[Podcasts] New Episodes feed is broken

[forcehighfive]

When I scroll down my New Episodes feed to check what I've missed, at a certain point the entire feed disappears (it looks like everything gets pulled up to the top) and I'm left with a black screen. It will reset after several minutes, but every time I try to scroll down at a certain point the same issue will recur. Sometimes also happens when I press the download option or add it to My Episodes.

This has been a recurring issue for more than a month now, I keep hoping Spotify will fix it but it still hasn't happened. Photos posted below are from June 19 and July 14.

Plan Premium

Country Philippines

Device Google Pixel 6A

Operating System Android 14

App version 8.9.52.552

[forcehighfive]

Hey everyone,

Thanks for the reports! We've gone ahead and forwarded the details to our tech folks who'll investigate further. In the meantime, make sure you're always running the latest version of Spotify so that you don't miss out on any updates.

Cheers 🤘

[ALT0150]

This has been going on for several months now. It doesn't seem to have a pattern, sometimes it will let me add a bunch of episodes, sometimes only one, there's no set time I can figure. But yes, as I scroll down it blanks out and I just see "continue listening." I am on a free account, newest version of android and the app. I can get the list back if I close out the app and open it back up again, but it is seriously annoying. I am wondering if this only happening on free accounts or if this is some sneaky way to get us to pay. Which I won't ever if this is the quality of this annoying app. 

[forcehighfive]

Don't worry, I'm a Spotify subscriber and I'm experiencing too. It's an equal opportunity annoyance for free and paid users alike

[fabiofidanza]

Same here!

It renders my podcast experience almost unusable as I have lots of subscriptions from which I pick a few episodes daily.

Paid account on Pixel 6 Pro

[ParacelsusXY]

It's astounding how much Spotify is pushing for podcasts to be a big deal on their platform, yet they let such a critical bug last this long. What I do when that happens is I have to close the app completely and go back to the new episodes list, but the same error sometimes happen twice. I can't figure out the specificity of what triggers it. It seems adding random episodes trigger the issue, regardless if they're recently released or a few days ago.

Spotify approach to customer support is so bad that it makes sense these issues persist. Instead of allowing us to email them directly or reporting a bug on their app, they force us to come to a blog post to keep shouting into the vacuum hoping that there will be enough noise to get their attention. A joke.

[jnrfalcon]

Plan

Premium

Country

US

Device

Pixel 9 Pro

Operating System

Android 15

My Question or Issue

The app crashes when opening Your Episodes or New Episodes, when there're new episodes that are not loaded into either playlists. Basically, it goes like: open either playlist, the app adds new episodes to the playlist and start to download, crash within a second. It usually fixes itself after restarting the app and episodes will download as intended. Sometimes it takes 2 tries. But it's still very annoying... It's annoying enough that the app won't download new episodes in the background already...

[kmaccoy]

I am having this same issue on my Galaxy A52 running Android 14.

[albertwenty1]

Happens for me but only on Android, and only for "New Episodes". Always crashes the first time when I click on "New Episodes", but after crash, loads fine. Pixel 8a, com.spotify.music 8.9.96.476. I follow a lot of podcasts, 100+. I suspect most of the users in this thread do as well? you may need to do the same to reproduce the issue. I haven't tried unfollowing in order to make the crash go away.

[techlover10]

This happens to me literally every time I open it after being offline for a while.  Seems like it can't handle finding new episodes and trying to auto download for offline.  Really hoping they fix it soon.

[Invalidxsyntax]

When opening the Podcast Playlist "New Episodes", the app on Android closes itself.

[Jose_M]

Hello!

Thanks for coming to the Spotify Community, I'll try to help you out. Does this only happen when you try to open the playlist from your Android device or does it also happen on other platforms? I'd also recommend you try having a clean reinstall of the app to see if that makes a difference. Just follow these steps.

Let me know how it goes!

[HypromanGT]

This has been happening to me as well for what seems like a few weeks now. The Spotify Android app closes unexpectedly shortly after tapping New Episodes. There is no error message of any kind. It closes exactly once a day; the first attempt at using New Episodes that day. Once I re-open I seem to be able to use the app (including New Episodes) without any issue for the rest of the day.

Spotify version 9.0.0.487

Android 14, Google Pixel 6

I have not witnessed this issue on other platforms, but I rarely use Spotify outside of my phone.

[FullyEntitled]

I'm having the exact same issue

[sanborn17]

I'm having the same issue. It also occurs when opening the "Your Episodes" playlist. Whenever it crashes, I can open the playlist without a problem for the next few hours before it will crash again, but it always crashes if it's been a long time since opening the playlist. "New Episodes" and "Your Episodes" both crash the app, and opening one playlist does not allow the other playlist to work without it crashing first too.

Spotify version 9.0.0.487

Android 15, Google Pixel 9 Pro XL

[msteere]

Same issue for me too. It never happens twice in a row, but if I've been listening to music or haven't opened the app in a while, it will always do this. Probably started a month ago.

[Invalidxsyntax]

No change in function. Same behavior is observed immediately on a fresh install. 

[crimsonn]

I've had the same exact experience (New Episodes or Your Episodes crashes the app the first time I use it *every day*, but the next time I open it is fine)

Spotify version 9.0.0.487

Android 15

I've attached some logs I see

[Pastor]

Plan

Premium

Country

US

Device

Pixel 7

Operating System

Android

My Question or Issue

When I click on the new episodes playlist through the app. It force crashes the app. I can immediately re-enter the app and open the episodes playlist. But a few hours later I will experience the same issue.

[jen-w]

My Question or Issue

When clicking "new episodes" for the first time on opening the app, the hard app crashes and closes. On reopening the app you can successfully select "new episodes" without it crashing. 

Plan

Premium

Country

Uk

Device

Samsung flip 5

Operating System

(iOS 10, Android Oreo, Windows 10,etc.)

My Question or Issu

[Ivelina]

Hey @jen-w,

Thanks for reaching out via the Community and welcome!

Did you notice when this started happening and if it was after an app/software update for example? Does it only happen particularly with the New Episodes section and do any error messages pop up for you?

If Spotify works after you relaunch it then this issue could be related to some damaged cache and if you've not already done this I recommend a clean reinstall. It's a bit more detailed than a regular reinstall and often helps resolve different performance issues.

Keep us posted 🙂

[jen-w]

Hello. Yes it only happened with the new episodes view and no errors popped up, the app simply quit.

Thank you for the guidance though, performing a clean reinstall seems to have done the trick and resolved the issue.