iTunes stops updating podcasts / iTunes has stopped updating this podcast because you have not listened to any episodes recently. Would you like to resume updating this podcast?

There is no setting to stop this, I'm afraid it's built into iTunes.

I have this problem too. I have a number of podcasts I subscribe to that I listen to only occasionally when the topic is of interest, but I want to see every episode to decide if I will listen or not.

Going over to enter feedback now. *

And of course it's another layer of fussiness with the vile podcasts app, to keep iTunes and Podcasts in sync.

*http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunesapp.html > Enhancement request > Other

Subject: Stop iTunes deciding which podcasts to download

"I subscribe to many podcasts and some I only listen to occasionally, but I always want the latest episodes available for when I have time or the topic is of special interest. I do NOT want to miss episodes because iTunes decides I have not listened enough and has stopped downloading the podcast.

Please provide a toggle to disable this 'feature' for those of us who are capable of deciding what we want to download when and do not need iTunes to do it for us."

I am leery of an iTunes-only script solution now that my Podcast listening is so crippled already by the lack of coordination between iTunes and the Podcasts app.

im having that problem as well, temporary solution: use Youtube

Apple say

You've subscribed to a podcast but have more than five unplayed episodes. iTunes will stop automatically downloading newer episodes. You may get the following message:

iTunes has stopped updating this podcast because you have not listened to any episodes recently. Would you like to resume updating this podcast?

You can click Yes to continue downloading additional episodes. Or you can just listen to any part of any episode and a new episode will download at the next update.

That page predates the introduction of the settings you mention, but it appears that they do not affect the outcome. I'm afraid that it's either resume manually as they indicate, or use Doug's script:

http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=updateexpiredpodcasts

This script has stopped working on my Mac with iTunes v11.2.x.

I am having this notice pop up for podcasts I listen to on a daily basis. This "helpful feature" has caused me to miss downloads only available for a very limited time. I very much would like to disable this feature.

To me, it has been happening lately sometimes to podcasts that I get and watch daily. That's a very small value of "recently".

This is NOT a solution to the root cause of this issue, however, there is another script on Doug's Scripts site called: GET Available Podcast Episodes.

This script when run, will present you with a list of all podcasts that have missing episodes. You can then select the ones you want, and then it will present you with the actual list of the missing episodes which you can select and it will grab them all.

As I said - doesn't solve the problem, but at least you can quickly grab missing episodes.

Thought I'd share.

Here is the link to the script: http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=getavailableepisodes

I don't see that scripting such a simple task has enough value for me. I don't want to use it without contributing, so I won't. But thanks.

I'm having the exact same experience. Shows I listen to every day are being flagged as "you haven't listened to this recently".

I've been using this script for years and it no longer works for me either.

I'm having the same problem with podcasts that I listen to regularly.

It seems like after listening to a podcast on the iphone, the play count gets updated in itunes almost immediately (through iCloud I'm assuming).

So I think that later on when I actually sync it to iTunes it already knows the track is played but isn't resetting whatever counter/flag they use for determining if the podcast has been listened to recently.

No idea how to fix it though...

I don't listen to podcasts on my iDevices, so that isn't the issue for me.

Do you happen to DL the tracks to a non-apple device? I like to listen to podcasts in my car, so I frequently download tracks to a thumb drive (via apple script) then explicitly mark them as read.