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Unable to fast forward through podcasts

I've recently noticed that I can't fast forward through podcasts on my iPod touch, specifically with NPR All Songs Considered ones (I don't listen to any other ones, so it may not be specific to these ones). Its annoying because I can't pick up from where I left off listening. 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?

iPod touch (2nd gen), iPhone OS 3.0, used with black macbook (OSX 10.4.11)

Posted on Aug 5, 2009 8:36 AM

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28 replies

Aug 5, 2009 9:52 AM in response to itskristina

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

Aug 5, 2009 10:43 AM in response to itskristina

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

Sep 29, 2009 6:24 PM in response to itskristina

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?

Nov 22, 2009 4:38 AM in response to Haass

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!

Unable to fast forward through podcasts

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