feed error: xml not at start (not the usual)

Hi - First of all want to say a huge thanks and congrats and a really useful extension, not just for us but for the Kingdom!

I have changed templates on my church website and all of a sudden the feed doesn't validate, saying that the xml is not at the start of the document (I can see that it begins on line 2.)

After some reading I can see that it can be caused by a plugin, but i've blindly gone through and disabled them and it doesn't help.

I was wondering if you could please have a look and help, as I'm starting to sweat on this one.

www.citytemple.info/messages/podcast?feed=RSS2.0&no_html=1

Thanks!

Looks like this is a really old version of SermonSpeaker. I would strongly recommend to upgrade to version 3.4.3.

SermonSpeaker 3.4.3 supports upgrading from SermonSpeaker 3.2.2 and all newer releases. If you have an older release, please use the upgrade packages from JoomlaCode and upgrade to SermonSpeaker 3.2.2 first.

Chances are good the error will be solved with this upgrade as the feed got rewritten during this time.

Thanks for your help - how do I do this without losing my information though I have a couple of years of speakers and messages!

Basically you can upgrade SermonSpeaker and you will not loose any of your data at all. That's because the data is stored in the database, and an upgrade will mainly replace files on the harddisc.
However since it's a bigger upgrade I would still recommend to backup the database tables prior to the upgrade. Just to be safe.
You can do this with phpMyAdmin or any similar tool. There are even Joomla extensions which allow you to create backups or manage the database:
ArtAdminer is one such tool, Akeeba Backup is another one.

After you have done the backup, you need to upgrade your installation up to SermonSpeaker 3.2.2. You need to do this step by step with the upgrade packages found here: joomlacode.org/gf/project/sermon_speaker...&frs_package_id=3275 . Each upgrade package contains a readme which explains what you need to do. Please read those and follow the directions closely.

Unfortunately I can't tell you much more than what is written in this readme files, as those versions were released before I took over the project from Martin.

After you got your installation to 3.2.2 (or if you already have this version or a newer one) you can just install SermonSpeaker 3.4.3 found in the download section on this site directly with the Joomla installer and it will do everything for you.

The modules and plugins are much easier to upgrade, just install the newest one from this site. They do nothing at all with the data so this will be safe.