Common pitfalls and answers

mapping values are not allowed here, line [x] column [y]

A) You have : -character in somewhere where it's not allowed. If you have : in example series name, you must put name in quotes.

series:
  - name
      path: ~/name/

Reason: Name is missing : at the end.

B) Indentation error. Thumb rule is that every time line ends with : -character next line must be indented either 2 spaces more or less.

This is invalid

series:
  - name:
    watched:
      season: 1

It should be:

series:
  - name:
      watched:
        season: 1

Note that you need to use an extra indentation (kind of) after a line that starts with a dash (-) and ends with a colon (:).

ValueError: unsupported format character '"' (0x22) at .…

In case you are using RSS input, try forcing it into ASCII.

rss:
  url: http://example.com
  ascii: true

RSS Feed ... is not valid XML

Two possibilities, you're not receiving RSS feed for some reason (ie. must be logged in, cookies). Or the feed server sends is made by monkeys and isn't well formed XML. You can use  this service to check if the feed is broken.

cron job did not run - permission problems

Check that you have working mail system so you receive errors occur during crontab execution.

Feel free to add more