Podcasts not updating on watch

When I first got the watch it worked fine. 30 seconds a podcast (same as music). Now I leave it all night and it hasn’t done any. Still not working, still no concrete ideas from Apple. Ridiculous.

As mentioned above, what I have now is the world’s most expensive Fitbit.

I literally just got my watch today, so i could listen to podcast without having to carry my phone, and came across the same issue. I left mine on Listen Now and what i found worked for me is to let it keep updating or waiting. When it would clear out I would swap it to Custom then back to Listen Now and it would begin updating again. Not sure if its working because its new, but it did take a few hours to download about 8 podcast (4-40 min and 4 -2hr).

Okay guys kind of got lucky and stumbled across this and I hope it helps you guys out. So this morning i had the same issue and the thing i posted last night stopped working. I tried deleted apple podcast and reinstalling no success, BUT i accidentally turned off my bluetooth on my phone and my watch was connected to the wifi (did this last night) this will come into play. I closed the watch app on my phone and rebooted my watch. When i restarted my watch I ensured i was connected to the wifi and I swapped the "Add episodes From" from Listen Now to Custom and the podcast began to download. I noticed this because when i looked at the podcast on my watch the circle wasn't blinking it turned solid and started to move. I was able to re-download the 4-40 min podcast within 2 minutes. Once again i got lucky still need to see if it will download my other podcast, but I hope this helps you guys cause i literally bought the watch to listen to podcast and not carry my phone on me so i completely understand the frustration.

You know, this is crap, because it’s easy, predictable and reliable to sync music from the Apple Music all to your watch. You can select playlists, choose them for the Apple Watch, and see the progress as the playlists sync.

So the process works to sync, either through Bluetooth or WiFi.

Why then, can’t you do it for podcasts?

Hey

ccostilla361

THANK YOU. This seemed to work for me for now. My app on the phone said WAITING and I put my watch on the charger BUT NOT THE PHONE. Then waiting went away and I did not see pending or waiting at all.

Pulled the watch off the charger after 30 mins and it looks like several (not sure about all) downloaded and are on the watch and ready to go (no cloud icon)

I just had this happen to me, it went to pending and it wouldn't get off of it no matter what i did. When i pulled my watch off the charger and put it back on it would say waiting and either stay there or say pending. I just made sure my watch and phone were connected to the same wifi then I ended up leaving the apple watch app open and walked around with my phone as normal in the house. I didn't leave it by my watch which was on the charger because they were on wifi, and about 20 minutes later it swapped to Uploading and my watch downloaded the podcasts I had remaining. I'm still not sure what pending means so this time i left it alone.

I have exactly the same issue and it is doing my head in. Basically it just does not work. I have tried uninstalling, reinstalling. Everything except resetting the whole phone/watch which I refuse to do, I have not got the time.

@Apple - can this not be escalated? I currently have $1500 of non-working electronics from you.

Here seems to be what my issue has been, maybe it will help someone else in this thread.

I am not techy so bare with me, I am running a series 3 8gb. First problem: didn’t realize I had no space left on the watch (so was just stuck on pending) after deleting music, apps, and pictures and updating the watch to the most recent iOS, I had success syncing one podcast. Tech support has also told me you can only sync 2gb of podcast, audiobooks and music.

Anyways. Long story short. I had no space and I have narrowed it down to just adding one show (joe rogan) and When I want to switch it up I’ll toggle his show off and add a new show

and I will be upgrading to a newer model hahaha question is do I wait for a new release or go to the 5 with cellular. I was already considering an upgrade. But this solidified it. 8gb. What was I thinking! I have enjoyed it for 2+ years however. Still a great device. But I love leaving my phone at home for runs,walks,bikes with the dog

UPDATE: I used to use PocketCasts (I think it is an NPR product) but switched to Apple Podcasts to listen on the watch. Apple really dropped the ball on this and it was hit or miss (usually miss) if I could listen a podcast without my phone.

BUT, PocketCasts has been busy and developed a watch feature that really works. I have been running it for a week and so far it does what it says. There is a free version that does NOT support the watch (via cellular, but if you have your phone, you are good to go), but the paid version ($9.99 year) does. It is called PocketCasts Plus and I just bought it with an in-app purchase.

It is ridiculous that I need to spend $10 a year to make a $500 product work correctly, but this did it for me. And I am still holding out hope with the new iOS, OS, and WatchOS coming out in September that the synch may work!

Somehow this worked for me. I was doing a combination of switching Bluetooth off and on and pulling the watch off and on the charger, and the podcast started to download to the watch. I’m not sure what the right combination was, so I hope I can recreate it. The final set up was Bluetooth on and watch back on charger.

One thing that I have noticed, from my podcast issue, is if it doesn’t download the first time I usually wait an hour to try again and it usually downloads then. I hardly have any issues syncing now since I took it off of Bluetooth.

I have had this problem too and have tried every solution that I could find, including completely restarting my Apple watch 5 and starting again, but to no avail!

My recommendation would be to ditch the Apple podcast app and use 'outcast' instead, it's brilliant and apple watch native. It recommends downloading the podcasts over your wifi connection direct to the watch and it took me about 10 seconds per podcast to download, no hassle!

The whole reason I bought an Apple Watch was to listen to podcast while running. Now second day after unboxing I realise it doesn’t work and I now have a $600 piece of junk on my wrist.

Seems to be a problem for months judging by comments but Apple don’t care enough to fix it.

Same exact problem here. The iPhone in the watch app > podcast section says "updating" but podcasts never are downloaded on the watch. They all have the little cloud icon next to them. Every night the watch and phone charge on the night stand right next to each other. I can't believe that something so simple as syncing an audio file to the watch doesn't work.