Jim, thanks for the pointers! Since I am looking for an RSS reader that is not browser-dependent, I downloaded SharpReader. It successfully picked up a protected TypePad RSS feed, recognizing that it required authentication and prompting me for the access userid/password.
When I tried to open the MediaWiki RSS feed, it failed with "Error parsing RSS XML: Undefined root element: html". I had SharpReader validate the feed. The HTML code that it dumped out was the Special:Userlogin page (line 55 was "<h1 class="firstHeading">Login Required</h1>"). I don't think it recognized that this was a protected feed.
The reason I'm having this problem is that the Wiki implementation requires a login for both edit/create and read. RSSBandit has no problems with a Wiki where anyone can read the content, since no authentication is required for the RSS feed. Thanks, Norbert
I know you want to use RSSBandit, but you may want to try some other
clients
first, just to check. I'm not convinced that RSSBandit will handle HTTP authentication requests properly (though it by all means should).
I've had good experiences using the NewsFox Firefox extension as well as
the
SharpReader Windows client. My advice is to try a few more clients to
see
how well they deal with your feeds, and if it's just RSSBandit that
keeps
choking, it may be time to switch.
-- Jim