Caching Show Notes for Too Long, Even with Podping

  • Unknown's avatar
    kapods22 · Member ·

    On my podcast (https://pca.st/podcast/9fa30420-1f70-013b-05e5-0acc26574db2), which uses Podping (I host with Buzzsprout), I updated the show notes of one of my episodes over two weeks ago and all of my episodes a few days ago, but they still remain cached on my iPad. The show notes of an episode of an NPR podcast that doesn’t use Podping (I use NPR Plus, so I can’t share the link), however, have been updated. My podcast description has been updated in Pocket Casts in this time, but I have yet to see what happens when I publish my next episode.

    I have tried restarting my device and force-refreshing the episode list, and the app has had several updates.

    Show notes should be refreshed when the rest of the podcast is refreshed and especially when a Podping alert is received.

    Device version: iPadOS 18.3.2

    App version: TestFlight Beta 7.86 (7.86.0.6) (this has persisted through multiple updates)

  • staff-cara · Staff ·

    @kapods22 To help us check this, can you please share the following?

  • Unknown's avatar
    kapods22 · Member ·

    All of the show notes just updated today, interestingly.

    But could you please still report to the rest of the team that the show notes don’t get updated when there is a Podping alert? I checked this by modifying the show notes in podcast host, monitoring hivewatcher for the Podping alert, and then checking the show notes in Pocket Casts a few minutes after I saw the Podping alert. They were still cached.

  • staff-joey8 · Staff ·

    @kapods22 sure thing! I can confirm it has been flagged with our team.

    If possible, when it happens again, can you confirm if it showed the correct notes in our Web App, or was it just happening on the iPad?

  • Unknown's avatar
    kapods22 · Member ·

    As of yet, it is still cached on both my iPad and on the macOS app.

  • staff-eleanor · Staff ·

    Hi @kapods22! Just to make sure I have the right info for the team – There was a delay of approximately 48 hours from when the notes were changed/updated.
    And, you were able to view the correct show notes in Pocket Casts in the web player https://play.pocketcasts.com. BUT – you still see the old ones in the iPad (iOS app) and desktop (macOS app). Is that right? Thanks so much for your feedback!

  • Unknown's avatar
    kapods22 · Member ·

    Actually, there was a mistake I made. Here are my correct findings:

    None of the platforms I can test (iPadOS/iOS, macOS, and the web) seem to use Podping or WebSub for anything but checking for new episodes, while they should use such methods for updating all information in the RSS feed (refreshing information currently takes somewhere under an hour). The macOS app and web player refresh the show notes at the same rate as all the other information (not using Podping or Websub). The iPadOS/iOS app, however, can take weeks to refresh show notes, while it still updates other information. I can’t speak on the caching behavior of the Android app.

  • staff-joey8 · Staff ·

    @kapods22 thanks for the clarification! That does seem to be intended (where we use those tools for checking for new releases only), but I have flagged it with my team so we can look into getting this improved.

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