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

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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Scheduled Episode Checks

Scheduled Episode Check Interval

This setting sets how often the background job checks for newly-available scheduled episodes and makes them live. A shorter interval means a scheduled episode goes live closer to its scheduled minute; it has no effect on how long compiled feed XML is cached — see Feed Caching for that, which is not configurable at all.

Changing this setting takes effect immediately. The next scheduled check after you save will use the new interval.

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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 reconnected the site, changed your plan, 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, enclosure URLs returning non-200 status, and deprecated Podcasting 2.0 tags.

“Feed contains N deprecated <podcast:images> elements”

The Podcast Index spec replaced the single <podcast:images srcset="…"> tag with repeated <podcast:image> elements, and Benecaster no longer emits the old form anywhere.

This is the one check whose cause is never your own settings. Because Benecaster cannot produce that tag any more, seeing it means something else put it back — an add-on, or a snippet on your site filtering the Podcasting 2.0 tag arrays. There is nothing to change in Benecaster to fix it, which is worth knowing before you go looking.

To track it down, disable your add-ons one at a time and re-run the check, or search your theme and custom plugins for benecaster_feed_podcast_channel_tags and benecaster_feed_podcast_episode_tags. Whatever you find should be updated to build a list of <podcast:image> entries instead — the filter reference shows the shape.

The check looks anywhere in the document, channel and items alike, because the old tag was valid in both.

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, health checks that failed to run, and error conditions. Error entries are always recorded; you don’t need to turn on any debug setting to get them.

A health check that failed to run is worth noticing. Health checks are what raise, and later clear, the warnings in wp-admin about a feed that has stopped syncing, a license that can’t be reached, or a run of declined donations. An entry such as Health check …\FeedHealthCheck failed: … means that check didn’t finish, so a warning it should have raised may be missing, or a warning it should have cleared may still be showing. Benecaster doesn’t show a separate notice for this, so the Debug Log is where it appears. If the entry keeps repeating, contact support with the entry’s text.

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 a benecaster_debug_log option in your WordPress database, not a separate table.

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Export

JSON Export saves all of your Benecaster data as one gzip-compressed JSON file. Choose the datasets — Subscribers, Shows & Episodes, Tiers, Migration Records, Token Records — and click Export JSON. On a site with fewer than 1,000 active subscribers the file is built straight away. On a larger site the export is queued and built in the background: you see “Export queued — you’ll receive an email when it’s ready.”, and when it finishes Benecaster emails your site’s administration email address (Settings → General) with the subject Your Benecaster export is ready. The email does not carry the file. Its link opens this Tools screen, where you download the file from Export Files.

Subscriber CSV saves subscriber contact details as a spreadsheet-compatible CSV. Filter by tier and by status (active, revoked or all), then click Download CSV. Each row carries the subscriber’s plan name.

Export Files lists every export on your server with its date, size and how long until it is deleted automatically. Click Download to save one to your computer, or delete it once you have a copy. Export files are deleted automatically after 7 days by default — see Exporting Your Data for how to change that.

Backup

Click Back up Benecaster data to save a backup of your Benecaster data to your server. Backups made during a migration appear here too. Each backup is listed with its date, size and type, and has a Download button to save it to your computer and a Delete button to remove it from the server.

About 30 days after a backup is made, Benecaster shows an admin notice saying the backup is still stored on your server. Its link opens this Tools screen, where you can download the backup or delete it. Remind later puts the reminder off for 7 days; after that it does not come back.

If a download does not start, the row shows “Download failed — please try again”. Downloads, like everything on this screen, are for administrators only.

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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:

• Every Benecaster database table, including tables created by Benecaster add-ons (an add-on’s data goes even if the add-on plugin is still installed — its plugin files stay, but the data does not)
• All Benecaster options
• The settings Benecaster keeps per WordPress user: email preferences, Supporter Wall name and message, dismissed notices, and tour progress
• Shows and episodes, along with their meta, revisions, and comments
• Episode categories
• Every Benecaster scheduled task
• Uploaded files: backups, exports, uploaded design templates, and the GeoIP database (at its default location)
• Donation and donor records, and the subscriber unsubscribe log — these are otherwise retained indefinitely for compliance while the plugin is installed; deleting all data on uninstall removes them too
• The Benecaster Integration user role, and the integration-actions capability Benecaster gives administrators. A user who had that role keeps their account but is left with no role, as WordPress does whenever a role is removed. If you install Benecaster again, the role comes back and those users have it again.

Kept: your WordPress user accounts (subscribers keep their logins), the media library (episode artwork, featured images, subscriber avatars), your theme’s override files, and a GeoIP database stored at a custom path.

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.