Cannot view older episodes of a podcast

  • staff-joey8 · Staff ·

    We recently had the following message sent to us:

    One of my favorite podcast is “The Guitar Knobs” and for some reason I can not find the older episodes in the application. Can you help me please?

    The oldest episode  can see in the list is:088 – Interview with ShonesWood founder Kevin Shone

    In a case like this, the first thing to check is whether ‘Show Archived’ is being shown when on the podcast page. If so, that means that Pocket Casts is hiding archived podcasts from the list. By default, Pocket Casts archived episodes that you have listened to.

    In the case shared above, we double-checked and can see all episodes from episode 1 on our system:

    If the podcast is not showing episodes that you know should be there, it would be a good idea to try unsubscribing from the podcast, and then resubscribing. This has helped in a few cases where users have had the episode list cached.

    Should the above steps not help, the next step would be to make a forum post here with the name of the podcast, what is missing and the RSS Feed (if it is a public feed).

  • delapierced · Member ·

    I am having this problem with Democracy Now! (Audio). I have gone through all the settings, and unsubscribed and resubscribed

  • delapierced · Member ·

    It is only showing episodes no older than two weeks. Auto Archive is off. I have it set to show all archived episodes. I still cannot see episodes older than two weeks

  • staff-cara · Staff ·

    Hi, @delapierced! Is this the exact podcast you’re referring to?

    If yes, I see that the episodes we have are already up-to-date, with the latest episode being “Democracy Now! 2023-05-19 Friday.” If you’re not seeing the same thing, can you please give us the share link for the podcast from your app—from the podcast page, click on the share icon next to the podcast title.

  • delapierced · Member ·

    Hey Cara / Pocket Casts

    Thank you for your prompt response. Yes, that is the podcast I am referring to. But my problem is not that I cannot see new episodes. My problem is that I cannot see episodes older than two weeks

    So at the time of my first post, May 18th, I could not see episodes before May 4th. Today, May 22nd, I cannot see episodes before May 8th

    I do not have any Auto-Archive settings turned on for either the podcast specifically or the app in general. I also have “Show Archived” turned on

    Please advise

    Thank you

    Love + Gratitude

    PierceD

  • staff-cara · Staff ·

    @delapierced, I see the issue! And it’s not specific to Pocket Casts.

    The “Democracy Now!” podcast only keeps 12 episodes in its feed at a time. You can confirm that by viewing its feed URL. Apple Podcasts, for example, shows the same limited number of episodes.

    Limiting episodes to a certain number like this is something podcast authors normally do when they might have limited hosting.

    So, in this case, you may want to reach out to the podcast author if they might have a feed URL they can share with you that contains more episodes.

  • delapierced · Member ·

    Helpful, thank you!

  • staff-cara · Staff ·

    You’re very welcome. I’m glad we figured that out!

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