Podcast Episodes Play Time/Progress Bar Glitching

[FrogWhoGames]

Before I start, here's some basic info:

Family Plan

Premium

USA

iPhone XR (iOS 15.1) and 2020 Macbook Pro (MacOS Monterey 12.0.1)

My Question or Issue:

I've been having some serious issues with the Spotify Podcasts lately, specifically related to my episode progress. I am attempting to listen to an episode of a podcast that is approximately 1.5 hours long, of which Spotify shows me my progress upon first starting up the app, but whenever I press play, the "play"/progress bar goes totally out of wack. For example, it currently says I am at 2:44:30 out of 3:37:29, which makes no sense, as the episode is only 1:25:21. Also, whenever I pause the podcast for more than a few seconds, I will skip back ~30+ minutes in the episode, while this incorrect progress bar still shows the time I paused at. So what, at one minute, was 1:20:03 on the incorrect timer in the podcast, is now at 1:52:43. Skipping forward using the 15 second skip is also acting very strangely, as at one point I pressed the skip 8 times, which should have sent me two minutes ahead in the podcast. After I stopped skipping, I realized I was around 15 seconds BEHIND the point at which I had started skipping. 

I've attached a few images of this occurring, where you can see the episode I'm listening to and the progress bar being completely incongruous. This is occurring on both my mac and my iPhone, and I've tried closing and reopening, undownloading and redownloading, powering off my devices entirely, nothing seems to be having any affect.

[Alex]

Hey @FrogWhoGames,

Thanks for the post!

We'd recommend running a clean reinstall of the app. Please follow the steps from this Spotify Guide exactly, as this will assure that all app data is cleared completely, before reinstalling.

If that doesn't help, let us know if this issue is present on every podcast you try listening to. 

Looking forward to your reply.

[Dayday1]

This is happening to me on Joe Rogans podcast with James Lindsay. I’m about 1.5 hours in and wanted to skip back 15 seconds or so and it skipped back an hour at least. But the progress bar still around the 1.5 hour mark and I cant find where I actually was 

[Jeremy]

Hi there @Dayday1,

Thank you for your reply in this thread. We're sorry to hear that you've experienced this.

Can you confirm that you followed the steps that's provided in this article? There's some more steps to help thoroughly uninstall the app from your device, so if you haven't, we'd highly suggest it since the steps will make sure there's no old cache files causing this.

We'll keep an eye out for your reply.

Take care!

[Carighan]

This is still happening. I tried a clean re-install, nothing fixes it.

Interesting, I did not have this problem until ~2 months ago. I don't know what update it was, but it started doing this on ~longer podcasts now, making navigation absolutely impossible.

[Carighan]

I can confirm that this problem is still happening. I also tried a clean reinstall.

I can also confirm it happens independent of:

• Which device I use (Phone/Tablet/Desktop(Windows)x2)
• Whether I output locally, onto a bluetooth headset or a Sonos speaker.
• Whether interaction happens exclusively through one device or on-and-off on multiple.

Exact same behavior each time: Each pause/move, the *actual* playback jumps *back* erroneously. This also does not update the bar, so say I pause at 0:30:00/1:29:00, then resume, playback might resume at 0:11:00/1:29:00, but the bar still shows 0:30:00 and counts from there, which in turn can cause the whole system to run past 100% easily. It also makes listening to longer podcasts more or less entirely impossible.

[oneeightydigi]

Plan: Premium

Country: USA

Device: Pixel 5a

OS: Android 14

Hi. Just a bug report: Updated to the newest version this morning (11/10). Now, all podcasts are visually stuck at 0:00 but still play. If I attempt to seek within the podcast, it starts all over. The problem is limited to podcasts only, not music. Clearing the cache, reinstalling the app, and rebooting the phone have no effect.

Thanks!

[Cucamelon44]

Happening to me too. Tried same troubleshooting 

Pixel 7. UK. Premium plan

[IanBUK]

Me too - uninstalled and reinstalled and still doing it

[Stina49]

Plan

Premium

Country

United States 

Device

Google pixel 6

Operating System

Android

My Question or Issue

I cannot navigate through podcasts unless they are broken into chapters. The playback bar glitching and says "0:00" at both ends and I cannot drag the cursor to a later part of the podcast. Podcasts with chapters seem to be okay. 

The fifteen second forward and back buttons seem to be working.

I've cleared the cache and done a clean reinstall, nothing has changed.

[Madferret]

1. See screenshot - a dark overlay with a pause button keeps appearing over the video making it unwatchable. Why does this keep appearing?

2. When an ad plays on JRE podcast, I always skip the seek bar to the end of the ad to skip it. (Why should I listen to ads when I pay for Spotify Premium?) Well now when you do this, the entire JRE podcast starts from the beginning. This is a 3 hour podcast and I keep losing my place. Infuriating. Can JRE just go back on Youtube?

Plan

Premium

Country

USA

Device

Windows 10 Desktop Spotify client

[AngoveA]

I'm having this issue too. I have a premium account. This was working fine yesterday but now the progress bar just sits on 0 while my song or pod cast plays. I am also therefore unable to slide time forward or backwards. Appreciate your help to fix.

[Vlad_Cioban]

Hi. I'm having (sort of) the same problem with the progress bar when using my phone. When i'm listening to a podcast, every time I try and move it to a certain time, it just jumps back to the beginning of the episode. Also, it doesn't show the timecode. Works just fine if I'm listening to a song. Did all the reinstalling business suggested above, exactly as explained in your Spotify Guide, and still nothing.

I have a Samsung Galaxy A50, Android 11, all the latest updates, and a Premium Plan on Spotify.  

[soultheori]

I'm having a similar problem. I can seek and find timestamps with music, but not with podcasts. The issue persists with all podcasts. It also does not show a progress bar, and when I do try to seek, it sends the audio back to the beginning/rests it. I can forward and backwards with the 15second skip with no issue.

I have a family premium account and an android Galaxy S10+. Here is a [ LINK ] to a screen capture of the issue.

EDIT: I have uninstalled, cleared data/cache, and reinstalled with no fix. I have also restarted my phone with the issue still persisting.

[Jthomas93]

Yeah this exact same thing is happening to me. Started today, exclusively on podcasts. I have a premium account, and I have tried to uninstall, clean uninstall, reboot and nothing works. Please fix this ASAP it is ruining the experience totally 

[#16]

I cannot FF to spot in podcast I left at. Annoying!

[Fieser]

Me too - Huawei P30 Pro, music is not affected by this problem. Only podcasts as described by OP.

[Peingod300]

Same here. They told me I had to create a new account to fix the problem and transfer my account...

[Joan]

Hi folks,

Thank you all for your replies. As there seem to be many reports about this same behaviour coming in, we've gone forwarded this info to the relevant team and begun investigating this. To this end, please provide us the exact Spotify Versions you are currently using.

In the meantime, we'll keep you posted with updates as soon as we have them.

[Stina49]

I'm using 8.8.82.634