Podcasts not updating on watch

I think the Heavy Rotation function will automatically add music to the watch when enabled even if the playlists is disabled.

As to the podcasts I’ve been using Outcast which will allow you to download the episodes you want directly to the watch. And much quicker download than the Apple podcast app

UPDATE FOR ME:

Seems to be working.

Currently in iOS 14.2 and WatchOS 7

I deleted all of my other Podcast apps and unsubscribed from all of my podcasts on Apple Podcasts because I cannot delete the app.

I re-subscribed to the podcasts on my iPhone. It also populated the phone with many recent episodes that I had already heard.

I programmed the watch via the Watch app on the phone using custom and selected the podcasts I wanted. I culled this list down from before.

It appears to be working now.

The watch and the phone had unwanted (listened to) podcasts, so I took time on the PHONE and deleted the episodes manally (pain in the *** for daily podcasts) leaving the phone with only unlistened to episodes.

Overnight, my watch synched and populated with only the unlistened to episodes from the phone that were specified to be on the watch. It also drew in two daily podcasts that released in the middle of the night.

So far so good. I do notice that as I leave my house to run, the podcasts drop out for a few seconds over a few minutes and I assume that is the watch trying to decide if it wants WiFi or cellular.

For the watch to synch, you do need to have the watch and phone on the same Wifi network and the watch must be in the charger.

I do think that part of my problem was the number of podcasts subscribed on the phone. Initially I had selected them all to go to the watch. By selecting fewer, it seems to be working as desired.

I’ve been experiencing the same issue so trying this now. I removed everything from the library and sync’d. Once done selected a few podcasts once again. I selected custom rather than next up. The custom is to download 3 episodes but appears to be downloading more than 3 so not sure why. Will see how this works.

Hi guys,

After having it worded for ten days since iOS 14 / WatchOS 7 update it doesn’t work anymore.

i don’t understand why. For two nights I didn’t plug my phone and my watch together and after that it started to fail again. It could be also the consequence of iOS 14.01.

As usual, this is really annoying and I don’t really know what to do. Does someone experience something similar?

Tried all of the above, same problem with my Apple Watch 6 with Cellular. Not happy. Tech support no as useful as they normally are. I been on the phone with 4 different support agents. APPLE please help!!!!

Going on a month now with it working. S5 Watch with cellular. Most current iOS and Watch OS. Blew out all the other podcast apps and went with the Apple one.

I have been putting my phone on airplane overnight when it is charging and the watch also charges overnight.

I am synching 9 podcasts (I reduced the number thinking it might help)

It seems to synch fine, BUT I cannot figure out WHEN it synchs. When I wake up at 6am, sometimes a daily one that releases at 4am is there. Other times not. The Daily that releases at 6am is never there.

About 10 after 6, I will go into th watch app to check. I pull down and rlease to refresh and I find the ones I am expecting with a rotating circle next to them and a message at the top saying waiting. Eventually one of the rotating circles will stop rotating and start to download. WHen it completes, another totating circle will start to download and the message at top shows synching podcasts and the progress bar advances.

Usually by 630am, they are all there and I can get out for a walk or run.

Hope this helps. But man did Apple drop the ball on this

I tried this and it worked in just a second. I very carefully changed the settings per the helpful screen shots here. I separated the phone from the watch to break the bluetooth (without turning it off). By the time I walked from one room to the next, it had updated with my custom 3 episodes. Make sure the watch is charging and on wifi.

One weird thing though is that the update turned off the watch. It was a little warm when I removed it from the charger, so I thought maybe it overheated in the podcast update.

Between this revelation and Spotify cellular streaming now available, this was a good week!

Solution: buy the Outcast app.. well worth 99 cents.

I've been frustrated with this forever and I recently saw someone recommend Outcast. It's works perfect - it seems like the app is designed specifically for this problem.

You have direct control over what episodes to download to the watch and the downloads actually work. They tell you to put your phone on airplane mode + turn off bluetooth. This will force Apple Watch onto wifi where pods download super quick.

Went on a run without my phone.. finally!

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.

I'm having the exact same issue. Apple Watch S5 with Cellular. But I'm paying for cellular for no reason, because the watch is incapable of streaming any music or podcasts if I don't have my phone with me. Which completely defeats the purpose of paying for cellular, because the only reason I bought the watch was to go running without my phone. A song or podcast will load for a long time and eventually start to play, but then after a few seconds it starts buffering and won't play for minutes at a time. I've talked to 2 separate senior advisors at Apple and neither have been able to help. I've talked to Verizon, and the problem is not on their end. Apple sent me a replacement watch but that didn't help at all. This is clearly a software issue.

So I've had to resort to downloading podcasts as a workaround, but even that isn't a reliable alternative. The watch is charging with my phone sitting 2 inches away and it says "Waiting..." seemingly forever. Eventually it will start to download one podcast, but after it accomplishes this simple feat, it again says "Waiting..." Waiting for what??? The watch is charging, the phone is touching the watch, and both are connected to WiFi and Bluetooth. What else could it possibly be waiting for?

If I constantly turn the phone on Airplane Mode and turn off WiFi and Bluetooth, it will occasionally wake up and start to download one podcast, but there is no predicting if this will work (or which podcast it will choose to start downloading). And half the time, it doesn't even download the newest podcast episode - it downloads the 4th-oldest available episode and doesn't seem capable of recognizing that a new episode has been released.

I'm jumping through hoops every day to try a workaround for Apple's unacceptable software issues. I keep hoping each new software update will fix the problem, but obviously this is not the case. In fact, despite 9 pages of comments on this discussion page, every Apple employee I've talked to seems baffled to learn of my situation. As if I'm the only Apple customer on Earth who's experienced this. I've been dealing with this since August, and there is no end in sight.

If you're interested in purchasing a $500+ pedometer plus an additional $10/month to send text messages with no streaming capabilities, I can't recommend the Cellular Apple Watch S5 enough.

This shouldn't be so difficult.

Apple, make a podcast app that works on the watch. Why can't you do this? What is so complicated about this?

I've tried everything here in this thread short of downloading and buying some other third party app. I may do just that, but I shouldn't have to. I am stuck on the "updating" screen in the Watch app on my phone.

Seriously, it's just a matter of getting a file to download onto a device. How can that be at all complicated?

I'm going to try Outcast because this is quite frustrating. I find I want the latest episode of a podcast so I select Custom and just that podcast and it downloads the 3 latest episodes except for the very latest one and I can't get it to download the latest. Not sure what on the phone is preventing it from seeing the very latest. I'm trying the Up Next option, which is not really what I want but I'll give it a go.

I had no better luck with Outcast, TBH, so I deleted it.

Here is what has worked for me this week. It's ridiculous, but I got my podcasts.

1) I disabled the Watch passcode

2) Every morning when I wake up, I unlock my phone, refresh my Podcast app and then open the Watch app.

3) I then toggle on/off for one of the Pods I am trying to update. For whatever reason, this seems to start the process.

4) I go take my shower and by the time I am done, they are there.

I believe that the major problem with the Podcast process is that they will not download if the Watch is not attached to the power cord. How many of us have our Watches plugged in during the day?? Virtually no one, I'd guess. I have stopped even trying to get the Pods that update in the afternoon to download automatically.

This is stupid beyond words.

Had the same issue. Unsubscribe from podcast in your library. Delete the podcast app from Settings- General- iPhone storage. Choose delete all documents and data. Restart the iPhone and Apple Watch. Reinstall the podcast app. Worked for me !

I have same issue, and have done all the things suggested. I had no issues with my Apple Watch 4. Issue only started when I purchased the 6. I too do not want to unpair and start over with set up and sounds like that didn’t work in any case. In my case, some of my podcasts are downloading to the watch but not all. Apple needs to fix this - seems like many people are having the same problem.