I am using Ruby Feedparser and keep running into situations when a feed is valid but feedparser throws an exception - REXML::ParseException: Declarations can only occur in the doctype declaration. The following feed does validate at feedvalidator.org (with a warning, but does validate): http://www.engadget.com/rss.xml However, when I run feedparser I get this error: <REXML::ParseException: Declarations can only occur in the doctype declaration. Line: Position: Last 80 unconsumed characters: <