Why are the fields filled in Ukrainian in my Webflow RSS feed displaying as random characters and how can this be fixed?
TL;DR
- Verify your RSS feed is encoded in UTF-8 by checking the XML declaration.
- Ensure Ukrainian characters in CMS fields are manually typed and free of hidden formatting.
- Map only plain or Unicode-safe fields in RSS feed settings.
- Validate your feed using a tool like W3C Feed Validator.
- Test the feed in different RSS readers to rule out viewer-side issues.
Ukrainian characters displaying as random symbols in your Webflow RSS feed likely result from an encoding issue—RSS readers may misinterpret non-ASCII characters if the feed isn't properly encoded in UTF-8, the standard for RSS.
1. Check the RSS Feed Encoding
- Webflow’s RSS feeds are auto-generated using dynamic content from your CMS collections.
- By default, Webflow outputs XML feeds with UTF-8 encoding, which supports Ukrainian characters.
- To ensure proper encoding is recognized, open your RSS feed URL (usually
yourdomain.com/rss.xml) in a browser and view the page source. Look for the top declaration:
If it's missing or says a different encoding, that may be the problem.
2. Validate Special Characters in CMS Fields
- Go to the CMS Collection powering your RSS feed.
- Edit a CMS item using Ukrainian characters (e.g., in the Name, Summary, or Body fields) and ensure the content is correctly typed and saved.
- Avoid pasting from apps like MS Word or rich text editors, which may introduce incompatible invisible formatting characters.
3. Use Proper Fields in the RSS Feed Settings
- In your Webflow project, go to Pages > RSS Feed Settings for your relevant collection template.
- Ensure the fields mapped to Title, Description, and Content are plain text or rich text fields with Unicode-safe content.
- RSS readers may fail to parse fancy formatting, so test with basic Ukrainian text in your fields first.
4. Test Your RSS Feed with a Validator
- Use an external tool like W3C Feed Validator (https://validator.w3.org/feed/) to check your feed's encoding and structure.
- This can reveal if invalid characters or misencoding are causing parsing problems in readers.
5. Check the RSS Reader’s Language Support
- Some RSS readers or apps may not fully support Cyrillic character sets.
- Test your feed in multiple apps (e.g., Feedly, Inoreader, or browser extensions) to confirm whether it's a reader-side rendering issue rather than a Webflow feed issue.
Summary
Random characters in Ukrainian RSS feed content typically stem from encoding or character support issues. First, confirm your feed is set to UTF-8, your CMS content is cleanly entered, and your RSS field mappings are accurate. Then validate the feed and test in multiple readers. Most issues can be fixed by ensuring proper encoding and clean CMS content.