Podcasts not updating on watch

Make sure its on Custom, but what helped me there when it says "pending" was to take the watch off of the charger and when the watch app said waiting put it back on the charger and it will take a minute, but will start eventually downloading. If it didn't i would swap to Listen now then back to Custom. I have noticed that it won't download the old podcasts i have, but downloaded the new ones that came out today no problem. It does keep to what it says and only downloads 3 podcast of 1 show at a time. If it doesn't show up in your Library on your watch it wont download. It has to sync to there and I usually have bluetooth on to get those transfered onto there then take it off of bluetooth to actually download it. When i listen to these i have two left to download i will make another post if they don't download. (Don't make fun of my podcast selection lol)

Thats too bad. I haven't had an issue with it at all. I do find this to be reliable in Outcast so far:

Change Settings --> Episode Primary Action --> to Download

Then just search for your episode on the Watch using Siri or Sketch and select to download. Make sure Watch is connected to Wifi and phone is on full airplane mode and it should download in 15-30 seconds.

I don't use the Outcast phone app for anything but deleting the episodes.

I haven’t had an to many issues since I have been using the wifi and not Bluetooth. Something I did notice yesterday is that it took about 30 minutes to download the three 40 minute podcast I listen to. I left my watch on the charger while the app said waiting. About 30 minutes later it said updating and 2 minutes later they were downloaded. The other two podcast I listen to downloaded within 2 minutes of it being plugged in. Things I have noticed is that my watch usually has to be above 35% charged and the podcast have to be on the watch with the cloud on them. If they’re not there they will take forever to download. I have an iPhone X and a series 3 watch. Goodluck everyone

I don’t use overcast just my watch and phone. Today I began to have issues downloading my podcast. Once my watch passed 75% it seemed to began downloading my podcast. For some reason it was stuck on an episode and would say updating then swap back to waiting. I swapped it to listen now then back to custom on the phone app and all my podcast began to download, 3 episodes per podcast. Hope this helps someone.

Wow there’s so many people out there. I remember when i started having this trouble it was hard to find any information about it. I was contacting apple services about 20 times and was up to 2-3 hours on the line. I have reseted both my devices and looked like nothing helped. But when i somehow tried to forget it and leave it behind, just charging AW every second night i realised i got my podcasts.

Maybe it starts uploading only when it have enough battery already (like someone mentioned above ~75%) so i think you just need to leave it for actually enough time (whole night). And don’t forget to turn on bluetooth on both AW and IPhone.

Tbh don’t really know what helped me. I recommend just clicking ‘download new episodes automatically’ in IPhone podcasts settings and forgetting to check your podcasts every single second. When you will charge your AW they will upload automatically.

Sounds ridiculous but hope this helps

Hi, had this annoying issue and tried to solve it for about an hour. Tried everything, suddenly I turned off my watch and phone, then turn both on and everything was working silky smooth like used to be. Hope this work.

Strangely. I had to reinstall iOS 14.2 and all apps for another issue I was having. After the reinstallation I can listen to podcasts on my Apple Watch. I found rebuilding my I phone software stack was more painful than the benefit of listening to my podcasts from my watch.

Coming back to say that after having this same issue -I powered down both the watch & phone for a few minutes and all was fine when I powered both back on. Hope that works for someone else.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251269050?answerId=252902833022#252902833022

Doesn’t that help ?

I actually found this worked last night - just power cycled the watch and boom, podcasts were downloading again. Going to give this a try over the next couple of weeks and see if it's consistent.

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)

Outcast is the solution. It's been perfect for me for two weeks now. Change "Episode Primary Action" setting to "Download," turn phone to airplane mode and make sure Watch is connected to wifi, then search for your podcast via siri or sketch and choose the episode to download, watch it download on your watch in 20-30 seconds. It's been a godsend for me.

My issue with that got fixed when I noticed that under Apple Watch app —> Mail —> Accounts, it needed my gmail account name and password. I also shut down iPhone and watch. Waited a few minutes. Started iPhone. Placed iPhone out of Bluetooth range. Started watch. Bought iPhone back into proximity of watch.

It was a strange solution I admit.

all six sharing spots were used four by my fam, and two by my sister and mum using my extra storage allowance.

tech told me to get rid sis and mum.

then create a dummy account with sharing and transfer my wife and kids to the dummy.

then basically clean my Apple ID back to nothing. No subs no memberships.

then reset all devices to factory with latest software manually via my Mac.

now sign in with my newly refreshed Apple ID and then transfer in the family with new sharing and payment. Do not add sis and mum again.

that’s it

So the one thing I could find to help me was just turn off both your phone and watch. Let it power off for about 5 mins. Turn it all on and the. It should automatically sync your new podcast. Hope that works for you