Can no longer save a podcast episode

[junglejon]

Saved episodes no longer work correctly on any device (PC, iPad or iPhone).
Saved playlist management is also no longer updating.

3 Repro's are fairly simple:
From new podcast view in iOS
1. Find an episode that is not in your saved episodes
2. Click '+' to add
3. Goto library/saved episodes: Nothing is added.
4. Return to new episodes view, note that the checkbox has been cleared and returned to a '+'

From episode view
1. Navigate to a show you are following
2. Find an episode that is not in saved
3. Press '+' to add to saved (turns to checkbox)
4. View saved, nothing added.  Return to show view, checkbox has reverted to '+'

From podcast management
1. Goto your saved podcast list settings
2. Find a podcast that you have set to automatically download
3. Unfollow this podcast
Results
When a new podcast is delivered from this show it IS showing in my saved even though I unsubscribed.

So currently my podcast subscriptions saved are locked in some busted stale state, I can't manage by removing old episodes.  I can't manage by adding new episodes, I really don't have a viable solution to manage what episodes I listen to easily at all with this bug.

I've tried in multiple locations (WiFi) as well as cellular (obvs only iPhone) so not a connectivity issue.

Tried on multiple PCs, iOS and iPad so I don't see this as a local cache corruption issue.  

At this point in time, the podcasts are fully unmanageable without being able to manage currently saved items.

Plan

Premium

Country

US

Device

(iPhone 13, iPad Air, PC)

Operating System

Windows 11, iOS 26

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

My Question or Issue

[OscarDC]

Hey @junglejon,

Thank you for reaching out to the Community about this.

We appreciate all the details you included in your post and the troubleshooting you've tried so far. So to continue investigating this behavior, it would be great if you could have someone 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 could be account-related or not.

Also, since we couldn't replicate the issue on our end, could you record a short video where we can take a better look? You can attach it to your next response by using the Insert Video option in the post editor. You can also upload it to YouTube or Google Drive and share the link with us (make sure the video has the permissions for anyone to watch it).

We'll be on the lookout for your response. 

[junglejon]

I ran a quick script against my library to understand the state of things.  It appears this repros if you have hit the 10,000 podcast episode limit, except it is not fixable.

In the playlist UI (saved episodes) I have just over 1000 episodes I try to clean.  The problem is that removed/stale episodes are not removed from the playlist and just take up a spot.

When I do a query against my saved playlists I have these states:
Total episodes: 9988
Stale episodes: 8762
Valid episodes: 1226

Stale episodes can not be removed at all because the data I get back from the API is completely null, so I can't even use the API to remove it and it shows nowhere in the API, this is the JSON I get back from the API:

{

        "added_at": "2024-01-26T20:45:22Z",

        "episode": {

            "audio_preview_url": null,

            "description": null,

            "duration_ms": null,

            "explicit": false,

            "external_urls": {

                "spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/episode/null"

            },

            "href": "https://api.spotify.com/v1/episodes/null",

            "html_description": null,

            "id": null,

            "images": [],

            "is_externally_hosted": null,

            "language": null,

            "languages": [

                null

            ],

            "name": null,

            "release_date": "0000",

            "release_date_precision": "year",

            "resume_point": {

                "fully_played": false,

                "resume_position_ms": null

            },

            "show": {

                "copyrights": null,

                "description": null,

                "explicit": false,

                "external_urls": {

                    "spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/null"

                },

                "href": "https://api.spotify.com/v1/shows/null",

                "html_description": null,

                "id": null,

                "images": [],

                "is_externally_hosted": null,

                "languages": [

                    null

                ],

                "media_type": null,

                "name": null,

                "publisher": null,

                "total_episodes": null,

                "type": "show",

                "uri": null

            },

            "type": "episode",

            "uri": null

        }

    }

With nearly 9000 entries in my playlist like that, there is nothing I can do to clean them up.

[junglejon]

I can send a video but it is just going to show me adding any podcast to my saved episodes then nothing happening.

[Novy]

Hey @junglejon,

Thank you again for all the details and for helping pinpoint the issue! 

Since this is related to hitting the episode limit and having a large number of unremovable (null) episodes, this is in fact something that cannot be fixed from your end or through the Community.

In this case, we'd suggest reaching out to our Support team privately via the link here, as they can check things backstage and might be able to help remove these null episodes from their end.

The Community will be here if anything else comes up.

Cheers!