Feeds update slower than other podcast apps
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My podcast feeds update slower than other podcasting apps. Is this me or a Pocket Casts issue? For example I listen to the “Security Weekly News” podcast and I’ll notice that YouTube Music has the new episode up but Pocket Casts doesn’t list it until a day later.
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There can be a delay between when an episodes is released and when it is listed in Pocket Casts. The exact timing will depend on how often the podcast is released, the number of subscribers, and other factors. We have recently added support for WebSub and Podping, which can help with this for podcast hosts that support it.
As for this specific podcast, are you still finding that there is a delay in availability of new episodes in Pocket Casts? If so, could you share with us the share link from within the app — you can use the share button when viewing the podcast’s screen in the app to copy the link to your device’s clipboard.
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Yes, it just happened again (5/24/25 1:01PM CST)
PocketCast Link: https://pca.st/ZVgvPocketCast doesn’t have the latest episode yet but YouTube Music has it as of 11 mins ago. I’ll try to keep an eye on it to see how long it takes for PocketCast but it seems like it’s usually 24 hours, which is disappointing given this is a news podcast.
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I’ve noticed this as well.
As of 2024-06-08 @ 4:39 PM MDT, episode 987 of The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe is still not available in Pocket Casts but has been on Apple Podcasts since 10:00 AM MDT.
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Hi there, @bikrrr
I can confirm that the episode is now listed in Pocket Casts. We are working on improving the parsing speeds, so that episodes appear faster in Pocket Casts.
We also recently implemented these changes: https://blog.pocketcasts.com/2024/04/26/websub-and-podping-support/
If podcasts use WebSub or PodPing, episodes will appear much quicker in Pocket Casts. -
Yeah, it updated shortly after I posted. Good to know it’s being looked at. Thanks for the confirmation. 🙏
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Same here — none of my feeds have updated since noon or maybe 1pm ET today. And at least one was very late in updating yesterday evening.
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@klutzinmypants @ebow1996 Could you provide us with the podcast links that are having issues with updating?
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These didn’t show any updates yesterday from around noon to sometime after 8pm ET, maybe closer to 9pm. Actually the first one might have been even later.
https://pca.st/podcast/e2d269b0-c788-012f-7f50-723c91aeae46
https://pca.st/podcast/03418e20-1f5d-012e-026d-00163e1b201c
https://pca.st/podcast/f2d7b290-b98c-0135-9e60-5bb073f92b78
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This continues to be an ongoing problem.
I’m currently looking at the Security Weekly News podcast (https://pca.st/ZVgv) which is not show an episode that was uploaded over 24 hours ago as of 3:08pm CST.
Youtube Music is listing the latest episode so it’s definitely been published. (https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlPkFwQHxYE5CBDxb2i-r_HjVaazxyh4i&si=Hhyf4LdNHySC5o1x)
I also noticed that PBS NewsHour (https://pca.st/ao5J) has an updated feed with the latest episode recorded 5pm CST so that is less than 24 hours. It seems like not all feeds are treated equally by PocketCast but considering this is a pay-service, exclusively focused on Podcast, it’s disappointing to see that YouTube Music is much faster at updating feeds.
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@dominicjpace @ebow1996 Taking a look at those podcast now, I’m seeing the latest episodes in Pocket Casts for each of them. Are you still not seeing the latest episodes on your end? If so, could you tap on “Refresh” at the bottom of the “Profile” tab to see if the app is able to perform a sync without error?
If that doesn’t do the trick, could you let us know any specific episodes that are still missing from the podcasts?
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Hi There,
We are experiencing the same issue with Blank Check Special Features.We published an episode to Patreon last night and it hasn’t appeared in Pocketcast all day.
https://pca.st/private/13f58e60-b8b9-0137-0dbb-0acc26574db2
Is this an ongoing issue? There is usually about an hour delay but this is concerning.
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@ajajmckeon I checked your feed’s information in our system, and I see that it’s up-to-date. It’s showing the last episode is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014).
On average, it can take about an hour for the feed to get updated in Pocket Casts after you publish a new episode, depending on the status of the feed (e.g., whether there is an error updating the feed).
The good news is we are currently deploying server changes to help improve the podcast parsing speed. https://blog.pocketcasts.com/2024/04/26/websub-and-podping-support/. If podcasts use WebSub or PodPing, episodes will appear much quicker in Pocket Casts. -
@staff-frank
This problem continues and it’s almost been 24 hours, and well past the hour update window you mentioned.
I’m currently looking at the Security Weekly News Podcast and the last episode is from August 16th. https://pca.st/ZVgv
When I check the podcast on YouTube Music I see the last episode was uploaded 19 hours ago. https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlPkFwQHxYE5CBDxb2i-r_HjVaazxyh4i&si=jd4NPxdPXpKzw2b9
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Hi @dominicjpace – I see what you mean. I’ve forwarded this issue to our development team to investigate further. Thanks for the report!
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@dominicjpace at least for the latest episode you see on YouTube Music, episode 408, the issue isn’t from our side. Our latest episode (episode 407) matches both what’s on the RSS feed and Apple Podcasts.
For context, our system needs the episode to be available on the RSS feed first. As you can see from the links I shared, it looks like the podcast creator hasn’t released episode 408 in their RSS yet. It’s possible that they release episodes first on YouTube Music.
Pocket Casts Forum 