iOS 17, iPadOS 17, and MacOS Sonoma Podcasts Library gone missing
On iOS 17, iPadOS 17, and MacOS Sonoma, all the Podcast libraries have gone blank. Advice?
I have spent literally YEARS collecting episodes of a music podcast. with the macOS Sonoma (14.3) update, all the old episodes are MISSING. Once played, the episodes are no longer accessible in my Library. The Podcast app preference "Remove Played Downloads" is not checked. "Hide Played Episodes is not checked.
This is even more distressing than the update several years ago that changed all my downloaded episodes from easily findable in a folder, to somewhere renamed and hidden by the OS.
Can I get an explanation of Why Apple chooses to delete my media, and is there a remedy?