Parts of episodes are completely cut out
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Occasionally when I’m listening to an episode of a podcast, an episode will skip forward on its own, completely cutting out certain parts of the episode. And it’s not me accidentally hitting the fast forward button either, because if I rewind it still skips forward at the exact same point in the episode every time. And it will happen whether it’s an episode I’ve downloaded or am just streaming. Anyone have a fix for this?
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Hi, @adamtsuch21! Can you let us know which episodes you’re experiencing this issue with? Is it only one episode, episodes from one podcast, or episodes from multiple podcasts?
If you could please share with us an episode you recently experienced the issue with that would be very helpful. From a podcast’s page, you can tap on the episode to expand its details, then click on the Share icon in the upper-right corner of the screen.
In addition, which OS and app version are you using? You can check your app version from Profile > Settings (gear icon) > About.
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I’m having the same issue and have been for quite some time. I have listened to over 2,500 hours of podcasts on this app and the issue seems to be getting much worse lately. It is not isolated to a particular episode or podcast; it seems to be completely random.
I am running pocketcasts version 7.42(9113) on a Samsung S10 (model sm-g9730)
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It’s not definitely not an isolated incident, it’s randomly happening with multiple different episodes of multiple different podcasts. But other episodes from the same podcasts are completely fine. I don’t remember what specific episodes it happened as I’d have to go back and relisten to them to find where it skips, but I’ll reply again here with an episode when I have one.
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Thank you so much! We look forward to your reply with the details on the episodes you’ve noted the issue in.
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On this episode, right around the 1:39:00 mark, it skips, where the discussion about “gigawatts” gets repeated
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I feel like it is almost pointless to point out specific podcasts and episodes; I get this issue with so many different shows and so often. It’s not isolated. I listen for about 6hours a day (Monday to Friday) and it happens multiple times per day. There are multiple threads in this forum asking about the same problem and none have a solution.
Having said that, here is one example – https://pca.st/episode/71eb8fae-f272-4ae2-bdb8-9b67b6978144?t=1773 it skips at around 29:28
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It’s important to at least get sample episodes to look into because that helps us try and replicate the behaviors you’re experiencing.
For instance, for the “Back To The Future” episode @adamtsuch21 shared, I’m not seeing any issue around 1:39:00. However, there is also no discussion about “gigawatts” at this point in my iOS app’s playback. Are you able to consistently replicate the issue at 1:39:00, or does it come and go?
In addition, when the issue does occur, can you let me know the episode length that’s showing up for you? For me, it is 1:53:28, which matches the time we have on our database. For iOS, when we’ve had reports of episodes getting cut off, we have seen sometimes that the wrong duration shows up.
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As for the “4: Phone Calls from Manhattan” episode @jennasieffert shared, I’m unable to replicate a skip at around 29:28 on Android. If you keep going back to around that timestamp, does the skip always happen?
In addition, it’s not required, but if you wish, you may want to create your own thread so we can separate the troubleshooting for your issue. There are many possible causes for playback issues, and while the iOS and Android apps have their similarities, they’re still built differently.
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Yes, the skip happens around the same timestamp no matter how many times I go back. I usually stream shows rather than downloading and playing them, but in the past I have tried downloading episodes to see if the problem persists and it does.
Further, I continued to listen to the episode that I posted above and had skip back (where the track goes back about 10-15 seconds… Sometimes minutes and repeats itself) issues as well as some more cut out parts.
Sometimes when I have these problems (specifically skipping forward) the audio will finish up a couple of minutes before the end of the episode and there will be a period of silence as the time runs down. I assume the length of the silence equates to the amount of audio that is cut out.
BTW, I’d like to continue in this thread (I’m sorry if this bothers you, @adamtsuch21) because I find that often when I am looking for answers online I continuously come across forum threads that go no where.
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No I don’t mind @jennasieffert since it seems like we have the same issue. Mine also always cuts out at the same time whenever I listen to it, and the audio cuts out early at the end of the episode too.
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@jennasieffert Considering the skip happens at the same time for you, and I’m unable to replicate it, I wonder if there might be attempts from the podcast host to insert ads dynamically at that point for you, but the attempts are getting blocked, and then it’s causing parts of the episode to get cut out instead.
To see if that might be the case, can you please check the following?
- Do you perhaps have a firewall, VPN, or ad-blocker active on your device that could interrupt your network connection?
- Please also check your primary WiFi connection. In particular, please see if it has any sort of ad-blocking or filtering installed on it. One example would be this: https://pi-hole.net/
- Does switching to a different network connection like mobile data make a difference?
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@adamtsuch21 Can you check the same things above?
Also, in case you missed it, for the “Back To The Future” episode, can you let me know the episode length that’s showing up for you when the issue occurs?
For me, it is 1:53:28, which matches the time we have on our database. For iOS, when we’ve had reports of episodes getting cut off, we have seen sometimes that the wrong duration shows up.
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The duration that shows up for that episode is 1:55:39. I do not have a vpn or firewall on my phone and no ad blocker on my wifi. Also, the problem happens whether I am on wifi or using my phone data.
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@adamtsuch21 Thanks for the details on this!
I’ve gone ahead and forwarded this along to our developers. I can’t offer an estimated timeframe for a fix, but hopefully they’ll be investigating this soon!
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I also have this issue where episodes skip at random points both forward and backward throughout the episode. Sometimes episodes also end early even though they had several minutes remaining. These may or may not be related issues. I’ve experienced this issue repeatedly for several months now while listening to a variety of podcasts and episodes and I’m not always able to recreate the issue, because when I go back to the mark when it skipped, sometimes the problem fixes itself and other times it will repeatedly skip at the same point in time. This happens while listening through wired headphones or over bluetooth, so I assume the output isn’t causing the issue. It’s gotten to the point where I have to switch podcast players because an episode will become unlistenable as it can happen at multiple times through the course of a single episode. When it happens is seemingly random, sometimes episodes will play just fine and others can skip more than once.
iOS version: 16.6.1 | Pocket Casts version: 7.46 (7.46.0.4)
I’m not sure that it’s related but since you mentioned it, I do have an ad blocking application installed called 1Blocker. In case it helps, in this application you can enable/disable different blocking functionality. I have it currently set to block the following: ads, web trackers, and widgets. It’s version 5.4.1 (1188). -
Hi, @swithey!
I’m not sure that it’s related but since you mentioned it, I do have an ad blocking application installed called 1Blocker. In case it helps, in this application you can enable/disable different blocking functionality. I have it currently set to block the following: ads, web trackers, and widgets. It’s version 5.4.1 (1188).
That’s very related, so thanks for sharing that! A lot of podcast authors like to use some sort of tracking on their episode source files, and those trackers are often on the block lists of ad blockers. So, it’s very possible that 1Blocker might be interfering with our app’s connection to servers—not just ours, but also those that podcast authors use. So, to help narrow this down, can you maybe try to temporarily disable 1Blocker and see if the playback issues in our app disappear?
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It seems like the ad blocking must have been contributing to this issue because I did notice playback issues with another podcast app. Thanks for the info!
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