Unable to play private Patreon podcasts when casting to Google Home
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I frequently cast from Pocket Casts on my Pixel 7 to my Google Home devices, but I’ve noticed that podcasts from my private Patreon feeds no longer play. If I have a Patreon episode in the up next queue, when the app advances to the next episode the app will sit unresponsive. The time bar does not advance and the play/pause button does not response.
If I stop casting and try to play the episode over my phone speaker or a Bluetooth device, it plays just fine and the app works as expected. Is this a problem with Pocket Casts or something related to Google Home? -
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Unfortunately, we still haven’t managed to reproduce this on our end @dbgoff.
Does this happen for you on the podcast feeds you shared every time you cast to Google Home or just some of the times (if just some of the times, any idea what’s different about those times)?
Does this only happen when one of these patreon podcasts is loaded from the up next queue after the episode currently playing on your Google home completes playing, or does it also happen if you are listening to one of these episodes on your phone and you then cast it to a google home?
If you could just generally describe the typical listening flow you have when this happens, that could be helpful as well.
Thanks so much!
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@mattchowning Rats!
This happens 90+% of the time when casting to Google Home (I can’t say 100% because I just had one work successfully, but not sure why that one worked.) Problems happen during a mix of workday and evening times, both during the week and on the weekend.
The issue seems to be limited to playing a podcast from the Up Next queue. I can either be listening to a working podcast over Google Home that then advances to a non-working Patreon episode, or starting a casting session with a Patreon episode that I’ve already started listening to (maybe in my car over Bluetooth or via the phone speaker). If I try to start a casting session, either with the Patreon episode paused or playing, I’ll get the tone that my phone is successfully casting to my speakers, but then the episode refuses to play. I can go to my up next queue, choose a podcast from a working feed, and it will play just fine, all without ending the casting session. If I stop casting, I can then play the non-working episode just fine via my phone speaker.
Interestingly, if I start casting session, then go into a specific podcast and pick a specific episode rather than playing something from the queue, it plays perfectly every time. The issue seems to be limited to continuing to play an in-progress episode that is already queued up or something from the Up Next queue.
A basic workflow that causes the problem:
With PocketCasts open, nothing playing –
1. Start listening to an ep of a Patreon podcast via phone speaker.
2. Pause the playback
3. Start a casting session
4. Observe the play button change to the pause button with no playback via Google Home
This happens also when casting while actively in the middle of playing back a Patreon episode. -
I don’t think I fully answered your question when I replied yesterday, but just to add – this happens both when I’m casting a Patreon episode directly to Google Home AND when casting a working podcast to Google Home and advancing to a Patreon episode from the Up Next queue.
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@mattchowning I don’t know what’s changed, but it seems like this has resolved itself. All my Patreon feeds are advancing and playing over Google Home like I would expect.
Thanks to you and the team for the time you spent on this.
Pocket Casts Forum 