Some podcasts won’t play on some networks

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  spartanhooah · Member · March 13, 2025 at 4:54 pm

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  I cannot play some podcasts on my work machine. I just get the “Cannot play this stream.” pop-up. Examples include Escape Velocity Space News, Science Friday, and On the Media. These podcasts all work fine on my home network, and other podcasts such as The Skeptics Guide to the Universe and Skeptics With a K work fine on my work machine. What could be different between these sources to cause this issue?

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  staff-dexter · Staff · March 14, 2025 at 6:34 am

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  Podcasts are loaded and played directly from the podcast hosting provider directly. Pocket Casts does not host any of the podcast files.

  Therefore, there might be different network restrictions on your work network that are preventing episodes from certain podcast hosts from loading.

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  spartanhooah · Member · March 14, 2025 at 9:23 am

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  Ah, I figured it was something like that. How come I can listen to e.g. Science Friday on their website at work, then?

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  staff-eleanor · Staff · March 14, 2025 at 4:50 pm

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  Hi there! When you say “work machine”, do you mean you’re playing podcasts from the web player? If so, you can check if there is an ad-blocker or other filtering software on your network. Or a firewall or VPN that may disrupt the connection?

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  spartanhooah · Member · March 14, 2025 at 4:54 pm

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  Oh, I’m sure we’ve got a firewall and a VPN.

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  staff-dexter · Staff · March 17, 2025 at 5:57 am

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  It might be the case that your work network has restrictions in place that does not allow the playback of some podcasts. To resolves this, do reach out to your workplace system administrator.