Chapter images not displaying on PC
-
Hi. Im hoping you may be able to help me please, and apologies in advance for the length of this query.
I’ve been having trouble getting my podcasts chapter images to display on PC (Pocket Casts). I’ve tested it on Podcast Addict, Podcast Guru, Antenna Pod and Fountain, it works perfectly fine on all those but not on PC.
Therefore I’ve created a separate ‘test’ show and uploaded some test episodes of various formats to see how it displays on PC.
As I understand it (please correct me if I’m wrong), chapter images in PC use the embeded mp3 id3 tag to display chapter images, whereas the other apps I mentioned seem to use json files for the images (Podcasting 2.0 tags). I believe Apple also use the mp3 id3 tage. Are these assumptions correct?I’ve created 3 test episodes, I’ve included links below to the ‘test’ show.
1 Chapters manually added via the podcast host (Captivate), i believe this is json format.
2 Chapters embed into the mp3 file.
3 Combination of both of the above, so embed and json manually added.As you’ll see in the screen shots, for some reason PC only shows 1 episode (manual json), it’s not showing the two other test episodes. (However Ive also added screen shots of several other apps that show all 3 episodes fine.) So as PC is only showing 1 out of 3 episodes, I cannot take a screenshot of the blank chapter images, but when I’ve done testing on PC with other shows it does not show chapter images from either the mp3 embed or the json file. The screenshots of the other apps shows that the correctly display the json chapter images ok.
Things i’ve tried on PC. Refreshing the show, refreshing the artwork via settings, unfollowing and refollowing, deleting the cache and data, reinstalling PC. Ive also tried it on 3 different phones and on my desktop. It’s the same issue on all.
Questions:
What are the correct steps that I should follow to make sure the chapter images show correctly?
How long should it take for the chapter images to arrive in the app?A further question:
If I were to change any details in my episode via my podcast host (Captivate) such as text in the show notes, chapter images (via the mp3 tag or json), episode artwork, episode description, etc, how long SHOULD it take to show in PC, because I never seem to get the details to change, it seems a bit random. I think if I upload a subsequent new episode it seems to perform a full refresh on previous episodes, but Im just not certain. So are there certain triggers that PC needs in order to pull in new information. It is a little frustrating because all the other apps I mentioned above seem to refresh fine within minutes.I’ve read some prevous threads where PC does not show updaed episode artwork, and there has been suggesttions of a back end refresh of the servers cache. Please could I request that you do not update things on your end to refresh it, because I want to find a solution that works without you having to do that. Most of our podcast listeners are in the age range of 65-100 years, so I need it to work easily for them.
Link to test show.
https://pca.st/bbhdl4owEagerly awaiting your help. Please let me know if you need further info.
Thank you
-
Also just to throw a spanner in the works, here is a few screenshots of one of my previous test episodes that had no mp3 id3 embed tags, but only manually added json via the podcast host (captivate). The chapter images actually seem to show perfectly fine on PC, which is odd because I thought PC only supported embed mp3 images. And to further complicate matters, this exact episode shows the images on one of my mobile devices, but then does not show on two other mobile devices, it’s very strange. Ive tried all the fresshing and deleting cache optons, but nothign works. I just cant understand why the images will show on one phone but not on other phones.
Link to the episode that shows chapter images fine https://pca.st/uylpjnb1
-
Just a quick update, the remain two episodes are now showing in PC app. Ive attached a screenshot. All three were published at the same time within a few minutes of each other so not sure why it took almost 24 hours for the two other episodes to show
-
Hi, @tsgcn! There are different factors that affect how a podcast is parsed by our system. We share more information on that here: https://support.pocketcasts.com/knowledge-base/podcast-parsing/
With all that said, I tried looking for errors in parsing your podcast, but I don’t see any now that explains why you had these issues.
To be sure, however, are there any remaining issues with your podcast that we need to look into?
For example, for showing the chapter images, you mentioned that you can see artwork on one of your mobile devices but not on the other two. Are they all on the same platform, or are some using Android and others using iOS?
Pocket Casts Forum 