[iOS] Episode disappears from Your episodes > Downloaded as soon as I hit play

[Katiq]

Plan - Premium

Country - Estonia

Device - Phone 11 Pro

Operating System -  18.6.2

My Question or Issue

This has been happening regularly for a few months already.

For context: I regularly check New Episodes for episodes I want to listen to and download them. When I actually want to listen to a podcast, I check Your Episodes > Downloaded. (I wish it weren't this annoyingly many clicks to navigate to my curated and downloaded list of episodes, but that's another topic)

The problem: Occasionally, as soon as I hit play from Your Episodes > Downloaded, the episode disappears from the list. I'd guesstimate this happens at least once a week / every other week.

This means that unless I listen to the episode from start to finish right away, I lose track of it and will not find it and finish it later.

I do have the setting enabled to 'Remove finished episodes' After playing, but the episodes are removed immediately after starting to play, which is not correct. 

[Dessi]

Hi there @Katiq,

Thanks for reaching out!

This is really odd and we've tested it out on our end, but weren't able to reproduce the issue. Can you try using the In Progress filter, as well as the Downloaded one to see if the episode still disappears once played? It's also worth setting the Remove played episodes option to Never temporarily instead of After playing to check if the issue persists. It's possible that this setting might be the culprit here, since it might remove played episodes and not only finished ones as indicated by its name. Does this also happen with episodes in Your Episodes that aren't downloaded?

To troubleshoot this, it might be worth checking on a different device to see if the issue persists. Another step that's worth the shot is asking a friend or a relative to log in their account on your phone and test this out so we can rule out any account-related problems. We also recommend performing a clean reinstall of the app to remove any damaged cache that might be causing this and to ensure you're on the newest version, but just keep in mind that your downloads will be removed and you'll have to re-download them again afterwards.

Keep us posted.

[Katiq]

Thanks for the swift reply! Will try "setting the Remove played episodes option to Never" as that does sound like a likely culprit. 
It doesn't happen 100% of the times so not as easy to troubleshoot as just temporarily trying another device/account. 🙂 

> Can you try using the In Progress filter
The episodes remain in progress, but are no longer downloaded. 

> Does this also happen with episodes in Your Episodes that aren't downloaded?

I exclusively use my downloaded episodes view. I don't want endless feeds of episodes to choose from and have found this to be the best and easiest way to keep a curated list of what I care to listen to from the many podcasts I follow (but don't want to or have time to listen to everything). 

PS.Is there any easier way to access my downloaded episodes when I open the app?

It's quite many clicks I have to do every time (library> your episodes> filters > downloaded > apply). I always have episodes in my backlog to listen to. I don't want endless feeds when I need to pick something. :)'

[Ivelina]

Thanks for the response and info, @Katiq.

Did you by any chance notice when this started happening for the first time and send us the Spotify-version you're using?

You mentioned that the episodes remain in progress, but are no longer downloaded when using the In Progress and Downloaded filters. To understand you correctly, do they still disappear from Your Episodes upon clicking on play, or they remain in the list, but are no longer downloaded, or is it something else that's happening?

We understand that you prefer specifically listening to downloaded episodes, but to help with the investigation it'd be helpful if you could test in case the disappearing behavior persists with none downloaded episodes as well. If it's only happening with downloaded episodes, then this could mean there's corrupted cache which causes different performance issues. 

Lastly, another way to access the downloaded episodes is to go to Your Library > Podcasts > select Downloaded from the buttons on top. 

Appreciate the cooperation and keep us posted if there's a difference after you've set Remove played episodes to Never.

We'll be on the lookout 🙂