Q: Podcast app crashing in iOS 9

Last time I ever download a new version of iOS so quickly.

Will definitely wait a number of months and suggest that others do the same, will take a long time for Apple to earn back my trust after this. Highly skeptical of new releases now.

I can't believe that Apple would release something like this, big FAIL.

Like many of you I am an avid Podcast listener, daily, and have about 30 or 40 podcasts that I subscribe to.

And I've wasted hours trying to fix this, tried most of what others have tried and more, and will not reset, that would have its own set of problems.

ollyjmatt, I am trying to follow your method to change to audiobook, but I can't seem to find "Get Info" or even find the menu! I am looking at iTunes on my Mac. Can you point it out to me? I would love for this to work.

I also am trying other podcast apps, I am not completely satisfied with them, they are not as good as Podcast App. I hope they fix this soon.

Genius's: There have been many bug reports sent, I'm sure!!! Must not be allowed to publicly acknowlege this app bug.

Agreed this worked for me.  By 'this worked' I mean restore to factory defaults and set up as new iphone running iOS 9.  For me this process was made relatively painless by having it connected to iTunes on my computer.

Important, to prevent problems where you loose access to things accidentally its always good to do some housekeeping first:

When you restore to factory defaults and set up as new iphone you do have to set up a lot of stuff that you may have forgot that you signed into over the time you've been using your iPhone.  Things like:

• APPLE ID
• APPLE ID
• Did I say APPLE ID?  For goodness sake make sure you know your apple id and password.
• LinkedIn.
• Skype
• FaceTime
• iMessage
• Re-set up any email accounts. (You https://support.apple.com/kb/PH20354?locale=en_UShave your passwords stored somewhere right?)
• Twitter
• Instagram
• Flikr
• others?
• iBooks?
• Newstand?

1. For ALL of these make sure you have your user name, email address and password stored somewhere.
2. Make sure you have set up recovery methods for your email accounts, example google.
3. Transfer all pictures and videos from your camera roll to your mac or pc.
4. Address book, make sure you're synchronizing that with iCloud or local sync via iTunes.
5. Calendars!! Make sure those puppies are backed up again via iCloud sync or local sync to your mac or pc.
6. Any database driven apps like Omni-focus, etc if you don't use their cloud sync services.
7. Fitness and health data, if this is important to you.. back it up!  Sorry I can't find a link for how to do this.  Anyone else have a link?

All that done?  Had a real good think and look at all the apps and ask your self if this just disappeared would I lose anything?

Really ready?  Then proceed:

1. Connect your iphone directly to your computer, don't use a USB hub.
2. Back up iphone.  Ref: http://www.wikihow.com/Back-Up-Your-iPhone.  This is your just in case you forgot something.  You can have more than one backup.
3. Copy off any unique content in apps that don't use icloud to sync data. This is because later you'll restore to iOS 9 and 'set up as new iphone'.
4. Restore iphone as new iphone.
5. Sign into the phone with your existing apple id.  Trust the computer you have it connected to.
6. Don't forget to do the basics of security on your newly set up iPhone: passcode, use at least a 6 digit one or even better an alphanumeric. Do you know there are lists of common 4 digit passcodes?
7. BE SURE TO TURN ON FIND MY IPHONE.
8. Add back all your apps and start re-signing in to things.  Plus resync your iBooks.

Finally your podcast app should work after this.  Just remember if you chose sync playback position or whatever it's called you'll need to make sure your iphone has a data conneciton via LTE or Wifi when you run the podcast app to actually see the podcasts you just transferred over direct cable connection via itunes.

Best Regards, hope this helps.  Yes it's a a huge PITA and can suck up a couple of hours in an evening, and can lead to issues if you don't have all your account names and passwords.  BUT you do get your podcasts back, AND it may free up some space on your device.

Fix the problem , apple gurus !!!

I just spent so much time figuring out and then restoring my phone and STILL my podcast app crashes.  Don't waste your time with this solution.  I there are other podcast apps. I am giving up on apple.  Apple used to be great, they aren't great anymore. 

I did all that this morning for my iPod Touch--no joy. I  just finished synching it again and I see that the podcasts are on the iPod. Unfortunately, the app just crashes after a few seconds of "updating library." I also tried the airplane mode solution offered in this forum to no avail.

I solved it for my 5S by going to settings>usage>podcasts and swiping to delete all downloaded episodes.  Once I launched the app after that it rebuilt its library and started correctly.

alexcollins, you are fortunate! I followed your steps, but Podcast app still crashes. Even tho I deleted all episodes, it still says Documents & Data 43.2mb??? Just sayin'. Now, trying to get more podcasts on my old 4S, that is not upgraded to iOS9.

Great idea, but similar to "AppleHome", I followed your steps but it didn't fix it and the app still crashes.

As a podcaster, I'm kinda bummed that Apple hasn't even acknowledged this issue.

Same issue - iphone 5s - podcast app started crashing after upgrading to ios9.

Chatted with service 2h ago and they said I should reset my iPhone. Honestly I do not want to lose my configuration ...

Please, Apple: Fix it!

AppleHome, alexcollins, tried also the steps from alexcollins. Did not work for me. I have seen that Documents & Data amount increases with each start of Podcast app. (e.g. last step was from 100 to 106 MB). So there is something to do for the Apple developers ...

I agree. Apple has lost huge credibility and it is shocking that they won't own up to this problem and give at least an ETA for a fix.  I too will not download updates next time which isn't great as it leaves your device vulnerable.  Bad news anyway you look at it.  It is pathetic that they haven't addressed this yet.  It is even on TV news and their support people plead ignorance to it which means they have terrible intra company communication and their support people are out of touch.

I found another work around that seems to do the job. It definitely does not fix the issue of the podcast app not opening but it does allow you to listen to your podcasts on your iphone still.

If you go to the podcasts in iTunes and select the one you want to be able to listen to on your iPhone you can bring up the menu and select Get Info.

In the top horizontal menu of the window that opens up go to Options.

Change the Media Kind to Audiobook using the drop down menu.

The podcast episode is then stored as an Audiobook which means you can then plug in your iPhone, go to the audibooks menu option where you can add or remove audiobooks to your iPhone. Find the podcast there and add it.

I've found that with daily shows for example each podcast episode will be stored as a new chapter within the overall Show Audiobook which makes playback pretty easy.

Like I say - not a way to solve the app crashing issue but it does mean you can use the apps that are already on your phone in the meantime to play your podcasts while Apple sorts out a proper fix.

ollyjmatt, I am really trying this!

~ I plug in my 5S, open iTunes and select my phone/device.

~Then I go to Podcasts in the UPPER menu on the left under Settings.

~Then, I selected to Sync/Automatically include: 1 most recent unplayed episode of selected podcasts (I only selected one, to keep things simple.)

~Then, I sync/apply to my phone.

~After that, I go to Podcasts under "On My Device" on the lower left side of iTunes window, and there is the single podcast episode that I added to phone.

~So, I select and right click on that episode, and drop down menu pops open.

~Selected Get Info.

~Pop up window has 6 selections along the top, so I click on "options".

~First item is "media kind" and a selection drop down that says "Podcast" and has up/down arrows.

But, it is all greyed out, and I can not click on it.

Oh, You CAN change this, if you access the podcast episode in iTunes, not through any device like iPhone or iPad. Still trying to get this.....

Yes, I changed one episode of one podcast to Audiobook, but now how do I access that on my phone?