diff --git a/.travis.yml b/.travis.yml
index 95e2b02b1..da3c29b57 100644
--- a/.travis.yml
+++ b/.travis.yml
@@ -6,11 +6,10 @@ rvm:
 before_script:
   - "sass --update public/stylesheets/sass/:public/stylesheets/"
   - "cp config/database.yml.example config/database.yml"
-  - "rake db:drop"
   - "rake db:create"
   - "rake db:schema:load"
   - "rspec spec --tag fixture"
-
+  - 'rails runner "puts ActiveRecord::Base.connection.collation"'
 script: "bundle exec rake travis"
 env: "TRAVIS=true"
 notifications:
diff --git a/lib/pubsubhubbub.rb b/lib/pubsubhubbub.rb
index b24b7f798..6de442a8e 100644
--- a/lib/pubsubhubbub.rb
+++ b/lib/pubsubhubbub.rb
@@ -12,7 +12,11 @@ class Pubsubhubbub
   end
 
   def publish(feed)
-    response = RestClient.post(@hub, :headers => @headers, 'hub.url' => feed, 'hub.mode' => 'publish')
-    response
+    begin
+      response = RestClient.post(@hub, :headers => @headers, 'hub.url' => feed, 'hub.mode' => 'publish')
+    return response
+    rescue  RestClient::BadRequest=> e
+      Rails.logger.warn "Public URL for your users are incorrect.  this is ok if you are in development and localhost is your pod_url#{e.inspect}" 
+    end
   end
 end