Unable to fast forward through podcasts

Where do you get the podcast from? When I downloaded on the iPhone it behaved normally (and I assume it would do the same if I downloaded from iTunes Store on the computer).

But when I clicked the download link here:
http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast/podcast_detail.php?siteId=4819413
It gave me an MP3 that didn't have the remember tag checked. I could still move fine throughout it, but when I left and played something else, it went back to 0. When I used the podcast downloaded from the store, I could come and go and it would always remember.

Other thing to check is if you can scrub through songs or videos OK. Maybe a dirty or faulty screen is causing trouble. Good to check this, but if you're not having trouble elsewhere, probably not related: http://support.apple.com/kb/ts1827

I have the exact same issue with the all songs considered podcasts. It's frustrating, BIG TIME!

itskristina wrote:
... Its annoying because I can't pick up from where I left off listening.

Strange! Normally, all Podcasts will have the check "on" to *remember playback position* and I've just checked four episodes of *NPR Live Concerts from All Things Considered* (I assume this is the Podcast you are referring to) that have been on my iPod for a while and they are set to remember the playback position. Select an episode (in your iTunes) and click on *File/Get Info* and look on the Options tab for the *remember playback position* check box. (There should be a tick in the box!)

Every time I try using the bar to move through the podcast, it starts over from the beginning. Is this intentional? Is it specific to the podcast?

Even more strange! I don't know why that should be. I can scroll through the episodes I've tried.

Phil

I have an issue similar to this topic. My favorite podcast is that of a radio talk show. Recently they have changed their format. Not only has the content suffered, but the technical output is driving me crazy. The podcast is no longer available at the Istore. So now I must download them directly of the cbs website, drag and drop them into my itunes library. This now classifies them as songs not as podcasts. So here is the major problem that i have. Recently I noticed that in every song there is a point in which you can not fast forward after and if you try it later into the podcast it loops back to this point. Im certain that this is an attempt by CBS to ensure that i hear all of their commercials during their broadcast. This only happens in the playback on the Ipod not on ITunes. I don't have the time to listen to every sponsor of this program and even some of their more boring bits. Is there anyway that anyone knows to get around this corporate looping?

Me too. I'm listening to the latest 74-minute-long episode of All Songs Considered and wanted to jump back to hear a section again but I couldn't. Just pushed back to the beginning.

I wonder if this is some kind of DRM due to this podcast containing music...

This is a long standing problem with iPods and appears to be specific to podcasts that get encoded using LAME, arguably the best available encoder anywhere.

From what I can tell from searching over the years, this is due to the iPod looking at a very old style header (XING) instead of the proper field in the LAME set header. This is as near as I can figure out from the posts.

This causes problems like the iPod thinks the track is shorter than it really is (a good example of this is a long MP3 like one disc of an audiobook) and stops prematurely. Very annoying.

In the case of the NPR podcasts, the bug in the iPod causes crashes when you try to fast forward or seek.

Neither of these problems appear to be related in any way to "remember playback position", so don't necessarily go down that route.

An easy way to check for this issue on a podcast is to highlight it, and then right click, select Get Info. If you see LAME as the encoding, look out, your iPod will possibly not play it correctly.

These same podcasts play back absolutely fine on any other player, and over the years it has been consistently narrowed down to a bug in the iPod.

I sure wish Apple would fix this. I just had the same problem with a recent podcast on my 2nd gen Nano, so we loaded it onto my son's brand new iPod. I thought surely Apple would have fixed this by now, but sure enough, still broke on the latest Nano version!

I've got the same problem with NPR All Songs Considered. 20 minutes or so into the 110 minute 2009 highlights episode I decided I wanted to go back a little bit to re-hear the name of the song. Back to the beginning of the episode.

It really makes the podcast less enjoyable for me.

I think it all depends on the version of LAME being used. On the NPR podcasts I listen to, the problem doesn't occur and they use LAME3.97. CNET podcasts use LAME3.98 and no problems with them. While it might be an Apple problem, it seems more likely to be a LAME version issue.

I have the same problem, but I dont think it has anything to do with the code LAME, because up until a month ago, i could fast forward and back in all my podcast, all encoded with LAME 3.98. Now none of them can. Very strange.
Any one got a solution???

I am having a similar problem - my ipod doesn't show the top slider/scrub bar when I'm playing tracks, so I can't fast forward, rewind, or skip forward or back. The volume slider is visible and works, but the top one just doesn't show up - not just for podcasts, either, but for every track I've tried it on.

Any thoughts?

Thank you for the input.

But I have tried to reset with and without using the saved copy of my iphones settings. Neither helped. And as described above, it is all music and podcast, where this bar scroll bar is lost.

But if you have another idea, I would be grateful for any advice.

A single tap in the center of the screen toggles the scrubber bar and associated items on and off. If that isn't working, then you are going to have to restore your iPhone. You can do a restore with backup settings first but if that doesn't fix it, you are going to have to restore as new. If the problem persists, I would visit the local Apple Genius bar for some help.

No kiddin'! I just started using podcasts and downloaded a bunch of NPR podcasts covering Newport Folk Festival '09 and have this problem on my iPhone.

I can slide/scrub wherever but it snaps to the beginning of SOME of the podcasts. Really ***** when it happens on a 2 hour podcast!

From the "NPR: Live Concerts from All Songs Considered" subscription, I can scrub "Billy Bragg: Newport Folk Festival 2009" but I can't on "Pete Seeger Singalong Saturday..."

At first I thought it might be related to the podcast length but that's not the case. I can scrub "Neko Case" (1:01:13) but not "The Decemberists" (18:22)

Pretty frustrating.

Hi Guys,

The problem seems to be the LAME encoding of the podcasts; however, the following worked for me...

1. Go to the podcast in iTunes, right click and select 'Create MP3 Version'. I only tried this converting to MP3, but I would imagine it'll work if you still have the default 'Create AAC Version'. If not, change this by going to Edit, Preferences, on the 'General' tab click on 'Import Settings' button, and in 'Import Using' drop-down menu select 'MP3 encoder'. Then you can right click on podcast again and 'Create MP3 Version' should be shown.

2. This will then create a new version of the podcast, encoded by iTunes, not LAME. However, it will become a music file, so it won't appear in the 'Podcast' list but in the 'Music' list. This is easily solvable though; you can get it back in the 'Podcast' list by going to the new version in 'Music' list, right click on podcast, select 'Get Info', on 'Options' tab, select 'Podcast' on 'Media Kind' drop down menu, click OK and the new version should pop back up in the 'Podcast' list.

3. Delete the old LAME (such an aptly named encoder!) version, copy the new version over into your iPod, and fast forward and rewind to your heart's content!

Sorry for the lots of words on a relatively simple task, but just wanted to make sure all things that could be different were covered, so no one had to resort to resetting their iPod when that won't solve anything! Hope my solution helps someone!