Downloaded episodes keep stopping mid-play

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  alihoza · Member · April 21, 2026 at 10:11 am

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  Hey everyone — I’m running into a weird problem with Pocket Casts and hoping someone can help.

  What’s happening:

  Downloaded episodes keep stopping mid-play — often requires re-selecting episode

  • I download episodes ahead of time and listen in my car.
  • Sometimes playback just stops in the middle of an episode.
  • When I tap the play button on the player screen, it often shows a loading spinner and won’t continue.
  • If I go back to the list, tap the same episode again, and hit play, it usually starts up and keeps going.

  Things I noticed:

  • This happens even when I have no mobile signal — the episode was already downloaded, so I wouldn’t expect it to need a connection.
  • A few affected episodes are from shows that are blocked in my country and normally need a VPN to stream, but they were downloaded beforehand.
  • Most of the time the “re-select episode → play” trick fixes it.

  My setup:

  • Pocket Casts v8.9
  • Android 16 on a Galaxy S21 (One UI 8)

  Has anyone else seen this? Any fixes or settings I should check?