Show Notes Are Not Instantly Available and Sometimes Require Internet
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When I am not connected to the internet, the show notes for numerous podcasts (not downloaded) give the “Unable to find show notes for this episode” error. Some podcasts (also not downloaded) are perfectly fine, however. It is usually the entire podcast—either the show notes of all the episodes are available offline, or none of them are. It is not influenced by whether or not I have looked at the show notes before, but may be influenced by whether or not I looked at the show notes of any episode of the podcast recently. (The show notes of downloaded episodes always display.)
What I did:
- Turn off Wi-Fi.
- Check the show notes of multiple podcasts.
- Turn Wi-Fi back on.
- Open the show notes of some of the podcasts’ whose show notes did not work.
- Turn off Wi-Fi again.
- Check the show notes of the podcasts which previously did not work with Wi-Fi off.
What I found:
- The podcasts where the show notes did not load in step 2 whose show notes I opened in step 4 worked in step 5. Even if I only opened the show notes of one episode in step 4, the show notes for every episode were available.
- The podcasts whose show notes did not load in step 2 that I did not open in step 4 still didn’t work in step 6.
- Additionally, show notes can sometimes take over a few seconds to load, whether or not they are long. If I have not looked at the show notes for a podcast within the last 24 hours (give or take), the first show notes from it for me to open take longer and show the spinning loading circle. After that, those show notes and all of the others for that podcast display almost instantly without showing the circle.
If show notes are just text (technically HTML code, but they are still provided as text), why can’t they be accessible instantly and regardless of internet connection like titles, publish dates, season and episode numbers, etc.?
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Thank you for reporting this. Sorry to hear your are experiencing this issue with the show notes off-line behavior. Thank you for providing such great detail about your troubleshooting steps! This is very helpful! Can you tell us in which app you have encountered this issue? If it is on iOS here is a known issue there, and the information you provided can help us investigate it.
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I am using the iPadOS 18.2 Beta, though this also occurred with previous, non-beta versions.
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It is similar to the issue you sent, except it never seems to occur with downloaded episodes.
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@staff-joey8 It has been occurring since I downloaded Pocket Casts in late September when I had the 18 or 18.1 beta, and has recurred through the 18.1 public release and 18.2 beta. The issue also occurred when I walked someone else through the Pocket Casts app on their iPhone, which was using a version of iOS 17.
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@kapods22 I hope you don’t mind if we take a step back. You previously mentioned the following:
It is similar to the issue you sent, except it never seems to occur with downloaded episodes.
To confirm, you only experience the issue with show notes on episodes that are not downloaded. Is that right?
If yes, what you are seeing may be expected. On our Android apps, for example, show notes only work offline if:
- The notes were previously viewed while online, or
- The episode had been downloaded
In any case, I’ve asked the developers to confirm the expected behavior on iOS.
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@staff-cara To go back to my original question, since show notes are just provided as text (HTML code), how come they aren’t instantly available like the titles? Other podcast apps I have used (Apple Podcasts and Overcast) have had instantaneous and offline show notes viewing, so I’m just curious why this isn’t currently a feature.
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Hi @kapods22,
Currently, Pocket Casts downloads the title and other specific meta for the episodes when listing them, but only when opening or downloading them we get the episode details strings.
That said, I appreciate your thoughts on instantly-available notes. I’ll submit a feature request on your behalf! :)
Pocket Casts Forum 