ios 13.2 deleting podcasts randomly

I have found a work around.

Go to itunes on your computer, select all the episodes of a podcast under "My Episodes" that you sync to your phone, right click and choose "Save Episodes".

They don't disappear afterwards.

Windows PC.

Me too. It happened to me after playing computer-synced episodes after upgrading to 13.2.2 (I believe I might have been on a 13.1.x build before it). Was listening and then it just stopped and all the more than 100 episodes, but not the show itself, were gone. Infuriating as I can’t resync them because I’m away from my PC on holiday.

At the exact moment they stopped/disappeared, I believe I was opening a new unread email in the mail app.

I looked at the files on the iPhone using MediaMonkey and the files were actually still on the device. They were never deleted, they just don't show in the podcasts app anymore.

I've upgraded to 13.2.3 , deleted the podcast episodes, and am resyncing them now. Will report back if they disappear again.

I have also noticed that podcast episodes that were played days ago (and supposed to be automatically deleted 24-hours after playing) are still on the phone. A handful of these episodes are saved but unchecked in iTunes (so should not be on the phone), but the majority of them are just randomly played episodes that I listened to in the last couple of weeks.

I've had this same problem with every version of iOS 13.2.x.

I'm on 13.2.3 right now, and it continues to happen.

All manually added iTunes podcast episodes disappear from the Podcasts app (often while I'm listening to one), and I've noticed some older episodes downloaded in iTunes are gone as well. It seems to happen about once per week, which I assume is during a scheduled task of some sort that iOS is performing behind the scenes.

If I plug my phone back into my Windows 10 PC and resync, all is temporarily well again. Until it happens again. This is a recording.

Remember those old TV commericals with the hip, functional Apple dude and the nerdy Windows guy that keeps experiencing bugs and crashes? Apple software has really regressed since then. It almost makes Windows 10 look solid in comparison.

****... I was hoping the problem was going to be fixed when I upgraded to 13.3 this afternoon. I didn't see any mention of it in the release notes, but then again I doubt Apple would admit there was a problem to begin with.

It's been to me too. Also deleting items stored in my itunes library (or at least indicating not downloaded). Extremely frustrating but it is good to know that i'm not the only one having this problem. I also have reloaded both to Itunes and to the phone only to have them all disappear several days later.

To a resolution in the new year hopefully.

And now I've synced the old podcasts three straight days and have watched them disappear by 12 noon the next day. This is insane. I guess I'll have to spend time with Apple support. My library of podcasts is extensive - I'm tired of having them wiped out each day only leaving me the last three episodes of each podcast.

Has anyone found a workaround or a different app that can handle the existing library

kenman40 - You may have already checked this, but your mention of “3 episodes” per podcast was very specific. In each podcast’s settings, there’s a “Limit Episodes” option that can be turned off. By default, I think it’s set to 3. I had to figure that out as a result of a different problem that I was having.

I just upgraded to 13.3 after having this issue with 13.2 and being incredibly frustrated.

Sorry to say, it’s still happening. I was actively listing to my beautifully curated podcasts I loaded on my phone and the sound crackled out....open the podcast app and they are all gone.

I had a similar issue a couple weeks ago, but I don't sync podcasts with iTunes or manually upload any - apple just unsubscribed me from most of the podcasts I had subscribed to and removed all episodes from my Listen Now section. The ones they left me subscribed to ironically had dozens of downloaded episodes that I hadn't listened to in a year. The ones I listen to more regularly are all deleted. This morning I just resubscribed to a bunch and downloaded some episodes I missed. It again unsubscribed me from a couple of those and deleted episodes of them.

Crazy that Apple hasn't addressed this yet...

I happened to have time on the 4th of January and started an IM with support. The first level technician was quite interested and he talked to a second-level tech. They wanted to move to voice call, but I had already used my available time. They instigated our setting up an appointment for them to call me an hour later, but never called. I verified all the various steps I had done for debugging. I will try to call again and reference the incident number to hopefully skip some steps. I think one thign I did that helped was reference this very thread to show it was not just a Stupid User issue.