Player frequently unresponsive and nearly UNUSABLE in the past few days
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Long time user, Play podcasts most days, and I’m noticing big problems very recently, so something has definitely changed. The player is all but unusable for me right now so this is a big deal. I’ll probably try to uninstall and reinstall at some point today because it’s gotten me pretty frustrated. Would appreciate Y’all looking into this.
Pixel 7 with Android 14 latest, and am in Android beta program, so it’s possible I’m on something new, which could be “my fault”. It’s the price I pay for freedom!! 😂 (build numbers below).
Issue:
- Long delay after pressing play
- often unresponsive at all requiring multiple presses or force close before controls return
- delay does seem to impact the entire application, not just the play button. Visually it appears to accept the press but doesn’t actually play sounds or increment the timestamp
I thought this was a network issue at first, but I have ruled that out after finding that Spotify for example works fine in the same network conditions. Also, while I don’t normally play podcasts at home, I just went to play one of my shows and nothing happened. So I tried different apps that use the network and audio and they were working fine. Took many attempts to finally get the player to start. Even after that it became flaky and I was unable to pause when I needed to.
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Also using a pixel 7. The app opens and is unresponsive since late last week or so. Uninstalled, rebooted, etc. No change.
Can’t view stats or much else let alone see any new episode info.
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Similar problem but with Moto g6 (yes, I know it is pretty old). It started pausing during playback about a month ago so I freed up a lot of memory. This morning I went through as many cleanup options as I could think of in this order: cleared both cache, the storage, uninstalled/reinstalled. Rebooted, then I did a FACTORY RESET followed by reinstall. Shortly after the full factory reset I was able to see the badges but when I went into the podcast badge I was unable to see any episodes. I saw only a black lower half with icons for the “Podcasts grid, Filters, Discover and Profile” options. But now I can’t see even the podcast badges. I get an audible click that Pocketcasts is accepting the keystroke but the screen is mostly blank. I also tried resetting my password but didn’t actually change it since I use Pocketcasts on a Samsung A51 (which appears to be working fine).
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Similar problem here, started today. After BBC World Service was done, the next podcast episode didn’t start. I force quit (swiped up) the app, and it restarted the BBC World Service episode at a minute or two before the end. When it reached the end, it froze playback again. And now it won’t even play those last minutes of BBC. Logging into my account also hangs, and downloading podcasts is unresponsive. I can browse around in the app, though.
I have rebooted the phone and turned off bluetooth, but nothing seems to help. I am wary of reinstalling the app since I haven’t bothered to log in and sync my progress for quite a while…
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Wouldn’t you believe it. Just minutes after sending the above message, it started working again. I wonder what was up.
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I brought my Moto g6 to work to try to fix it during lunch and despite it not working just five hours ago it seems to be working fine now. (Did perhaps connecting it to different WiFi here at work fix something?) I can see the badges and it even carried over an in-progress podcast I was listening to on my newer phone. The current Pocket Casts version and build are “7.46 (9135)” (Viewable at Profile | Settings (gear) | About). I wish I had noted the version number while it wouldn’t work but things appear to be working again, now.
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I am also seeing the same thing, the app becomes unresponsive and won’t stop playback. Still happens after a restart too! 7.46 on android 13 pixel 6a
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I’m having the same problem. When when playback was interrupted by navigation, it stopped the podcast and it could not be restarted. After restarting my phone, it was not aware of where it had left off and when my phone disconnected from Bluetooth it continued to play. I was able to start the sleep timer, but it did not stop playback, and I had to force stop the app. I then tried restarting, clearing the cache and data to no avail. Pixel 5, with Android 13, & Pocket Casts 7.46
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I’m having the same issue too.
I’ve noticed that if your profile is stuck “Refreshing…” (i.e. hitting refresh now does nothing to change that) i cannot use the app’s ui and that if a podcast is playing it will restart from the beginning.🤷 seems like the sync servers are getting overloaded at some times in the day, because the app seems to work very well when you would expect Americans to be asleep.
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Same problem for me with a Pixel 6. In case it is helpful to anyone, I found that the app works with cellular data but not WiFi. I realize this is not helpful if you don’t have unlimited data but if you do, try turning off WiFi and rebooting your phone. It worked for me after the app had been completely unusable for the the last couple of days.
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I am having the same issue. Podcasts page loads unreliably, and when it does the podcast pages themselves won’t load the list of episodes to pick one to play. Playback is also basically non functional. It seems other functionality is intact — I was able to export my OPML file to migrate to a new player. Hopefully this gets fixed so I can return to this app with lots of time put into customizing and setting it up how I like it!
I am on version 7.46 of the app and Android 13.
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Thanks everyone for reporting these. We’re working hard at getting this fixed for you.
Unfortunately, we are having trouble reproducing this. It sounds like it’s happening pretty consistently for a lot of you, so I’m not sure why we’re not seeing this behavior. , If any of you know any steps that might allow us to reproduce the problems, let me know.
Also, has anyone experienced these problems on any of the 7.47 release candidates? (you would only see these if you’re a beta tester)
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Same issue. Totally unresponsive and unusable. Can flip through app tabs but nothing appears in the “Podcasts” tab. Also seeing within the Profile tab it is stuck permanently “Refreshing…” at the bottom. Been happening for a few days now. I also cant get it off my lock screen while charging, even after force quitting.
Pixel 7. Pocket Casts 7.46. Android 13. -
Same issues this week. I opted out of Beta and still freezing on open, not opening and not playing. Android 13 on Pixel 7a, app v7.46.
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I’m having the same issues on my Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, on version 7.46 of the app and Android 13. I’m signed up for the beta program but that’s the version it says on the app. Have to go into settings and force stop, clear cache, etc just to stop the player. Last night I tried disconnecting my Bluetooth headphones, which worked, but not today. Nothing is working today.
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@mattchowning I’m seeing this after starting the app after having it simply be idle on my phone for a while. Like others have stated, this seems to be happening for me since the last update (7.46 – 9135). I’m running a Pixel 7. It seems to be working off and on for me throughout the week. Sometimes I open the app and it syncs fine, sometimes it is just unresponsive at first, and I force close and reopen and it’s okay. Sometimes it takes several force closes until it starts working. I have yet to notice much consistency.
When in this “unresponsive” state, I can’t play a podcast (current or something that is in queue), I can’t refresh, often when I go to my Podcasts tab it’s blank until I select it again. I can navigate around the app and that’s about it. Sometimes I can get a podcast to play but the timer does not increment. When I close the app and re-open, the podcast reverts to where it was before my last listening session.
Ironically I was just in that “unresponsive” state. I turned off my Bluetooth headset and tried to refresh again, and it refreshed. I turned my bluetooth headset back on and refreshed again, and it seemed to still be okay. Not sure if that’s related or not. I will say I listen probably 90% of the time with Bluetooth headphones.
Are there any logs that can be provided that may help?
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Same issues. Have occasionally gotten it to work, but today tried to restart my whole phone to fix it cuz nothing else was working and it still was going non-responsive.
Pixel 7. Pocketcast 7.46
Also, tthis forum is an absolute [] to log in to – WordPress and Pocketcast’s site don’t seem to share credentials well, so even tho I logged in several times, the forum wasn’t actually recognizing it.
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That’s helpful @imthewolfman!
Please keep an eye out for app version 7.46.2 (or 7.47-rc-3 if you’re a beta user) which addresses this issue and is currently in review with Google.
Are there any logs that can be provided that may help?
If the issue persists after updating the app, please send us the debug logs from your device. You can send those to us by reaching out through the Pocket Casts app via
Profile>Settings>Help & Feedback>Get in touch. (Based on your account type, if the logs are not automatically attached to your message, you can copy them from the log viewer in theHelp & Feedbacktoolbar at the top.)Thanks everyone for reporting this and helping us narrow down the issue. 🙏
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