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Level 1

19 points

error messages "podcast ... cannot be played on this iPhone"

Since upgrading to iOS4 on my 3GS certain podcasts from iTunes will not play or download onto my iPhone. I used to be able to download or listen directly from iTunes before the upgrade but now they won't.

When listening to a podcase from iTunes I get the message "movie format is not supported."

When trying to download the podcasts I get the message "podcast ... cannot be played on this iPhone."

For example a podcast by TWIP / This Week in Photography is one that won't work.

What would cause this issue now and can it be resolved? Thanks

iMac 24" Intel / iPhone 3GS (iOS4), Mac OS X (10.5.8), In addition, running an older PBG4 laptop 1.33 & G4 Desktop 733

Posted on Jun 25, 2010 11:07 AM

52 replies

Jun 30, 2011 5:19 AM in response to Teal

I've have the same problem, I have downloaded this podcast for a year weekly. I upgrade to 4.3.3 add this error message Podcast CAN NOT BE PLAYED ON THIS IPHONE. This is what makes we scared to upgrade when a new iOS comes out. This issue (from the original posts date) sounds like it has been going for over a year. Just started for me, I'd like it fixed.

Really frustrating. Any fix would be welcomed!

I don't have a computer to sync to anymore, so I have to download everything thru wifi. Now I don't even do that. Not cool.

Would really not be cool if I have to wait for iOS5

Jul 19, 2011 3:54 PM in response to Teal

Is there any way to resolve this? It's been a while and how come we're still not getting a fix? This is frustrating already. 😟

Jul 19, 2011 4:15 PM in response to oneflightdown

This appears periodically. Though Ive found if I go to an earlier podcast add it to the download queue and begin the download, then add the podcast that was "not playable" to the queue. I then pause the older podcast, allowing the podcast I wanted (error podcast) to begin downloading. This seams to allow the podcast to download and play without any further error messages, at least till the error pops up again.

Hope it helps...

Aug 10, 2011 3:27 AM in response to Teal

I have a similar problem, I am having problems downloading certain podcast directly to my iphone, I noticed that if i use itunes to sync some of the error podcasts will upload to my iphone wilst some continue to have an error. the podcasts that gave an error to download (saying that the podcast could not be played on my iphone) can be streamed on the iphone directly but will not download.

Does anybody know why this happens and if there is a fix for this problem.

I have the lastest version ios (4.3.4 (8K2))

srv90125

Level 1

0 points

Aug 10, 2011 2:15 PM in response to Teal

I got this only with specific podcast downloaded from the iTunes store on the iPhone 4. The messages pops up before downloading. I think there are being some checks done on the specific podcast and if all are ok the download starts. Does anyone know if and where iTunes on the iphone does some logging of errors?

Sep 2, 2011 8:04 AM in response to Natas tmc

I used Natas tmc's method above and got it to work. Thanks!

gravyday

Level 1

0 points

Sep 18, 2011 1:12 PM in response to Teal

I had this problem with my new podcast and did some experimenting. I was originally encoding my audio using mp4 (m4a with aac compression at 128k). It downloaded fine in itunes on my laptop, but I was getting this error on my iPhone. So I re-encoded my episodes using mp3 (specifically 64k, 32kHz, 16bit stereo) and the error went away! This doesn't help if it's not your podcast, but you could always send these settings to your favorite podcast so they can avoid the issue in the future.

Also since I found a solution, I'm going to plug my podcast: "Aaah! Science!" (aaahscience.com)

error messages "podcast ... cannot be played on this iPhone"