“Your Episodes” podcast playlist keeps getting updated with new episodes from unfollowed podcasts

[samosu23]

Plan

Premium

Country

USA

Device

iPhone 13 Pro

Operating System

iOS 17.5.1

My Question or Issue

As the title describes, my account’s “Your Episodes” podcast playlist keeps getting updates with new episodes from unfollowed podcasts. These are podcasts I used to follow but since have unfollowed. Per the instructions from Spotify support chat, I’ve marked all episodes from those unfollowed podcasts as played. However, my playlist still keeps automatically adding new episodes from the unfollowed podcasts.

[MihailY]

Hey @samosu23,

Thanks for reaching out.

The Your Episodes playlist is being populated with podcast content you've liked and/or downloaded, so we're guessing you've enabled Auto-download episodes in the unfollowed podcast's settings. Try disabling the feature, remove the newly added episodes and see what happens. You can access the settings from the gear icon on the podcast page.

Keep us posted.

[samosu23]

I checked my list of auto download shows and it only has my currently followed shows (see attached screenshot). For posterity, I also went to a podcast I’ve unfollowed and tapped the gear icon. It showed auto downloads as off. Yet the episodes are getting added (see other screenshot).

[MihailY]

Hey @samosu23,

Appreciate the quick reply and the screenshots.

I've tried this on my end but the episodes from the podcast I unfollowed were immediately removed from Your Episodes and I haven't seen any new ones being added. Do you by any chance remember any details around your interaction with this podcast like for example:

1. Played a few episodes.
2. Followed the show.
3. Downloaded an episode.
4. Unfollowed the podcast.

I'm trying to find out the exact steps to reproduce the issue since this will make it much easier to troubleshoot and report to the tech team. 

On another note, you've mentioned that this happened with multiple podcasts. Can you share the links/names of the rest?

Looking forward to your response.

[samosu23]

The podcasts that this is happening with are:

- Odd Lots

- Business Wars

- How I Built This

- TED Talks

I’vs historically followed and listened to this but unfollowed some weeks back.

[AlejaR]

Hey there @MihailY,

Thanks for your reply and for the info shared.

In this case, we'd like to gather some additional info, so we can better understand this behavior. Please let us know the following:

• The exact Spotify version you're running on the affected device.
• Does this happen if you open your account on an Android device? It’d be awesome if you could check. You can ask for the mobile device of a relative or a friend to open your account and check.
• Did you notice if this started to happen after a specific event, such as an OS update?

Additionally, we've been investigating a similar behavior in this thread. Would you mind checking if perhaps you can replicate that behavior with the podcast you do follow? Does that happen with the ones you don't follow as well? If yes, it'd be awesome if you could add the info we're gathering there, so we can pass all that info onto the right team.

Keep us in the loop!

[samosu23]

So pretty sure this is not a device specific issue, I use Spotify on 2 devices and the library is in sync on both ends so it’s a server side problem I feel. I don’t have an android available to test this. The version of Spotify on my phone is 8.9.54.343.

As for replicating the bug, I removed everything from “Your Episodes” and unfollowed every podcast that I followed. This morning 3 new episodes from the podcast I just unfollowed were added to “Your Episodes”. Seems like my account is not able to unfollow any podcasts…

[OscarDC]

Hey @samosu23,

Thank you for keeping in contact.

We tried to replicate this issue on our end, but the unfollowed podcasts stopped appearing on the playlist. At the moment, we can confirm that the right folks are aware of the situation and are waiting for more reports to continue working on a solution for this issue. We don't have a specific date for this to be resolved, but we hope it will be as soon as possible.

We'd also recommend having your Spotify app updated, so you don't miss any improvements coming your way.

If anything else comes up, don't hesitate to ask.