Playing Podcasts in Sequence Issue

I found a way to finally get my iPod Classic to play my podcasts in sequence, starting with the oldest and as each one finished, moving to the next until it finished all the podcasts for that 'channel' or 'subject' (not sure how to describe it). And it was working well.

I had set my iTunes for each podcast to Oldest to Newest in the Play and Sort Order options. And on the iPod, I would go to podcasts, select the podcast I wanted, while still seeing all the other podcasts I have subscribed to, and pressed Play. This would then start the iPod to play the oldest podcast in that group and as it finished, automatically move to the next one in the sequence etc.

Until yesterday. Now it doesn't do that. I have to go in a specifically select the episode I want to listen to, and when that one is finished, I have to manually move to the next episode. If I try my usual method to play a podcast, it appears to be looking at the last episode I played... even if that episode has now been removed from the device when I synched with iTunes. It doesn't try to replay the already played episode. It just shows the time bar as being all the way to the right, as if it is finished... but it doesn't seem to want to 'let go' and move on. If I have been playing music, when I go to the podcast and press play, the information for the song is displayed (but it doesn't play it).

I don't like this. I do a lot of long distance driving, and I am a good Ragdoll, so I don't touch my phone while I am driving, and I would prefer to not touch my iPod while I'm driving either.

Does anyone know why this may be happening? I have tried to do a hard boot on the device, I have repeatedly synched, and the software is up-to-date. I had a new hard drive installed about 3 years ago and there is plenty of room on the disk. I just don't know what is happening or how to fix this.

HELP!!!!