Syncing iphone with itunes I then get tons of old podcasts

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georgesdev Author

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Syncing iphone with itunes I then get tons of old podcasts

Hi all,

I have an iphone on iOS 7.0.4, and itunes 11.1.3 (8).

I use the podcast app a lot (about 1 hour of new content per day),

I'm subscribed to the podcasts on the phone, not in itunes on the PC.

it works well, except that when I synchronize the phone with itunes, I often get tens of old episodes on the phone.

This is annoying because I then need to manually tell the podcast app that I already listened to those tens of podcast episodes.

Plus it makes my phone use a lot of network bandwidth after synchronizing with itunes.

Is there a workaround? Thanks!

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.4)

Posted on Jan 6, 2014 9:42 AM

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Answer 1

georgesdev Author

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Jan 6, 2014 9:47 AM in response to georgesdev

Let me add that in the podcast setting on the iphone, "Sync Subscriptions" is off, and the app version is 2.0 (418)

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Answer 2

elbenoit

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24 points

Jan 10, 2014 10:38 AM in response to georgesdev

In itunes go into the device window and click on the podcast tab. If sync is turned on, try deselcting it. I would think it should then stop syncing podcasts to your phone from the PC.

However, the odd thing I would check is how the podcasts are getting on the computer in the first place, since you say you don't have subscriptions turned on on the PC. I would check the podcast tab in iTunes and make sure you are not actually subscribed.

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Answer 3

georgesdev Author

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Jan 10, 2014 1:20 PM in response to elbenoit

Thanks for your interest in my problem, I was getting desperate that no one would ever answer 🙂

in the device window I had sync turned off.

in itunes podcast tab I am not subscribed to any podcast.

Regarding the "odd thing" as you say, the iphone does not get the old podcast episodes over usb during the sync.

The iphone gets the old podcast episodes after the sync is done.

So to me it looks like itunes messes with the list of played episodes, and later the next time the podcast app checks for new episodes it is fooled into thinking it needs to download those old episodes again.

I'm not sure this is the cause, but I can assure you the iphone gets those podcasts over the network, and not during the sync.

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Answer 4

elbenoit

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24 points

Jan 15, 2014 11:42 AM in response to georgesdev

Hmm this is strange. If you don't have any subscriptions, and you have sync disabled, I can't really think of where you are getting a bunch of old episodes from. Sorry.

The only other thing I can think of is that it could be setting related, i.e. you have it set to keep the last 10 episodes.

Or perhaps there are podcasts in your music library that are somehow set to a media-type of podcast which show up in the app when you sync..

Sorry I can't offer more ideas. Thank you for your courage.

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Answer 5

georgesdev Author

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Jan 15, 2014 12:37 PM in response to elbenoit

I have some of the podcasts set to keep a few fast episodes.

It would be a bug to mark those episodes as unread and re download them though.

I don't have any music marked as podcasts in my library. And in any case the problem happens on podcasts I subscribed to since version 2 of the podcast app.

Any other idea? Can't an Apple service employee answer and solve this?

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Answer 6

Jan 27, 2014 4:46 PM in response to georgesdev

No real help, but I've got the same issue.

Currently I have "Sync Subscriptions" turned to off. For most podcasts - the ones that I don't want to keep - I subscribe on the iPhone. For a few podcasts, the ones I want to keep, I subscribe on my iMac's iTunes, and then change them to "Media Kind = Audiobook". That seems to mostly work, but every few days or so I'll dare to sync my iPhone with the desktop computer (I used to do this once or twice a day but now it's become quite the chore!).

Anyway, when I sync, the new Audiobooks sync fine (and something's improved in the past week - I needed to sync twice before, but now once is usually enough), and the podcast episodes on the iPhone also copy over to the computer's iTunes library, but, like with you, a bunch of podcasts return from the dead: they've been played and listened to and they're gone, but suddenly they're back. And yes, it's a chore: I need to figure out which ones I've listened to, and which ones I haven't, and then re-delete them.

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Answer 7

georgesdev Author

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5 points

Feb 6, 2014 11:50 AM in response to Lost in Asia

I may have solved the issue:

Yesterday I did a backup of the phone then restored the backup (as part of the process to unlock the phone from the operator, that's legal and free after 3 months of contract in France).

No old podcasts episodes reappeared on my phone after this.

Today I did a sync of my phone, and again no old podcast episodes are appearing on the phone.

Well, maybe just one from January 23rd that I think I already heard

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Answer 8

georgesdev Author

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Mar 18, 2014 7:33 AM in response to georgesdev

No, not a good solution. I synced my iphone again last week, and suddenly got 30 old podcast episodes that reappear.

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Answer 9

georgesdev Author

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Mar 18, 2014 7:41 AM in response to georgesdev

Good solution, at least for me. tested 3 times since yesterday:

FYI: My iphone is now on iOS 7.1 and itunes is version11.1.5

I set my phone to not backup to icloud (I don't think that's the solution though).

In Itunes, I set my iphone to sync podcasts

then I manually deleted all the podcast episodes in itunes

I synced my phone

Then I set itunes to not sync podcasts

Then I synced the phone again

I may have had some extra podcast episodes on that sync, but at least the next 3 syncs over a period of 1 week did not bring back any extra podcast episodes

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