Level 1

31 points

ios 13.2 deleting podcasts randomly

I recently upgraded to iOS 13.2 on my iPhone XS. Since then, my phone has deleted 1200 podcast episodes four separate times. These are podcast episodes I loaded onto my phone myself, not podcasts that I am subscribed to through iTunes. None of these episodes had been played. Twice it happened while I was listening to a podcast. Suddenly the podcasts just stopped playing and the episodes were gone. When I connected my phone to my MacBook, the episodes automatically re-synced to my phone since they were unplayed. My podcast settings have not been changed between iOS13.1 and 13.2 (or for years for that matter) -- they are set to auto delete off my phone once played, but again none of these have been played.

Seems like this is a bug in iOS 13.2. Has anyone else experienced this? Since I don't lose the files, it is more of an annoyance than anything to have to re-sync with my MacBook, but it is annoying nonetheless. Just another of the many bugs I continue to find with Apple products.

iPhone XS

Posted on Nov 5, 2019 6:36 PM

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jfyuga Author

Level 1

31 points

Posted on Aug 13, 2020 5:50 PM

I just wanted to update with my experience of switching podcasts over to audiobooks in an attempt to bypass these deletion problem.

I am running Mojave on a MacBook Air with the good version of iTunes before Apple destroyed it (and podcasts) in Catalina.

I converted all of my podcasts that were not part of an RSS feed over to audiobooks and play them through the Books app. I was able to edit the metadata as needed to get the files in the order I wanted and everything has worked perfectly. I am able to play them back at the speed I want, unlike being stuck with normal speed if they were classified as music. None of my files have deleted, and I am still able to use the podcast app for any podcasts I listen to that download through RSS feeds straight to my phone. I no longer worry about syncing podcasts with my MacBook Air.

The main reason I did not switch to Catalina when it first came out was because Apple destroyed the podcast functionality. You could no longer import your own audio files into Podcasts, and you cannot import files into Music and then change their classification to podcast to backdoor the files into the podcast app.

Once I figured out audiobooks is a good workaround, I decided today to upgrade from Mojave to Catalina. Mistake. Apple also destroyed the functionality of Books on the Mac. Now if you have an audiobook, you cannot see the chapter names in Books on the computer. All you see is the title of the audiobook and the length, and you cannot edit the metadata at all. So if you import your own files into Books, you will not be able to edit the metadata to make sure they are named right, in the right order, etc.

So I have downgraded back to Mojave and plan to stick here until Apple's developers decide to stop breaking things and trying to be so creative and "smart" that they forget about the end user.

If anyone has any workarounds to any of the problems I mention above in Catalina that I may be missing, please let me know.

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120 replies

Jun 14, 2020 5:57 PM in response to Deadmeme

I can confirm that this bug still exists in 13.5.1. I am extremely frustrated.

Here are a few notes that will hopefully help someone:

I use the Apple Podcasts app mostly on an iPod Touch (current generation) that is almost always offline. I like to be able to manage my podcasts so I let iTunes do all of the syncing. This iPod Touch is only used for podcasts and music, so I am not using any other apps on it. When the Podcast app decided to delete my podcasts today (UGH!) I noticed that it had some message saying that some podcast I subscribe to could not be refreshed. That was odd because 1.) I never tried to refresh it and 2.) the iPod isn't connected to the Internet so there was nothing to refresh. After I dismissed the message the podcasts from many of my feeds were all missing.

I've used an iPod since the early days and this is one of the most aggravating bugs. I will have had a long day and just want to listen to some podcasts and relax on a drive home and the podcasts app will decide to randomly delete them. It really makes me distrust iOS because this is simple. For all of the things that iOS does why can't it keep MP3/M4A files around? Why is this so hard? 😟

Deadmeme

Level 1

8 points

Jun 24, 2020 9:14 AM in response to BethyBlue

Please keep us updated. Your hard work is very much appreciated. I spent close to four days with Apple a couple months ago, no result was yielded as a product of the whole discussion with the Apple Support team. Hopefully your effort does not go in vain.

jfyuga Author

Level 1

31 points

Aug 14, 2020 5:38 AM in response to Deadmeme

Thanks for the info. Good to know iOS 14 semi-fixes the problem with podcasts.

As for Catalina, my problem is many of the files I import either have no metadata or incomplete/incorrect metadata and I have to be able to edit to put everything in the right place and right order. And I don’t use a PC anymore. I guess I could import the files into music, fix the metadata there, and then reimport those files into Books. Just extra steps that don’t seem necessary or intuitive. Or when I am ready to buy a new computer I can keep this one for file editing.

My situation is probably not that common, so perhaps this is a very narrow problem based on my unique uses. If they would just allow music to have 1.5x playback that would solve it too!

Aug 21, 2020 8:37 AM in response to jfyuga

I just had this issue for the second time. Running iPhone 8 Plus, 256gb w/ 185gb available, iOS 13.6.

I was listening to a podcast I had downloaded and manually synced to my phone, turned my 3G data on to check my email, and then the podcast shut off and I found it was missing, along with a handful of the others I manually added. Out of about 20 episodes I downloaded, only 3 remained and in no particular order.

This issue happened to me a few weeks ago, though I didn't notice until afterward when i went to start one of the missing podcasts. I plugged my phone into my computer and re-synced, which solved the issue until this morning. I expect I can just re-sync later tonight and have my podcast back again, but it's quite annoying to have happen. Has there been any fix expected in the newer iOS updates, or has anyone found a work around for iPhones?

Sep 17, 2020 12:42 PM in response to BethyBlue

Mate, you haven't got to convert anything. Just in ur itunes, Command+i them and in the 'Options' tab, just change the media kind from 'podcast' to 'audiobook', and you sync them in the same way you would podcasts, but you listen to them on the 'Books' app instead of the 'Podcasts' app. It's really easy 👍🏽

Sep 17, 2020 2:31 PM in response to BethyBlue

Yeah, you can listen to them at 1.5 speed, and the 'Books' app treats your podcast episodes as 'chapters', so it once you listen to them, it just goes to the next episode (chapter) but it doesn't delete any episodes from the app once they've been played. It should remember your playback position automatically as it does with all audiobooks, but make sure you select 'remember playback position' when you're changing the media kind to 'audiobook', just to be certain

Deadmeme

Level 1

8 points

Sep 17, 2020 6:22 PM in response to BethyBlue

Happens on IOS 14 tOo??? Man I synced 180 GB of podcasts yesterday thinking IOS 14 is safe.

so far they haven’t disappeared, hopefully it stays that way.

will update you guys if anything unfortunate happens. I could use the books app but they aren’t in order and given that they are 180 GB, I don’t have the energy to manually order them.

Deadmeme

Level 1

8 points

Sep 18, 2020 7:34 AM in response to Gold Dragon 88

Same here everything is going great for me so far, been listening to podcasts all day, i think i must Have listened to around 16 hours of podcasts since i got IOS 14, I got it a day earlier than public release from the beta profile.

I’ll be sure to let you guys know if something unfortunate happens. Fingered crossed.

Sep 23, 2020 1:50 PM in response to Deadmeme

downloaded 14 yesterday. crossed fingers - but haven't had the issue yet. been driving me crazy for a year now. happening at least daily, sometimes twice a day. wrote to apple 5 times - never got a response. been following this thread. funny thing - in their notes about what the upgrade did - not a word in the podcast section about fixing this bug. hopefully its fixed.

Deadmeme

Level 1

8 points

Mar 9, 2020 6:18 AM in response to jfyuga

Has this been resloved on IOS 13.4? Apple hasn't mentioned anything about it in the release notes on any of the betas for IOS 13.4

Mar 9, 2020 6:37 AM in response to Deadmeme

Nope. I’m running beta 4 of iOS 13.4. Still broken. I only joined the program hoping to get the fix sooner... but alas no.

DonnaR

Level 2

159 points

May 18, 2020 6:19 PM in response to jfyuga

Thank you, jfyuga!

May 22, 2020 5:11 PM in response to smamm

Anyone try saving the podcasts onto a different app or some other program?

Deadmeme

Level 1

8 points

Jul 30, 2020 8:03 PM in response to giftenblue

Holy moly!!! It worked!!!, thanks brother . You are a freaking genius.

Jul 30, 2020 8:05 PM in response to Deadmeme

Happy I could help 😊

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ios 13.2 deleting podcasts randomly