSS URLs, and uses the Windows URLDownloadToFile() function to download the RSS file, parses through it and figures out which enclosures (MP3 files) to download, and then proceeds to do so. It also calls the Windows function DeleteUrlCacheEntry() to force an actual download of the file, rather than retrieving the requested download from Windows cached downloads.

Does that qualify as being a Trojan? It seems these threat management companies seem to think so.

ESET NOD32 Antivirus 4.2.40.0 (fully updated) notified me that the archive of Robert's Podcaster contained an unknown "NewHeur_PE Virus" and immediately quarantined the file. Had no opportunity to even examine the archive.

Accordingly, I submitted this archived program file to ESET for analysis. I have used this Anti-viral program for years and never received a virus warning message when downloading a program from an author's website.

Not sure what is going on, but I do not believe this is an error in my AV program. There may be a perfectly good explanation. However, I would use extreme caution if you decide to download this archive until the virus warning is corrected or fully explained.

I had really looked forward to trying this program and am sorry to report what happened. I'll check back in 2-3 weeks to see if this has been corrected and/or explained. I will also report any feedback I receive from ESET about the virus found in this archive.

FYI, the download link I used was: http://home.comcast.net/~rschoolf/podcatcher/roberts_podcatcher_2.1.zip

Wally

I think the OPML file might be in use, at the time that you are trying to delete the feeds. You can try to stop the Podcatcher background service, which might have the file open. Then delete the feeds that you do not want. You can also edit the OPML file with a text editor.

It doesn't work for me. Errors appear as soon as I try to delete the default feeds.