Podcasts not updating on watch

I finally gave up the Native Apple podcast app for the Apple Watch some time back. This issue, and the setting up a new password issue in safari, has gone unheard to Apple. Outcast is 100x better. You can download straight to watch. Put your phone in airplane mode, and it takes about a minute for a hour podcast to download (watch on WiFi). Additionally, if you have cellular, you can stream without download.

I just replied to this having the same issue. After a bit of googling what other solutions there are, I downloaded 'Outcast' as an alternative and have never looked back. It was 99p in the UK.

I've been finding that just restarting the watch periodically has allowed the latest podcasts to download and the library to update on the watch.

Brand new S5 GPS+Cell

Similar issue so I am thinking it is NOT the watch or the presence or lack of cellular.

I have a charger for my phone and watch on my nightstand and they both charge overnight. There is a podcast that releases at 4am daily (not sure if it is CA time or DC time but it does not matter) and another one at 6am DC time.

If I go out for a walk or run at 7am SOMETIMES I can see the current episode, but it is not consistent.

If I do see the episode, it appears to be in the cloud (cloud icon). With cellular, it should stream or download. But it does not. Often I will get an error after a minute saying it is not available. Less frequently it will play for a minute or two and then pause indefinitely (buffer I assume). So now if I want to listen to a podcast, I need to check before I go out that it is there in the watch and that there is not a cloud icon.

The issue has to be in their synching and I am praying that the iOS14, Big Sur, and WatchiOS 7 plus the revamp of the podcast app fixes the issue. TBH, kinda ****** that it looks like I spent all this money for a frikken Fitbit.

I also tried two other apps (dont think the Apple Podcast app is very intuitive) before switching to Apple and had similar issues. I assumed it was an incompatibility with the 3rd party app and switched to Apple App but now I see it is likely the Apple system and NOT the app. I was using Downcast and had recently switched to Pocket Casts

And so we wait!

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).

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 was speaking with a rep from Pocket Casts (which works the best for me so far but not ideally) and she said that Apple and their API controls and determines the synching interval. So while their software can do it immediately, unless there is an active token from Apple to allow it, it will not happen.

Seemed reasonable to me. I am not a tech guy, but it seemed like a reasonable explanation and I am petty sure she wasn't just saying something to get rid of me.

Regardless, Apple has failed on this one big time. I had hoped that the Watch OS7 and iOS14 might clear it up, but it has not.

Alright, well everybody here has suggested all good and useful tips but I think the real issue is what I just learned from an Apple Support technician: While the Apple Watch may have 32gb of storage (mine does, but yours may have more or less) only 8gb of storage is allocated for media... Meaning if the media in your Podcasts, Apple Music, and Audio Books app reaches 8GB (or whatever fraction of the total space) is reached, everything stops syncing.

This isn't really a solution, but more an acknowledgment of a glaring problem: I'm only able to utilize 1/4 of the total storage space on my Apple Watch for mobile media consumption...

Aside from this, the Overcast app has been my solution in the meantime.

This might help;

Listen to Apple Podcasts

By default, when you charge your Apple Watch, podcasts that you subscribe to sync to your Apple Watch. But you can also sync podcasts to your Apple Watch manually.

How to sync podcasts to your Apple Watch

1. On your iPhone, go to Settings > Podcasts and make sure that Sync Podcasts is turned on. 
2. Open the Apple Watch app on your iPhone. Go to the My Watch tab, scroll to Podcasts, then tap it.
3. Under Add Episodes From, tap Custom.
4. Tap the slider for the show that you want.
5. If you don't see the show that you want, open the Podcasts app on your iPhone, find the show, then tap Subscribe.

Episodes are automatically removed from your Apple Watch after you listen to them.

Learn more about how to use the Podcasts app.

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.

Did not realize that you HAVE to pay for a $9.99 yearly subscription in order to download to your watch (not sure if I just skipped over that in previous posts)... got suckered into that.

I downloaded 3 podcasts to the watch that night. They appeared on the watch with no cloud icon, besides one, which was released about 2-3am. Tried playing directly from watch to AirPods... encountered a Bluetooth connectivity issue on the watch for about 5 minutes.

At that point I was annoyed and had to leave for the ride so I had to bring my phone. Will update later today when I have more time to figure it out before my ride.

Put Outcast on your Watch (App store):

1. It will work standalone on your Watch. i.e., you can download podcasts DIRECTLY TO THE WATCH. No need to move them through your Phone.
2. It will download to your Watch over Wi-Fi. i.e., no need to use slow Bluetooth
3. It's a buck.

same problem not being able to download most recent episode onto my watch. Then I turned both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on (on my iPhone) during charging and it starts to download. I will try in the next few days when there’s new feeds and report. Hope it can work for someone at least

I think that’s because podcasts usually is much longer and they take more space.

I couldn’t sync even the music until i left my watch charging for the night.