Settings — Tools Tab

The Tools tab in Benecaster Settings gives you maintenance controls, diagnostic tools, and the cache configuration for your podcast feeds.

Where to find it: WordPress admin → Benecaster → Settings → Tools

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Cache Management

Cache Interval

Controls how long Benecaster caches your compiled RSS feeds before rebuilding them. A shorter interval means subscribers receive updated episodes sooner; a longer interval reduces server load on high-traffic sites.

Changing this setting takes effect immediately. The next feed request after the current cache entry expires will use the new interval.

Flush Cache

Immediately invalidates the cached RSS feed so the next request rebuilds it. When the show switcher is set to a specific show, only that show’s cache is flushed. When set to “All Shows,” all caches are flushed globally.

Use this after making changes that should reach subscribers right away — updated episode artwork, an edited description, a changed availability date.

This is a manual trigger. For automatic cache invalidation on publish, save, or availability change, cache is cleared automatically by the plugin.

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Maintenance

Check License

Manually triggers a license validation request to the Benecaster license server. Under normal circumstances this runs automatically on a daily schedule. Use this if you’ve just updated your license key, moved to a new domain, or want to confirm your current plan status.

The result displays your current plan, show count, and the timestamp of the last successful validation. See License Status and Plan for full details on what each status means.

Check Feed Health

Runs a public accessibility check on your feed URL — makes an outbound HTTP request to your feed from the server and reports whether it returns a valid 200 OK response. This is distinct from feed validation (which checks content structure): health check verifies the feed is reachable from the outside.

A failed health check usually indicates a server-level block, a caching plugin excluding the feed URL, or a misconfigured .htaccess rule. See Troubleshooting: Subscriber Can’t Access Their Feed if the check fails.

When the show switcher is set to a specific show, the check runs against that show’s feed URL.

Validate Feed

Runs the built-in FeedValidator against your compiled RSS feed and reports any structural issues. Unlike the health check, this runs entirely server-side and tests content, not accessibility.

Results are grouped by severity:

Specific checks include: missing required fields (title, link, description), artwork in the wrong format or dimensions for Apple Podcasts, description over character limits, non-unique episode GUIDs, invalid <itunes:category> values, and enclosure URLs returning non-200 status.

The validator runs against the current show when one is selected in the show switcher.

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Debug Log

The Benecaster debug log records internal plugin events — token validation attempts, cache operations, email dispatch, license checks, bridge sync events, and error conditions.

Use the Level filter to show only entries at or above a selected severity:

Click Refresh to reload the log without a full page reload.

The debug log is cleared automatically after 30 days. Entries are stored in the benecaster_debug_log table in your WordPress database.

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Danger Zone

Delete All Data on Uninstall

When this option is off (the default), uninstalling Benecaster leaves all subscriber data, show configuration, and episode records intact in your database. You can reinstall without losing anything.

When this option is on, uninstalling the plugin permanently and irreversibly deletes all Benecaster data — subscriber records, tokens, tier mappings, show settings, episode meta, migration records, and all benecaster_* database tables.

A prominent warning is shown before this setting can be saved. There is no recovery once the plugin is uninstalled with this option enabled.

Recommended practice: leave this off unless you are permanently removing Benecaster from a site and have confirmed your subscribers no longer need their feed access.

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REST Endpoints

All Tools endpoints require manage_options capability and a valid X-WP-Nonce header.