iOS 15 Podcasts app - Up Next gone screwy

I think I have validated the solution provided by another respondent. I'm sorry that I don't have the respondent's ID.

I turned on "Background App Refresh" in Settings > Podcasts. Previously, it was off.

The misbehavior has gone away. I still have occasional glitches, but the "Up Next Gone Screwy" seems to have gone away. I'm still wondering why Background App Refresh is now necessary, but that's for another time.

15.2 fixed everything for me. Using it since release. Queue is persistent as it used to be.

Since moving to iOS version 15.2, it does seem the issue has been resolved.

Issue is fixed in latest ios 👻 - have waited a few weeks to be sure ...

I have 15.2 it’s not resolved on my iPhone. Use a different podcast app would be my advise Pocket Casts is brilliant

Just wanted to let you know I have put in a ticket as well. I referred to the number of users here that have said they have the same issue. Apple Support should know by now it is NOT an isolated problem.

I have hated the Up Next format since the last big overhaul of the Podcast App. I have about 30 different podcast episodes downloaded my phone at any one time; why does the software think that what I want to listen to next is an older episode that I have already listened to rather than one of my unplayed episodes???! The only explanation I have is that the dev has sub-contracted the work to their 4-year old child, AFTER the child has found the key to the drinks cabinet.

However I have now started to experience the problem of it randomly playing different episodes after a pause.

• first time I paused my headphones (Bose not Apple) to ask my wife a question. I then hit play and it started midway through a different episode of the same show that I had listened to the day before.
• The second time I parked up at work and turned off the engine part way through an episode. At the end of the day I started to go home and instead of picking up where I left off it played a different episode from the same show that I listened to the previous week.
• On my way home I had to briefly stop and get out the car. Before I got back into the car, I checked what was showing as 'Now Playing' on my phone and it was the same episode I was listening to when I parked up. As soon as the car started, it played an episode from a completely different show, that I had listened to a few weeks ago.

This has now gone beyond a joke, the app is utter dross. It is the worst piece of software that I currently use. Can anybody recommend an alternative that doesn't harvest all your data to sell to advertisers?

Thanks to the posters who included the feedback link. I have used it to complain that Listen Now is a broken feature.

Yep, same here. Podcasts is just shamefully poorly built right now and getting worse. Major issues:

1. Queue is frequently wiped for no reason. Very frustrating as I have lots of podcasts that I don't listen to every episode of so I keep a pretty complex queue to manage my listening. In a number of cases I'll have individual episodes of a podcast I don't subscribe to and then, when the queue is wiped, I can't remember those random episodes and re-add them.
2. The current episode is frequently automagically (autocraptastically) added to the top of my queue so it plays a second time and I have to skip it the second time.

Honestly this is just pathetic basic engineering problems and the software team should be ashamed that this is the state of a product of theirs.

I have had zero issues since updating to iOS and iPadOS 15.2.

Same! I’m always behind on my podcasts so I had a list of 50+ alternating with all my different shows from oldest to newest. GONE. Tried to go back and do just a few and as soon as I close the app it’s immediately cleared. Closed out of the app, tried restarting my phone. Nothing works.

I did the same. Have been using Google Podcasts now for about a month & no issues at all. Only 1 of the podcasts I listen to isn’t available on Google Podcasts but to be honest I really don’t mind because I don’t have to worry about all the issues with the Apple podcast app (they don’t seem to care if they lose people as their app has been buggy for so long now). I think I’d stay with Google even if Apple “fixed” it, just don’t trust the app now!

I have this problem too. I’m so sick of the new podcast update. I’m listening to a podcast from 2019 and downloaded 10 episodes but it plays from newest to oldest instead of other way around. And it also plays an episode then another and then the 1st one again even though it’s marked as played. Plus I can’t see what episodes are in the que in advance so I’ve to manually play each episode I want. Sometimes I want to listen to 3 episodes of something and after 1 or 2 the app will play an episode of another show altogether (and the most recent episode of that show too, regardless of whether or not I’m up to date on that particular show. It’s infuriating!!!

Similar to what others have said, I like to use the Up Next list to order my podcasts. But there have been a number of issues lately.

• Far too frequently, when I've left the app for some time the entire Up Next list disappears. Sometimes there simply is no Up Next list at all. Sometimes it assumes I'll just want to continue listening to further episodes of the same podcast.
• When I go to re-add episodes to the Up Next list, sometimes adding a single episode will cause my old list to suddenly reappear back as it was, but now with that single episode also in the list. So I have my list back, but need to remove the one I just added because it's now there twice.
• But sometimes, adding an episode again does not trigger the old list from reappearing. So I have to just go on adding the entire list back again.
• Perhaps the most maddening thing is when I go back to the Podcast app and my Up Next list is still there, but the currently playing episode has been added to the top of the Up Next list. So when the episode ends, the next episode is the one I just finished. I'm constantly deleting this phantom repeat of episodes.

Sadly, nothing in podcasts is mentioned in the bug fixes included in 15.2, but I'm going to hope something is there anyway. I really don't want to switch to a new podcast app, but you never know what motivation a long weekend with idle time might create.

Yes I went through and added about 50 episodes in my up next queue. Its been about 3 weeks and the queue hasn't moved and my episodes play the next one appropriately with no issues saving my spot when leaving and re-entering the app like it was previously. Again I hope its a sign they fixed it but I wouldn't be surprised if the issue happens again as it took way to long for this to be resolved.

i transerred to google podcast last fall when this happened and like its format and features. however it crashs about 10 times every morning before i am able to play it. i feel like apple ios is crashing it on purpose to prevent use of google app.