iOS podcasts app and sync with Apple TV

I have the iOS podcasts app installed on my iPhone 5s. I sync subscriptions to/from my Apple TV2. I do not sync podcasts with iTunes on my Mac.

When I turn on the Sync Subscriptions setting (via the iOS Settings app) the podcasts and stations from my iPhone are synced to my Apple TV. This seems to work fine at first. For example, if I play the first 12min 30sec of a podcast episode on Apple TV, then stop playback and start listening to the same episode on iPhone, it picks up right where it left off on the first device. I even tried subscribing to a podcast on Apple TV to see if would sync to my phone. It did...very cool indeed!

The trouble begins over the next couple of days when the podcasts start to update. Sometimes podcast episodes are unexpectedly deleted. Others present a "temporarily unavailable" error when I try to play them. There are a couple of times when I was sure that an episode had downloaded only to find that it was only available for streaming (over cellular) when I attempted to play it. Very frustrating.

I've done a bunch of troubleshooting on this. I'm not going to go into all the steps taken and results found. I just hope the Podcasts dev team is actively working on fixing this.

Here's the bottom line for me: the iOS podcasts app works great (read: as expected) as long as I don't try to sync. When I turn on sync, it seems to work fine at first, but then things get hinky and, eventually, all bets are off. I would love to hear from others who are syncing podcasts between iPhone/iPad and Apple TV. Are you experiencing similar issues?