TL;DR I created a WordPress plugin that allows me to ingest tons of posts 24/7 via curated RSS. See below. While creating it I caused a huge headache and had to recover from it.

RSS feed used to be all the rage, and feed readers were a major way to keep up with news and interests, but now RSS is pretty much seen as an API which is a shame.

Anyway, I digress.

This plugin worked gangbusters so I thought I could use it for a client who needed to take a copy of his newsletter archive.

Two problems occurred.

One, the system he uses has a weird way of embedding widgets into posts. They are kind of a rich JSON style format but not JSON.

This would be fine, but I had already imported them at the point I realized this.

Next issue was only 20 items were available in RSS, so I am going to have to scrape his archive anyway.

I was feeling pretty pleased with myself, I had even managed to set his featured images successfully after a lot of swearing and debugging, but now I had these nasty messed up embeds.

No problem, I thought, search and replace!

But ... nope.

The embed is HTML encoded, and the search and replace tools are careful to sanitize your form submissions.

So I had to go to the source database, but I have no direct MySQL access nor do I have his PHPAdmin.

Arrgh!

Wonderful news though, a nice fellow created a plugin that uses Adminer as a PHPMyAdmin replacement AND it works from WordPress!

Now I just had to use an SQL statement including escape characters:

update wp_posts set post_content = replace(post_content, '\\\'', '\'')

where post_status = 'draft' and post_type = 'post'

These are top WordPress plugins for if you get into a similar pickle:

debug-log-manager
pexlechris-adminer
WP Crontrol

RSS Feed Importer WordPress Plugin

This WordPress plugin imports posts from a specified RSS or Atom feed into your WordPress site on a recurring schedule.

Features

Scheduled Imports: Automatically checks a specified feed URL for new posts based on standard WordPress cron schedules (e.g., hourly, twice daily, daily).
Configurable Import Quantity: Set the maximum number of posts to attempt importing during each scheduled check.
Post Status Control: Choose the status (Draft, Published, Pending Review, Private) for newly imported posts.
Category Assignment: Assign all imported posts to a specific category selected from a dropdown list.
Image Handling:
- Imports images found within the feed item's content, uploads them to the WordPress Media Library, and updates the image URLs in the post content.
- Detects image enclosures in the feed and attempts to set them as the post's Featured Image.
Duplicate Prevention: Stores the feed item's GUID (or permalink as fallback) in post meta to prevent importing the same item multiple times.
Simple Settings Page: Configure the feed URL, schedule, quantity, status, and category under "Tools" -> "RSS Importer" in the WordPress admin area.

How it Works

Settings: Configure the plugin via the admin settings page. Saving the settings schedules (or reschedules) the import task using WP-Cron.
Cron Job: On the chosen schedule, the rss_importer_cron function runs.
Fetch Feed: It fetches the specified RSS/Atom feed using WordPress's built-in fetch_feed() function.
Check for Duplicates: For each item in the feed (up to the specified quantity), it checks if a post with the same GUID has already been imported by checking post meta (_rss_importer_guid).
Process Content Images: It parses the feed item's content (the_content), finds <img> tags, downloads the images using download_url(), uploads them to the Media Library using media_handle_sideload(), and updates the src attributes in the content with the new URLs.
Insert Post: It creates a new post using wp_insert_post(), mapping the feed item's title, processed content, date, and selected status/category. It also stores the original GUID, feed URL, and item permalink as post meta.
Featured Image: If the feed item has an image enclosure, it attempts to download and upload that image using media_handle_sideload() and sets it as the Featured Image for the newly created post using set_post_thumbnail().

Requirements

WordPress (tested vaguely around recent versions)
PHP (with standard extensions like DOM, mbstring, and an image library like GD or Imagick for thumbnail generation)
A functioning WP-Cron system (standard WordPress cron or a server-side cron job triggering wp-cron.php)

Installation

Download the plugin files (e.g., rss_importer.php).
Place the rss_importer.php file (or the directory containing it, if packaged) into your /wp-content/plugins/ directory.
Activate the "RSS Feed Importer" plugin through the 'Plugins' menu in WordPress.
Go to "Tools" -> "RSS Importer" to configure the settings.

Notes

Import scheduling relies on WP-Cron, which depends on site traffic to trigger schedules. For guaranteed timing, consider setting up a server-level cron job to hit wp-cron.php.
Image import success depends on the remote server allowing downloads, PHP memory limits, and correct image library setup on your server.
The author for imported posts is currently hardcoded to user ID 1 (the initial admin user). This could be made configurable in future versions.

Ingesting RSS Into WordPress and Failing Down the Content at Scale Rabbit Hole