[Bug] Newsfeed crashes when an Atom summary is parsed as an object

[FrederikFl]

Environment

MagicMirror version: 2.37.0
Node.js version: 24.11.0
npm version: 11.11.0
Platform: Raspberry Pi 5
Operating system: Raspberry Pi OS Bookworm
Process manager: PM2

Which start option are you using?

node --run start:x11

Are you using PM2?

Yes

Module

newsfeed

Have you tried disabling other modules?

• Yes
• No

Have you searched if someone else has already reported the issue on the forum or in the issues?

• Yes

What did you do?

Newsfeed crashes when an Atom summary is parsed as an object

Description

The default newsfeed module fails to process the VRT NWS Atom feed:

https://www.vrt.be/vrtnieuws/nl.rss.articles.xml

MagicMirror logs the following error:

[ERROR] [newsfeed] https://www.vrt.be/vrtnieuws/nl.rss.articles.xml - Stream processing failed: this.buffers[0].slice is not a function
[ERROR] [newsfeed] Error: Could not fetch newsfeed: https://www.vrt.be/vrtnieuws/nl.rss.articles.xml Stream processing failed: this.buffers[0].slice is not a function

Environment

• MagicMirror version: 2.37.0
• Node.js version: 24.11.0
• npm version: 11.11.0
• Platform: Raspberry Pi 5
• Operating system: Raspberry Pi OS Bookworm
• Process manager: PM2

Reproduction

Configure the default newsfeed module with:

{
    title: "VRT NWS",
    url: "https://www.vrt.be/vrtnieuws/nl.rss.articles.xml"
}

Restart MagicMirror.

The feed is downloaded successfully, but processing fails with:

this.buffers[0].slice is not a function

The URL responds successfully after its redirect:

HTTP/2 301
HTTP/2 200
content-type: application/atom+xml;charset=utf-8

Investigation

Parsing all 50 feed entries with feedme showed that five entries return summary as an object rather than a string:

ITEM 2 FIELD summary TYPE object VALUE { type: 'text' }
ITEM 4 FIELD summary TYPE object VALUE { type: 'text' }
ITEM 6 FIELD summary TYPE object VALUE { type: 'text' }
ITEM 45 FIELD summary TYPE object VALUE { type: 'text' }
ITEM 47 FIELD summary TYPE object VALUE { type: 'text' }
Finished: 50 items, 5 non-string fields

The relevant code in defaultmodules/newsfeed/newsfeedfetcher.js selects the first available description field:

let description = item.description || item.summary || item.content || "";

It later passes description to htmlToText() without checking whether it is a string.

When description is { type: "text" }, html-to-text/htmlparser2 ultimately throws:

this.buffers[0].slice is not a function

Workaround

Adding a type guard before calling htmlToText() prevents the whole feed from failing:

let description = item.description || item.summary || item.content || "";

if (typeof description !== "string") {
    Log.warn(`Unexpected non-string description for ${this.url}:`, description);
    description = "";
}

After this change, the VRT newsfeed loads normally. Entries with object-valued summaries are retained with an empty description instead of crashing the complete feed.

Expected behavior

A malformed or unusually parsed description or summary in one feed item should not prevent the entire feed from loading.

The newsfeed module should either:

1. normalize supported object structures into text;
2. discard only the invalid description field; or
3. skip only the affected item while continuing to process the remaining entries.

What did you expect to happen?

A malformed or unusually parsed description or summary in one feed item should not prevent the entire feed from loading.

The newsfeed module should either:

1. normalize supported object structures into text;
2. discard only the invalid description field; or
3. skip only the affected item while continuing to process the remaining entries.

What actually happened?

The default newsfeed module fails to process the VRT NWS Atom feed:

https://www.vrt.be/vrtnieuws/nl.rss.articles.xml

MagicMirror logs the following error:

[ERROR] [newsfeed] https://www.vrt.be/vrtnieuws/nl.rss.articles.xml - Stream processing failed: this.buffers[0].slice is not a function
[ERROR] [newsfeed] Error: Could not fetch newsfeed: https://www.vrt.be/vrtnieuws/nl.rss.articles.xml Stream processing failed: this.buffers[0].slice is not a function

Additional comments

diff --git a/defaultmodules/newsfeed/newsfeedfetcher.js b/defaultmodules/newsfeed/newsfeedfetcher.js
index b6b86fe5..5e2ae3a7 100644
--- a/defaultmodules/newsfeed/newsfeedfetcher.js
+++ b/defaultmodules/newsfeed/newsfeedfetcher.js
@@ -152,6 +152,10 @@ class NewsfeedFetcher {
parser.on("item", (item) => {
const title = item.title;
let description = item.description || item.summary || item.content || "";

•                   if (typeof description !== "string") {
  

•                           Log.warn(`Unexpected non-string description for ${this.url}:`, description);
  

•                           description = "";
  

•                   }
                    const pubdate = item.pubdate || item.published || item.updated || item["dc:date"] || item["a10:updated"];
                    const url = item.url || item.link || "";
  

Participation

• I am willing to submit a pull request for this change.

[KristjanESPERANTO]

Thanks for reporting this. We could add a workaround in MagicMirror, but I think it would be better to fix the issue upstream in FeedMe. I’ve opened a PR there: fent/feedme.js#58