M reaper/reaper.go → reaper/reaper.go

@@ -85,8 +85,16 @@ 
 // updateFeed triggers a fetch on the given feed,
 // and sets a fetch error in the db if there is one.
 func (r *Reaper) updateFeed(f *rss.Feed) {
+	var currentErr string
 	err := f.Update()
-	r.db.SetFeedFetchError(f.UpdateURL, err)
+	if err != nil {
+		currentErr = err.Error()
+	}
+
+	storedErr := r.db.GetFeedFetchError(f.UpdateURL)
+	if currentErr != storedErr {
+		r.db.SetFeedFetchError(f.UpdateURL, err)
+	}
 }
 
 // Have checks whether a given url is represented

M sqlite/sql.go → sqlite/sql.go

@@ -219,3 +219,12 @@ if err != nil {
 		panic(err)
 	}
 }
+
+func (s *DB) GetFeedFetchError(url string) string {
+	var fetchErr string
+	err := s.sql.QueryRow(`SELECT fetch_error FROM feed WHERE url=?`, url).Scan(&fetchErr)
+	if err != nil {
+		panic(err)
+	}
+	return fetchErr
+}