Updated the podcast app, now all podcasts come up as temporarily unavailable

I am experiencing this today. Just got off the phone after refusing to pay 20.00 for customer support. So apparently this has been happening to others for a while. This morning I decided to update my iphone software. I figured it was a saturday morning and I know they often take a while. I had already updated to 7 but this was the update afterwards and now I get the "temporarily unavailable podcast" note on podcasts I just added and sycned via the cord to my phone. ***?

Can anyone update a step by step process for fixing this? I've scrolled through the discusssion and I think I've just gotten more confused.

HELP!

I'm genuinely curious - why are people persevering with this app? There are many alternatives which work, such as Downcast or Pocketcast. They do everything Apple's podcast app does, and much more.

There's absolutely nothing to gain from repeatedly trying to use something which has a class A bug in it. Just move on and use something which works instead.

Thanks for the info Phil. Looking at the app now. So its a 2.99 one time purchase app? I'm on an iphone 4 and am curious to see if it will play well with my older phone.

thanks for the clear step-by-step. very helpful.

Perhaps we don't want to pay for something that we already paid for as it should be included, and in working order, direct from apple.

Also, downloading and syncing thru iTunes saves battery life since it won't be downloading while I'm out and about, and we don't have to pay for data when it wants to sync via cellular. No thanks, and no thanks. And with syncing on home networking, there's no battery drain or data use when out of the house, but you still get the benefits of background downloading without the plugs.

Do either of those apps let you do that? If they do, then solid maybe. I'd still prefer apple fixing what is broken.

The above "fix" of changing the media type to podcasts seems to have worked for me so far, a week in and no glitches yet.

Sounds like you're having some serious battery life issues, you should take your iPhone into an Apple store.

As for your other points, well it's true, Downcast costs a couple of £. You got me there.

If you're so worried about data useage, just set Downcast to either download new podcasts manually, only on wifi, or geofence it to your home. It won't sync with iTunes, but I personally found that to be a huge advantage as it skips a step (Downcast keeps podcasts updated in the background automatically), and iTunes is painful to use at the best of times.

Ultimately a piece of tecnology has to work, or it's worthless. Apple's podcast app doesn't work, and therefore isn't worth looking at. In my opinion.

* sorry wrong thread

Thank you, Phil Baxter! I'm trying out Downcast and so far it looks like just the ticket!

Still nothing from Apple on this ??!!

Unbelievable. Unfortunately it looks like Apple's relaibility, and product testing regime, passed on with the late, great Steve Jobs. This is just another, albeit smaller, debacle like the Maps project.

What the **** is Tim doing ? Just looking at new products/customers, and is not concerned with those that have already paid up.

I just got off the phone with Apple support. I declined their $19 "one-time" support fee and elected to wait. The guy told me that this is the first time he has heard about this problem, but mentioned that it sounded "invacive". I couldn't afford an iPhone the last time I needed a new phone so I got a Galaxy S2. I hated it and couldn't wait until I got an iPhone back. Now I'm wondering if it's just that all smartphones SUCK! I'm very dissappointed with Apple. I guess that now that Steve is gone Apple is just another gadget company 😢.

Phil - in my case, I still listen to podcasts through my Mac, an iPod Classic and iPod Nano for instances that I don't want my phone on my person (exercise, etc), so I need a centralized Podcast library that syncs with all of my devices. Instacast comes close with an iOS and Mac app, but until I can get podcasts on my iPod Classic/Nano without iTunes I'm a bit stuck.

An update to this - I've also been having issues with my music library syncing. I've found that if I uncheck "Sync Music" and "Sync Podcasts," let my iPhone sync and remove all music/podcasts, then re-check the box and sync again, I'm able to listen to Music and Podcasts without issue. That said, the "temporarily unavailable" error in Podcasts comes back after a month or so. Not exactly an elegant solution.

I had the same experience SquireM this afternoon with apple support. I am shocked that this malware is still up and Apple has not corrected the problem. Other than Downcast or Pocketcast, are their other alternatives on the market? Does anyone have an e-mail for a product manager at Apple to complain about this problem? Alternatively has anyone gone in to a store to troubleshoot this problem? As you can tell I am searching to find a solution to this pain in the rear problem.

I had this problem occur after wirelessly syncing with itunes. (iOS 7.0.4, Mavericks).

To fix it, I went into the Podcast app, selected the specific episodes that would not play and deleted the downloaded file. Then I re-downloaded the problematic episodes using the podcast app and they all played fine.

I've synced my phone a few times since then and have not re-encountered this. I'm guessing if something goes wrong during the itunes sync this problem can occur.

Thank you for your courage.

There is a free podcasts app just out, it is called RSSradio7.

I've had to use this as the podcasts app won't download my podcast whilst it works fine in iTunes and every other app.

I finally did the same thing. Deleted all the podcasts I had and then reloaded them. I haven't had a problem since. The only thing was I had a lot of favorite episodes of some podcasts saved that were deleted as well. I can't get those back. Really surprised that Apple could screw this up so badly.