ios 13.2 deleting podcasts randomly

So I was having this issue, and I tried listing the podcast episodes as 'music' with 'remember playback position' checked, and just having the ones I wanted at any given time moved into a playlist that synced to my phone. It didn't work, as iTunes would never remember the correct playback position. So I just decided to list all the podcast episodes as audiobooks and to listen to them through the 'Books' app. They all just appear as a list of 'chapters' under the podcast's 'book' name and it works perfectly, so I recommend that everyone tries out this method until Apple fixes the issue for us!

Here's a summary for some of the new people on this thread:

-this bug has been impacting the iOS Podcast app for a while now. With every iOS update, everyone always checks to see if it's fixed. The answer is relentlessly "no".

-the problem impacts both podcast episodes that are manually added to iTunes and synced to a phone, *as well as* episodes downloaded in iTunes that are from an official source. No podcast episode is immune to this.

-Someone on this board mentioned being a tester of iOS 14 (not officially released yet), and that the bug still exists in it, but closing the Podcasts app and relaunching makes the "disappeared" episodes accessible again. A competent software company wouldn't qualify that as a fix, but as a frustrated end user experiencing a long term software bug, I'll take it.

-People have tried a variety of workarounds. All are appreciated and interesting to read about. The most recently discussed workaround is to change the episodes to the audio book format and listen to them in a different iOS app. A thank you goes to the tester whom took the time to figure that out. It's not really a "fix" though, as the Podcasts app remains bug infested and broken.

At this point, it's a countdown to iOS 14, which could potentially provide the ability to fix this issue by restarting the app (and not having to resync with iTunes on your computer). That still sucks, but at least it's something. The "sync with iTunes" fix doesn't do someone much good if they're on a road trip and listening in a car or on a plane.

The prospect of converting a bunch of podcasts to audio book format also isn't appealing to me, but only because I have a bunch of conversions to do. If you only have a couple of episodes, then that could be all you need to fix and move on to more productive things in life.

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.

Updated to iOS14, I have been using the podcast since yesterday. So far, it seems iOS14 fix this issue for me. I didn't do any edit or convert any podcast to iBook etc. Using it on iPhone 6s.

If anyone here does not know how to contact Apple service people. Download the Apple Support app from the App Store and you can either chat with them or call them. They will then set up a diagnostics to be run on your device. But along with the diagnostics you have to let them know the exact time when it happened. So they know where to look in the diagnostics log. It’s a very long log, so it’s not gonna be easy for them to narrow down the problem to a certain cause without the time.

The customer support is not gonna know what caused the issue and will probably tell you to restore your device, tell them It’s already been done by people in this thread(send them a link to this page).

and tell them to escalate the issue to there IOS engineers at Apple. Tell them to include the time of deletion with the log

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'm definitely willing to make a contribution towards this frustrating problem, but don't like our chances. For better or worse, I've done my share of large enterprise IT work and support engineers will only prioritize specific types of problems:

Something that impacts revenue, like the ability to purchase or access content provided by the Apple ecosystem. This does not meet that criteria.

Something related to a bug in a highly visible app, like those that are highlighted in Apple presentations: Music, Maps, Camera, etc. The stepchild podcast app is definitely not that.

This has been going on for months now, with support engineers referenced pretty early in this thread. At this point, I'm just trying to manage what will likely be an issue for a while. There's no magic solution that I've found, but I noticed that the problem occurs less frequently if I don't keep the Notes app open. There have been multiple times now that a podcast cut out exactly when I opened Notes. Boom, gone. It's to the point that I won't even use Notes when I'm not home.

Just spent 1.5 hours in a support chat with Apple. They ran diagnostics, but it “passed the test”. Not sure what they tested. They suggested deleting the podcast app and re-installing, which I think I already tried when it first happened, and advised that “for optimum use of my device it must have 30% of storage available.”

Which means my 64GB phone actually has less than 40GB after allowing for the IOS software. And I don’t think it will work anyway. But I’ll give it a try and report back.

I have news, although not news that we want to hear. Apple called me back today, as promised (thank you Sarah), and the initial response from the engineers (misquoted in my words, not theirs) was “that’s what it’s supposed to do, why do they want to listen to podcasts that aren’t in the feed anymore?”

I explained why.

They’re going to double check that the engineers have correctly understood the problem, and if their initial response is correct, then we have to stop reporting it as a bug, as it is not a bug. Instead it is a feature that has been removed and we have to go through feedback (sorry, forgot the exact link) and request that the feature is reinstated.

I will report back . . .

If you return to the home screen or put to sleep while playing a podcast, the podcasts will be deleted at random timing.

This also happens on iOS 14 beta 2, but on iOS 14 beta 2, opening the podcast app again will reappear all deleted podcasts after about 5 seconds, returning to the state they were in before they were deleted.

So far, so good with iOS 14 and iOS 14.0.1. I've installed each as soon as they were available, and none of my podcasts have vanished yet. I'm hoping that this holds. At a minimum, it appears that at least the frequency of the problem has been reduced.

I also reduced the number of podcasts that I'm syncing via iTunes to keep at least 10gb free on my phone. Not sure if that factors into this.

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.