Podcast is marked as played as soon as I hit play

[maccagnodenis]

Plan

Premium

Country

Switzerland

Device

iPhone 15 pro

Operating System

iOS 17.5.1

My Question or Issue

Hi guys

I‘ve been having this problem for a while now. When I hit play on a podcast that I saved in my library (my episodes), it will instantly be marked as heared and disappear from the playlist. It doesn‘t happen with every podcast, which makes it harder to understand.

Does anybody has had the same problem?

Regards, Denis

[maccagnodenis]

Hey folks,

Thank you for keeping in contact.

We want to inform you that the relevant team is already aware of the situation and working on it backstage. We don't currently have a specific date for this, but we hope it will be as soon as possible. We'd also recommend keeping your Spotify app updated, so you don't miss any improvements coming your way.

If anything else comes up, the Community will be here for you.

[mksmith0586]

Can you please fix your app? When I start to play a podcast it skips to finish, removes it from my podcast episode library. I then have to go back into the show page, re-add the podcast (which says I have finished the episode) and I have definitely not. I have to hit the add and download buttons about 8 times before it reloads. And then frequently that whole situation cycles through again. I love Spotify, but this is making things tough.

[TheLazyHangman]

This started happening to me since the last Android app update (9.0.30.642). I have the Unplayed filter on and the unfinished episodes don't show up anymore. They are marked as played as soon as I hit play and disappear from the list. I don't think skipping half played episodes is the expected behavior of the filter, they should be marked as played when they're finished, otherwise you have no way to resume from when you stopped.

This is not happening on the desktop (Windows) version of the app.

[Jamda10]

I have the same problem which seems to have started just a few days ago. Please return to the previous behavior otherwise the Sort by Unplayed function becomes practically useless. Thanks

[jonas_da_mjölpösen]

I've got the same problem, since maybe a week.

Everything an episode is started, it is marked as finished. Makes the filter function useless.

Maybe time to have that team start working on a solution?

[Ivelina]

Hey folks,

Welcome to the thread.

As we've gotten some recent reports of this issue, we'd like to gather some additional details in order to be able to investigate further.

It would be very helpful if you could send us the following details (in case you've not already done so):

• Is this happening with particular podcast episodes or multiple ones?
• Troubleshooting steps that you've performed.
• Device(s) this is happening on and the OS version(s).
• Exact Spotify-version you're currently using.

Thanks for the cooperation and we'll be on the lookout.

@jonas_da_mjölpösen @Jamda10 @TheLazyHangman @mksmith0586 @Phelm @Kotaroman5000

[Orion_S]

iPhone 12 Pro, up to date app

never had this issue then added new podcast to my list and started to face these issue myself. Only occurs when trying to play an episode of “Red Thread” podcast, no other podcast I listen to I suffer from this issue, only the one. 

[Dessi]

Hey @Orion_S,

Thanks for reaching out!

We've been trying to gather some info about this, but it looks like we don't have enough user reports so it looks like it's fixed for the majority. Since it only happens to a specific podcast, we would assume the issue lies with it so we'd recommend keeping the app up-to-date to not miss out on a possible future fix.

Take care.

[Brendan950]

Adding my voice to the crowd here. This has been happening for months now, across multiple app versions. Currently I am on 9.0.44.478 (latest as of writing). It is happening with both the shows I listen too (Distractible and The Official Podcast). This is especially noticable because I have these set to auto-download so I can listen to the latest episodes on the go, but the second I press play the episode gets marked as finished (though my timespot in the episode is somehow tracked accurately) and it gets removed from the offline playlist.

If the episode is "Now Playing", I can go and untag it as finished, then manually redownload it. This prevents the episode from being marked as Finished improperly. This is my temp fix. Even if I go listen to something else, when I come back the episode remains Unfinished until I actually make it to the end. It is an annoying thing to have to do, though.

From what it seems, as long as the episode doesn't start from the "start" (meaning it continues from some point in the episode, even just a second or two deep) the error doesn't persist.

There is also a bit of an audio thing worth noting. When new episodes play, it sounds like they have a "false start". I'll hear one or two words, then it cuts out and restarts again. It's when that cutout happens and the episode restarts that the bug happens.

For example, any Distractible episode will start:

"Good eve-" (half second pause) Good Evening, gentle listeners..."

I'm on Android, with a Samsung A54. This has been across multiple updates for the phone as well, so I doubt firmware is to blame. I have not tested this thoroughly enough on my PC to say if the error happens there too, but am happy too if you need that information.

[vicmolo]

Plan

Premium

Country

Argentina

Device

Pixel 9

Operating System

Last android

My Question or Issue

When i start to listen to a podcast episode some minutes, it appears on the list of episodes as "played". This is a big problem to manage what episodes are really played or not.

[akrawczyk]

For my podcasts, every episode I start to listen to will be marked as "finished," even if I've only listened for a few seconds. This makes it difficult to stop listening then come back, or switch from listening on one device to another. I've tried clean resetting or whatever that's called, making sure my app is up to date, and all the usual troubleshooting steps, but nothing yet has worked.

[El4a]

I'm having the same issue. Can confirm it happens with not-downloaded episodes too. I'm on iOS 18.5, latest Spotify version.

[MihailY]

Hey folks,

This should be fixed with the latest version of the app. Can you check for a pending update and let us know if the issue persists after installing it?

Cheers,