I add a podcast in music, change the type to Podcast, and it disappears

Scott549 wrote:

To the fiend --

I think you are getting caught up in the definition of what constitutes a podcast and are losing sight of the practical issue. I've experienced the same problem.

Well - originally, what I was actually trying to do was help the original poster with what appeared to be a Podcast probelm. But we all now know that it is not a Podcast problem at all. It's a question of adding information to the correct fields so that when someone re-labels an MP3 as a Podcast, they can still find it.

I then attempted to clairfy, for anyone who may read this post, exactly what consitutues a Podcast so that they may solve their Podcast problems. (Silly me, obviously! Excuse me for trying to help people.)

Scott549 wrote:

Somebody records a radio program. It's not in the iTunes store. But he calls it a podcast and I call it a podcast because it's an mp3 of an audio program.

If he has made that programme available as a Podcast, then even if it is not listed in the iTunes Store, he should have a Podcast Feed URL mentioned on his site that you simply copy-and-paste into iTunes; Advanced/Subscribe to Podcast.

Scott549 wrote:

But lately I have another problem. When I try to change the "media kind" field to podcast, the choice of podcast is grayed out and I can't do it.

... and perhaps all of what I have said is why you have this problem.

Is the file you cannot change to "podcast" protected, or is it in an unusual format?

I found this thread after a similar issue happened to me. I actually downloaded a podcast as mp3 because it's no longer available in the iTunes store. When I added it to my library, the mp3 of course went to Music and when I changed the media kind to podcast it disappeared from itunes - not in music, and not in podcast.

I eventually found a solution - the 'Info' section of the mp3 was empty except for the 'Name'. It turns out that when I put something in the 'Album' section, the files appeared in the Podcast section. When you are changing the Media type to Podcast in Options, make sure you also add some text to the Album section in Info and your files should show up in the Podcast section.

Hi there. I've had this same issue on OS X tonight. In my case, I've downloaded a series of golf instructional videos. When added they default to Movies. They're not Movies, and I don't want them to appear alongside my movies. They're not a TV show either, so I don't want them there. They're content created by a guy online and shared. The thing to which they are most akin is a podcast.

I've done this successfully many times before, but tonight was the first time where I didn't populate the metadata thoroughly - I gave the videos a name under the Show field, and that was it. That was the wrong thing to do, as "Show" obviously isn't used by Podcasts, but as such, they disappeared.

I have a fix though. Create a smart playlist. In my case, I made it look for anything with the Show name I gave, and it found the files, and let me add more metadata, so they now do appear. I could have done it many other ways though, even if I'd added zero metadata (smart playlist of items added in the last day, for example).

That should help everyone with this problem, and hopefully the ridiculous discussion of semantics (even once the issue was thoroughly clarified!) can be ignored.

Hi all,

I had this same issue for a while and here is how you solve it very simply.

when editing the info for any added media that you want to change any other type of media, make sure that you input as much info as you possibly can such as artist names, year, etc... ( if the only info that you have is the name of the file, it will not show up in iTunes)

if you are unable to re-add the media to iTunes, its because it is already in iTunes folders. The way to go is to go to the location of the media and delete it from there.

Example: if you add an mp3 file and change it media type to Podcast and you look into the Posdcast section of iTunes and it is not there, you need to go to

MacHD --> User --> (your user)-->music-->iTunes-->iTune media -->Podcast

there you will see an unknown artist folder.

that folder contains your now orphaned file.

delete this folder and you can now add the media back into iTune

Remember, just add as much info as you can ( I usually add my name as the owner to make it simple)

Hope this helps

Just to shed some light on this for anyone who's having trouble:

- You can add any .mp3 file (or other audio format) to iTunes and force iTunes to list it as a podcast by right-click > Get Info, then going to the Options tab, and selecting Media Kind: Podcast.

- However, there seems to be a bug in iTunes (both OS X and Windows) where if the file has no album title, it will disappear when you do this. It won't show up in any search results in iTunes. Of course, the actual .mp3 file will still exist in your iTunes Music folder, where it may be located (usually your Music folder).

- Since the file still exists in the iTunes Music folder, you won't be able to add another .mp3 file of the same name to iTunes, because it thinks that file is already in your music library—because it technically is, but a bug in iTunes prevents it from being displayed. That's why changing the name of the file before adding it works ... but then you'll have two duplicate files on your hard drive, and since podcasts can be dozens of megabytes, you might not want this.

- Most importantly, there are many reasons for doing this that make perfect sense. For instance, I recently downloaded several old episodes of a radio show from the 90s, formatted as .mp3. I wanted these to be listed along with my podcasts on my iPhone, particularly because I tend to make liberal use of the "30-second rewind" button (or 10-second rewind in the new Podcasts app), which is only available when listening to a podcast, not music.

- Finally, remember that an audio file is just an audio file. Most podcasts you download from iTunes are .mp3 files with some tags added. You can add tags to any .mp3 file; there's no difference.

Hope this helps yall.

the fiend wrote:

I still don't understand why you feel the need to change the file to Podcast.

My god... just give it up already! You could also ask why would anybody leave a spoken word track as a "Music" file in iTunes? For as much as you've typed you still haven't helped anybody with their problems in this thread because you're too hung up on why somebody would ever make something into a podcast that doesn't have an official podcast feed.

I've been doing this for years. I take recordings of radio programs and import them into iTunes and flip the media kind to Podcast, The benefit being that it groups them outside of my music library, puts them in a logical place (since it's not exactly an audio book which is another option), and gives you the benefit of listening to them at the 2x speed which you can't do if it's in your normal music library. Plus if you are listening to a audio file that is very long the Podcast section shows you half circles if you are in the middle of an episdoe, and marks stuff as Played or Unplayed. This is all stuff which you can't do by simply leaving it as a Music file.

Anyways... I've run across this problem too and I have been doing the exact same thing since probably 2008. There must have been some crazy iTunes update which messed with the podcast names. Before when I'd flip the media to Podcast it would put it in the Podcast section but just call it "Unknown Podcast" or something really generic and then I'd rename it directly from the main iTunes window (not the Get Info page). But then I noticed it started disappearing when I changed the media to a Podcast. So I discovered that you now need to include the name of the Podcast in the "Album" field, and then it will show up in Podcasts with the Album name as the Podcast name. If iTunes is organizing your music for you, you can see that it does move it to the path "iTunes Media -> Podcasts -> Unknown Podcast", but for some reason in a recent update iTunes has started hiding my unknown podcasts from me unless they have an Album name before I change the media to a podcast..

Wow, what a complicated thread. BUT, just one more question:

• I have gotten my downloaded mp3 (an old radio show from a web page, one no longer available from iTunes) into my Podcast list (by changing its media type, adding an album name, plus some other misc information);

• It now also appears on my iPod Touch podcast list, which I can check to it includes it in my sync;

• BUT, when I Do sync, it doesn't transfer it to my iPod Touch?!

I will try to reboot both my laptop and my iPod Touch, but can anyone think of a reason why it would not transfer, now that it is part of the Podcast list, both on the laptop and the iPod Touch list?

I don't do this a lot, but when I do, I want to listen to it on my iPod, not on my laptop.

Thanks,

WWW

Wow, what an unnecessarily long thread. I had the very same problem as the OP and the question could have easily been answered in one reply without any arguing.

the fiend wrote:

Well - originally, what I was actually trying to do was help the original poster with what appeared to be a Podcast probelm. But we all now know that it is not a Podcast problem at all. It's a question of adding information to the correct fields so that when someone re-labels an MP3 as a Podcast, they can still find it.

I then attempted to clairfy, for anyone who may read this post, exactly what consitutues a Podcast so that they may solve their Podcast problems. (Silly me, obviously! Excuse me for trying to help people.)

The fiend, the problem was that you weren't being helpful. You were being arugmentative and trying to school everybody with your knowledge of how Podcasts actually work. The problem was stated simply.

"I add a Podcast to music, change the type to Podcast, and it disappears?"

Giving a helpful answer while perhaps including a simple explanation of the difference between the file the OP was dealing with and a proper Podcast would be fine. But to act like you can't possibly address the question until you get a satisfactory answer about why the OP would dream of changing the type to Podcast and demonstrate they understand the innerworkings of Podcasts is very unhelpful and, I'd say, rather disingenuous. Since you know this much about Podcasts, you clearly must have been able to understand what was going on.

The OP quite clearly wanted the thing to not disappear and wanted it to be organized as a Podcast with the other Podcasts in his/her library. Anybody with two brain cells to rub together would expect changing the type from Music to Podcast would cause the file to move from the Music category to the Podcast category. In fact, once the disappearing problem is fixed, this is exactly what happens!

Here's an example of what a helpful answer might have been from the very beginning that could have been added in a single post:

"I don't know why the file disappears, perhaps it's a bug in iTunes, but here's how to fix it. iTunes seems to have a problem with certain characters in a Podcast name that can cause it to disappear. Change the name to something very simple that doesn't have periods(.), dashes(-), or anything like that. Once you've done this, change the type to Podcast and you should then see it organized with your other Podcasts.

By the way, the file you downloaded isn't technically a Podcast. <And now let me tell you all of the technical details about Podcasts you probably don't need or want to know....>"

There. Done.

This fixed my problem and it didn't require a lecture about Podcasts.

Thanks, brilliant suggestion TW.

For the benefit of others, I'll summarize the many good points people have made in this thread

TW

>>>Create a smart playlist. In my case, I made it look for anything with the Show name I gave, and it found the files, and let me add more metadata, so they now do appear. I could have done it many other ways though, even if I'd added zero metadata (smart playlist of items added in the last day, for example).

Also, the metadata you need to fill in for things to actually appear in podcasts is the Albumn field.

I found once I'd corrected the metadata then files would still not come back until I changed them back to "Music" and then to "Podcast" again. But that may have been because I had two files of the same name, one consolidated and one not.

That smart playlist idea is vital if you've just had your podcast disappear, or old ones disappear. Go to the iTunes File menu and select "New Smart Playlist", then add some search conditions to the new list by right clicking on it and choosing edit. You can search on size, name, date, Albumn (a blank albumn in this case) and many other things.

>>>Silly me, obviously! Excuse me for trying to help people.

Don't pretend to be offended. People have been very polite and patient with you. Its a sign of a troll when one is unreasonable and feigns offence when none has been given.

Actually, this is a new bug in the latest iTunes. Podcasts disappear if they have no Albumn name in their meta data ("Get Info"). Its a huge waste of time if you don't know that's the problem. Furthermore, finding a podcast once it disappears is a nightmare without that Smart Albumn trick.

Here's the quickest solution.

Create a playlist in iTunes.

Go to your itunes podcast folder,

go to the unknown pod cast folder.

Drag the unknown podcasts to the play list you created.

The hidden podcasts will show in the play list, and allow you to add an album title to the podcast and re-appear in your podcast folder

jmon47 wrote:

I eventually found a solution - the 'Info' section of the mp3 was empty except for the 'Name'. It turns out that when I put something in the 'Album' section, the files appeared in the Podcast section. When you are changing the Media type to Podcast in Options, make sure you also add some text to the Album section in Info and your files should show up in the Podcast section.

Yes, that's it exactly. Thank you !

Brilliant - thanks!

I'm still unable to change a couple of files' media kind from 'Music' to 'Podcast', no matter how much info I include and whether or not it has dashes or other marks. I can change the media kind to 'Audiobook' and they appear in the "Books" section, but if I change it to 'Podcast' and click OK they remain in "Music", and when I check the info the media kind has reset to 'Music'. Very frustrating.

Ironically, they were podcast episodes I had to purchase through iTunes as I accidentally deleted the original downloads. They downloaded as music not podcasts (since they were purchased, not "subscribed" to) and when I tried to change their media kind to 'Podcast' I had the above problem, but after the first try it simply greyed-out the media kind drop-down. I then re-encoded them as MP3s thinking that the protected MPEG-4 files wouldn't allow a change in media kind, but after the re-encode I've had the above problem. I just want to put them with the rest of the podcasts in the series/season.