Podcast episodes appear in alphabetical order in the queue

[Yordan]

We've received reports that in the Desktop app, podcast episodes appear in alphabetical order in the queue, regardless of how you sort them. This occurs both on Windows and Mac.

[ScottGeiger]

Plan

Free

Country

US

Device

All Devices

Operating System

All Platforms

My Question or Issue

In the My Episodes playlist for podcasts the sort order of the podcasts is incorrect.  It defaults to sorting ascending; i.e. newest to oldest.  Many podcasts are sequential, meaning you need to listen to episode #1 before episode #2.  The default sort does not support this and thus episode #2 is before episode #1.  The sort order should be descending; i.e. oldest to newest.

[Eni]

Hey there @ScottGeiger,

Thanks for reaching out about this here in the Community. 

We appreciate you taking the time to share your feedback with us and will make sure to pass it onto the right team, as we always strive to improve your experience.

Additionally, it seems that other users feel the way you do and posted this idea about this. Despite its current status, you can still add your vote to it and if anything changes in the future, we'll make sure to keep everyone updated over there.

Also, you can read more about how your feedback reaches Spotify here.

If you need a hand with anything else, the Community is here for you. 

[ScottGeiger]

@Eni, I disagree.  This is not an "Idea" or a "Nice to have feature"; this is a bug.  While the Spotify application is functioning as designed, the logic is wrong.  Therefore it is a bug and should be corrected.

[ScottGeiger]

Moderators, I would like to request that this issue be moved/escalated to the "Ongoing Issues" area.  Again this is not a "feature request" or a "nice idea"; the logic behind the sorting is absolutely incorrect.

By way of example, the Spotify Original podcast "Heavyweight" occasionally does two part episodes.  Recently they produced episodes "#41 Barbara Wilson" and "#40 Barbara Shutt".  In order to follow the story-line and understand the listener must listen to #40 before #41.  The current sort order does not allow for the listener to do this.  The current sorting will play #41 before #40, which is incorrect and out of order.

[ScottGeiger]

Moderators, please move this to the "Ongoing Issues" forum.  If you do not think this is an ongoing issue please explain why this is not a bug.

[deflyingdutches]

Plan

Premium

Country

Netherlands

Device

PC

Operating System

Windows 10

My Question or Issue

For the last couple months I'm having the strangest issue with podcast episodes across different podcasts. They play in the right order for 10 episodes and then jump like described at the top. I sort by oldest to newest and they do display correctly, but in the queue they're incorrect.

[RCarosella]

Plan

Premium

New Zealand

Device

iMac 2015

Operating System

MacOs Mojave

Spotify for macOS (Intel)
1.1.77.643.g3c4c6fc6

When I play a new podcast, I change the order to Oldest to Newest, but when the first episode finishes, or I press the next button, it plays a totally random episode rather than playing it in the Oldest to Newest correct order.

I've turned off shuffle by playing music and making sure the shuffle button is off. I've done a fresh delete everything shut down and reinstall the latest spotify, but the problem still persists, it's absolutely infuriating. Why would I want to listen to episode 9 before episode 2? It's like someone telling you spoilers to a movie. 

I was listening to The Dropout about the Elizabeth Holmes case, it skipped to the freaking verdict straight after episode one. Ridiculous.

[Loxer]

Hey @RCarosella, welcome to the Community.

Hope you're doing great!

Do you change the order while you are playing the episodes or before you pick an episode to play?

Waiting for you reply 🙂

[Jeremy]

Hi there @deflyingdutches,

Thank you for reaching out to the Community.

This seems odd. We'd like to investigate this further.

Can you perform a clean reinstall of the app? This will make sure there's no old cache files causing this.

Another useful step to try is to remove all lines from your host file by following the steps bellow:

1. Open Notepad as an administrator (right-click - Open as Administrator)
2. go to File - Open and navigate to C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc
3. Choose "All Files" instead of "Text Documents" next to the File Name box. You'll see a handful of files. Pick hosts and click on Open
4. When the file is open, you will see a block of text with # in front of each line and might see entries like 0.0.0.0 website.com127.0.0.1 website2.com
5. Check for any entries with Spotify in the address. Examples may look like: 0.0.0.0 weblb-wg.gslb.spotify.com0.0.0.0
6. If you do find any lines with Spotify, please remove them
7. Save your changes and restart Spotify

On another note, can you let us know if you get the same behavior while using a different internet connection?

We'll keep an eye out for your reply.

Take care!

[signorbolle]

Plan

Premium

Country

USA

Device

Desktop

Operating System

Windows 10

My Question or Issue

My podcasts seem to be playing in alphabetical order. I have tried sorting them by both newest to oldest and oldest to newest, but the issue persists. This has been going on for a week now and it is starting to annoy me. I have already tried multiple podcasts and verified it occurs with all. Also uninstalled and reinstalled the desktop application, but no luck.