Spotify suddenly not automatically play next episode of podcast

[MombergDK]

Plan

Premium

Country

Denmark

Device

OnePlus Nord

Operating System

Latest

My Question or Issue

Hi. 

I have a range of podcasts i like to listen to, but it's the same episodes i like to listen to. Normally it works fine.

But the last few days i have noticed that when I finish an episode, Spotify will skip to an unplayed episode, meaning the episodes in between the one i started and the one it decided to play, is skipped. In a story with a storyline, this won't do, and renders Spotify useless for listening to a story more than one time. Not even marking episodes as not played, fixes the issue. 

As said, it have worked fine for a long time, playing episodes in correct order, even if they were played before, but the last few days not working anymore. Anyone know a fix? 

I have spend a lot of time trying to fix this issue. Restarted my phone, reinstall app, finding settings, googling, etc, but to no avail. Is this the right place to get help? 

[Suleymantekin]

Yes I have the same problem too, and it's irritating!

[HannaLou]

I’m having the same issue too on Spotify premium, and also only in the last few days. I listen to podcast series all the time so this is really very annoying! 

[Suleymantekin]

I tried to reinstall it and it doesn't work the only thing that it does is just play the unplayed episodes and that is pretty much it.

[Yordan]

Hi folks,

Thanks for reaching out to the Community!

Could you provide us with a video which shows the app's behavior in action? You can add it as an attachment in your reply.

As a workaround, you can try manually adding the desired episodes to the queue to see if that does the trick.

Let us know how it goes.

Cheers!

[Suleymantekin]

@Yordan I don't know if a video reply can help but what it simply does is just play the unplayed episodes after the episode that you selected it, e.g. you play the fourth episode but then skips into the most recent like sixteenth episode.

[Alex]

Hey @Suleymantekin,

Thanks for the reply and the description of what's going on.

A video will be helpful in investigating this further. You can add it as an attachment or as a link to YouTube or another video sharing platform.

Some additional information we'd require:

• The device on which your experiencing this - model, OS version and Spotify version
• Are you playing episodes from the queue or directly from the show's page and what sorting do you have enabled.

Looking forward to your reply.

[Suleymantekin]

@Alex the device is iOS 12.4.1 and I am directly playing from the show's page and the sorting is newest to oldest which plays in the oldest to newest order. I don't know about video but I think either @MombergDK and @HannaLou should actually record this issue in action. And the version of Spotify is 8.7.8 now.

[Alex]

Hey @Suleymantekin,

Thanks for the detailed info.

I tried reproducing this on my phone, but didn't get the same result. When I play the episodes from a show's page sorted by Date (Oldest to Newest) they play in order, regardless where I start playing from.

In order to get to the bottom of this, can you try logging in with your account on the phone of a friend/ family member and check if the same issue occurs there? This will help us check if it's an account or device issue.

@HannaLou and @MombergDK, it would be very helpful if you can try the same and let us know your device model, OS version and Spotify version.

Looking forward to your replies.

[HannaLou]

Hi, it seems to be fine when I’ve tried on my work phone. The problem is when I’m listening on my iphone12. I’m on the latest OS; 15.3.1 and I have Spotify premium. Hope you guys can resolve it

[Suleymantekin]

@HannaLou Yeah it's strange that some phones don't have the podcast issue but I hope this annoying bug actually gets fixed as soon as possible.

[Eni]

Hey folks, 

Thanks for your replies. 

Just to make sure, have you tried asking a friend or a relative to log in to their account on your phones to see if the issue persists with a different account?

@HannaLou, could you let us know the operating system and Spotify version of your work phone? Also, we'd like to the Spotify version of your iPhone. 

We'll be on the lookout.

[HannaLou]

Hi, the work phone where this was not an issue is an android, the OS is RPXS31.Q2-58-17-4-4 (I think!)

[MombergDK]

Hi Eni 

Unfortunately i do not have the opportunity to make a video of the problem at the moment. I will get back with it, when I can. 

In my case, the problem arises when I'm listening to the podcast directly on the podcasts page in the app. 

No matter which sorting i use, the problem persists. 

An example could be if i start somewhere in the middle of the listed episodes on an episode that is not played before, it's plays the episode to the end, and starts another episode. The issue is then if the episode that should come chronologically after the one i just played, is already played, then it gets skipped. It skips episodes until it reaches an episode on the chronological list, that is not yet played. If all episodes after the one i started with is already played, it skips to the end and stops playing altogether. 

A more visual representation:

List i sorted newest episode first, so if i start in the middle, it should play next the episode just over the one I'm listening to. 

Episode H (not played) 

Episode G (not played)

Episode F (played)

Episode D (played)

Episode C (played)

Episode B (i start playing from here) 

Episode A (not played)

So if i start from episode B (doesn't matter if it is already played or not), it should continue playing episode C, then D, F, G and end with H. 

The actual behaviour is that if i i start at B in the example, it skips C, D & F and continues playing G & H. 

Hope the explanation helps. 

I have found that if i scroll to the top, press the cog wheel, and then check & uncheck "mark all episodes as played", the play order works again. It looks like the problem is a feature that is meant to let the listener only listen to unplayed episodes but not completely implemented, since it can't be turned off and apparently not present on all phones. But i do not know that. It is just a suspicion. 

My phone is a OnePlus Nord with android 11 (is the version number the build number?) 

Spotify version 8.7.6.1087

[Alex · Accepted solution]

Hey everyone,

Thanks for the replies.

We've looked into this further and received info that this is currently being tested out, as we've previously received feedback that it would be desirable to skip over played episodes. This will explain why some of us are experiencing this change and some are not.

However, we understand this change might not be liked by everyone. We welcome you to leave your feedback here, so that we can pass it on to the teams working on this.

A workaround is to add previously played episodes to your queue. That way, they will not be skipped over.

Hope this information is useful. Don't hesitate to reach out again if you have questions.

[MombergDK]

Hi Alex. 

Thank you for getting back with what you found out. It is quite helpful to figure out what's going on. 

On the matter og feedback om the feature:

1) in my opinion the feature should be togglable by podcast. While it is an annoyance for my type of use, i can clearly see the convenience in other usecases. 

I might find it useful if i pick up another type of podcast some day, but it would still be of annoyance in the ones I'm listening to now. So a per podcast toggle would be best in my opinion. 

2) it is quite annoying to get untested features pulled down on me, when i have not asked for or agreed upon becoming a beta tester. Being a mechanical engineer, developing different kinds of machinery myself, i know that kind of feature testing is frowned upon and is bad practice. When your customer don't know they are beta testers and stumble upon a faulty feature like this, they get a bad perception of the product and is more likely to switch to a competitor. It might not happen with a few faults, but reputation will still drop. So please stop this practice. 

Please forward this post to developers and someone that have a say in the general development procedure. 

Have a lovely day. 

[Lexx89]

So I think I figured it out, if you go to the podcast that you're listening to and hit the settings icon on the podcast page it has a way to mark all episodes as played or unplayed, I clicked it so that every episode is marked as ubplayed and the episodes went back to normal order. I hope this helps

[Kimmyyyy]

Yes me too. And i dont like it

[HibbledyBibbledy]

Plan

Premium

Country

US

Device

Pixel 8

Operating System

Android

My Question or Issue

I'm listening to a podcast for a second time. I didn't listen to all episodes before but want to listen to them all now. For some reason it doesn't just play the next episode when one is finished. I've tried setting them all unplayed, and tried setting them all to finished and the same thing happens. My music is not on shuffle before listening to the podcast, and haven't found a pattern to determine which episode it will jump to next. It will even jump to episodes I've just recently listened to. Any tips?