diff --git a/conlite/classes/class.update.notifier.php b/conlite/classes/class.update.notifier.php
index db640ff..254b232 100644
--- a/conlite/classes/class.update.notifier.php
+++ b/conlite/classes/class.update.notifier.php
@@ -418,7 +418,7 @@ class Contenido_UpdateNotifier {
 
         if ($this->sXMLContent != "") {
             $this->oXML = simplexml_load_string($this->sXMLContent);
-            if (!is_object($this->oXML)) {
+            if ($this->oXML === false ||  !is_object($this->oXML)) {
                 $sErrorMessage = i18n('Unable to check for new updates!') . " " . i18n('Could not handle server response!');
                 $this->sErrorOutput = $this->renderOutput($sErrorMessage);
             } else {
@@ -522,6 +522,11 @@ class Contenido_UpdateNotifier {
                 $response = curl_exec($ch);
                 curl_close($ch);
             }
+        } else {
+            $source = file_get_contents("http://" .$sHost . $sFile);
+            if ($source !== false AND ! empty($source)) {
+                $response = $source;
+            }
         }
         return $response;
     }
@@ -685,34 +690,22 @@ class Contenido_UpdateNotifier {
         }
 
         if ($this->sRSSContent != '') {
-            $sFeedContent = substr($this->sRSSContent, 0, 1024);
-            $sFeedContent = trim($sFeedContent);
+                $temp = mb_convert_encoding( file_get_contents($this->sCacheDirectory . $this->sRSSFile), 'UTF-8', "ISO-8859-1" );
+                $oRss = simplexml_load_file($this->sCacheDirectory . $this->sRSSFile);
 
-            $aMatches = array();
-
-            $sRegExp = "/<\?xml.*encoding=[\"\'](.*)[\"\']\?>/i";
-
-            preg_match($sRegExp, $sFeedContent, $aMatches);
-
-            if ($aMatches[1]) {
-                $oRss = new XML_RSS($this->sCacheDirectory . $this->sRSSFile, $aMatches[1]);
-            } else {
-                $oRss = new XML_RSS($this->sCacheDirectory . $this->sRSSFile);
-            }
-
-            $oRss->parse();
+            //$oRss->parse();
 
             $iCnt = 0;
-            foreach ($oRss->getItems() as $aItem) {
-                $sText = clHtmlEntities($aItem['description'], ENT_QUOTES);
+            foreach ($oRss->channel->item as $aItem) {
+                $sText = clHtmlEntities(utf8_decode($aItem->description), ENT_QUOTES);
                 if (strlen($sText) > 150) {
                     $sText = capiStrTrimAfterWord($sText, 150) . '...';
                 }
 
-                $oTpl->set("d", "NEWS_DATE", $aItem['pubdate']);
-                $oTpl->set("d", "NEWS_TITLE", $aItem['title']);
+                $oTpl->set("d", "NEWS_DATE", $aItem->pubdate);
+                $oTpl->set("d", "NEWS_TITLE", utf8_decode($aItem->title));
                 $oTpl->set("d", "NEWS_TEXT", $sText);
-                $oTpl->set("d", "NEWS_URL", $aItem['link']);
+                $oTpl->set("d", "NEWS_URL", $aItem->link);
                 $oTpl->set("d", "LABEL_MORE", i18n('read more'));
                 $oTpl->next();
                 $iCnt++;