Constant crashing after years of use
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I use an Android 8.10 Jelly Pro phone. The player will only play 10 seconds and stop and close. Doesn’t matter if it’s downloaded or streamed. Tried everything including reinstall and optimization settings. Any help would be appreciated
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I have also found that with the most recent update the Android Pocket Casts app crashes consistently on one of my devices. For me it is fine until I try to play audio, and then it always crashes after playing a few seconds of audio. It does this both for podcasts played from the internet and for downloaded ones.
I have Pocket Casts version 8.14 (9435). I see this on a Huawei MediaPad M5 running Android 9. I do *not* see this bug on my Google Pixel 6a (Android 16) or my Galaxy Tab S8 (also Android 16) which are running the same version of Pocket Casts.
Maybe this is a bug that only shows up on older Android versions and was introduced in the most recent app update? The app has been fine on this device for years up til now, and there haven’t been any OS updates recently.
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I agree, no issues with my iPad. As soon as the “files” advertisement pop up it started.
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Thanks for the detailed reports, this helps narrow things down. It looks like this crash-on-playback pattern is showing up mainly on older Android versions (Android 9 on the MediaPad M5, and the Jelly Pro device), while newer Android 16 devices on the same app version are unaffected. That’s a useful clue, and we’re tracking this as a known issue we’re investigating.
A few things worth trying in the meantime:
- Double-check unrestricted battery access is enabled for Pocket Casts, since some manufacturers still throttle playback even after an update or reinstall. Steps here: How to give Pocket Casts unrestricted battery access
- If audio cuts out but the timer keeps moving (rather than a full crash), try setting Play over notifications to Duck volume under Profile > Settings > Notifications, and test with a downloaded episode instead of streaming: Playback stopping randomly
- Make sure you’re on the latest app version, since older builds can behave differently on older OS versions.
If the app is fully crashing (not just going silent), Android should offer to send us a crash report when it happens, if you see that prompt, please tap Report and include any steps that reliably trigger it, that diagnostic info helps us pinpoint the cause: Crash or Application Not Responding
For anything needing a closer look at your specific device logs, the best path is Profile → Help & Feedback → Get in touch → Get Support in the app, that routes logs directly to us privately.
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The app certainly looks like it crashes : playback stops and the pocket casts window disappears, dumping me back to the Android desktop. But Android doesn’t offer to send a crash report.
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Yes same here, app stops and completely closes without a crash report option. The AI assistant looked at the crash logs and basically sent me here but if they are needed I can send them.
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Thanks for confirming there’s no crash-report prompt appearing, that’s a useful data point on its own, since it suggests this is a hard process kill rather than an in-app exception Android can catch and offer to report.
Since this is narrowing down to older Android versions (Android 8-9) specifically, and you’ve already tried unrestricted battery access without luck, the next useful step is getting your device logs in front of the team directly, since logs from a full close-and-return-to-desktop crash will show what’s actually happening at the OS level.
Please reach out via Profile → Help & Feedback → Get in touch → Get Support in the app. That attaches your logs automatically and keeps things private, so there’s no need to paste anything here. If you can also note which podcast(s) you were playing and whether it happens on every episode or just some, that helps too.
One thing worth checking in the meantime: some users have found certain podcasts (particularly ones without transcripts or with different chapter data) behave differently. If you notice the crash only happens with specific podcasts rather than all of them, that’s worth including in your Help & Feedback report as well, it could point to a more specific trigger than just the OS version.
We’re continuing to track this as a known issue, and reports like these are exactly what helps narrow down the root cause on affected devices.
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@uup115 — do the early episodes of this Ancient History 101 podcast crash for you? (e.g. the one at the beginning about Xenophon) https://shows.acast.com/ancient-history-101
I had thought this crash happened on all podcasts, because every one I tried crashed, but I stumbled on these few episodes in this feed that play fine for me. The later ones in the feed crash the player, but the first handful do work for some reason.
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Just to update this thread, support tell me they’ve disabled a feature on the server side, and this has completely fixed the crashing issue for me.
Pocket Casts Forum 