[Podcasts] Sync podcast progress across all devices

[sgrinnall]

Please can you introduce a feature where podcast play progress and fully played information is synced across all devices.

I don't want to have to remember or cross reference which podcasts I've listened to, or how much progress I've made through another podcast.  Other apps do this well

[Eni]

Hey there @sgrinnall, 

Thanks for reaching out about this here in the Community. 

We moved your post from the Ideas board to the relevant Help board, where it fits better.

You should be able to see the progress of your podcasts across devices.

If you can't, we suggest that you try logging out and then logging back in to your account on all your devices. This will trigger a sync between your account and your devices.

If this doesn't do the trick, would you mind checking if the same happens using a different internet connection?

Keep us posted.

[jbonnier]

The suggested answer doesn't work for me. I listen to long podcasts (yes yes the Joe Rogan Exp) on 3 different devices. Even if I log off and back in some of the podcasts I listened to still show as unplayed or partially played. This is very annoying. 

[Jeremy]

Hi @jbonnier,

Thank you for your reply and for the troubleshooting you've done so far!

Would you mind having someone else log in with their account on your devices - such as a friend or a family member to see if the issue persists? This will help us understand if it's account related or not.

Another useful step to try is to remove all potential corrupt cache files by following the steps here.

Let us know how it goes so that we can continue to assist you if you need us to 🙂

Take care!

[sp0tifyisterrible]

This happens for me too on the desktop app and has been for years. Spotify has known about the issue for 2 years and has not fixed it yet. I think you probably have the laziest development team in the world, I have never used worse software than spotify apps.

[ptmeadcfp1]

Yep. A problem for me as well. Very irritating.

[phatkid74]

I also have the issue. I am considering using a different app for podcasts. They also open up so slow. Sometimes up to 30 seconds when I click on a show. Even when it’s downloaded. 

[rvkempf]

Plan

Premium

Country

USA

Device

iPhone, Alexa, In-car

My Issue

When listening to podcasts on different devices, the playback position is not consistent. For example, I will be listening to a podcast on my phone, then change the device to the Amazon Echo, and it will pick up playing at a different time. When switching between the phone, car, or Alexa, podcasts never pick up where they left off, they will either be skipped forward or back. I always have to rewind or fast forward to get back to where I was, and it's extremely frustrating. This has been happening for at least the last several months. 

There can be a difference of up to a few minutes in terms of content and time, and it's inconsistent. It also seems to happen in inconsistent ways, in the sense that sometimes the timeline value remains the same, but the content is ahead or behind where it was last paused, and sometimes the both the content and timeline value change. So getting back to where you were is a wild guessing game.

It seems to be related to the fact that some devices play ads, while others do not. Regardless, this is very basic functionality that should not be a problem. I'm desperate for a fix.

[rvkempf]

This has been a problem for years and it's still not fixed, which tells me either there's something fundamentally wrong with their software architecture where this can't be easily fixed, or someone in product is holding this issue hostage in the backlog. I've moved on to other platforms for listening to podcasts, enough is enough.