Ongoing Frustration with Offline Use

[Will_T]

Plan

Premium

Country USA 

Device

(iPhone 7

Operating System

(iOS 15.6.1

My Question or Issue

I have read several support threads about this so I believe I understand how it should work but I still have frustrations using the app offline.  I have several of my playlists downloaded.  When I am out of service, sometimes my downloaded playlists will not play and it says I need to go online.  I understand I need to go online every 30 days or less to keep the app updated.

The thing is I am locked out sometimes even when I have been online recently.  As one example:  I downloaded several podcasts and listened to them while connected to my wifi.  Then two days later went camping with no service and got the message that I needed to go online before I could play my downloaded music playlists.

Is this how it is supposed to work?  OR do I need not only to go online every 30 days, but when I do, redownload all my playlists again?  Obviously just using the app over my wifi to download and play podcasts is not enough to then allow me to later play my music offline.

I did just open the app on wifi and went to my music library of downloaded playlists and noticed the app went through all my playlists with the spinning progress symbol for each one at a time.  After about 10 minutes all my downloaded playlists now have a green down arrow beside them.  If I then go offline next week, I should be able to play those, correct?  If yes, then why when I have been online playing podcasts one day, does the app lock me out the next day when I am offline?

[Eni]

Hey there @Will_T,

Thanks for reaching out about this here in the Community.

Just to confirm, before listening to your offline content have you turned Offline mode on in the app settings? You can check how to do so here. 

Also, you should be able to listen to your downloaded content every time you activate Offline mode, you don't need to go online within the 30 days to re-download your content. 

If the issue persists after following those steps, we suggest that you reach out directly to our Support team through any of these channels so they can take a closer look at your account's cache and further assist you with this. 

If you need a hand with anything else, the Community is here for you.

[Will_T]

I have never turned on the offline mode and I can usually play my downloaded songs just fine when out of service area.  This time my songs played fine for the first couple of days.  Then the 3rd day they would not and the message said I needed to go online every 30 days in order to have access to play my downloaded songs when I am not connected to Wi-Fi or cellular.  Thing is that I had been online downloading and listening to podcasts just a few days earlier so definitely had been online within the past 30 days, (actually much more recently than 30 days.)   So having the app suddenly decide I had not been online within 30 days is obviously wrong.

[AlejaR]

Hey @Will_T,

Thanks for your reply and for the info shared.

In this case, keep in mind that in order to properly listen to your downloaded content without any inconvenience, you must enable the offline mode. You can do this by going to settings> Offline mode> toggle on.

On another note and just to confirm, do you use any cache-clearing or task-killing apps? Take into account that these apps can affect the performance of the app.

Lastly, as @Eni mentioned before, you can always contact our Customer Support team. They can help you check your account on their side to make sure everything is in order. You can find out how to contact them here.

We hope you found this helpful. We're always here to help.

[Will_T]

So just one more question:  You said: "In this case, keep in mind that in order to properly listen to your downloaded content without any inconvenience, you must enable the offline mode. "  IF that is the case, then why am I often able to listen to downloaded content without enabling offline?  When in an area without wifi or cellular service, I am usually able to listen to downloaded content just fine without turning on offline mode.  It is only maybe 30% of the time that it will not work, and I get the "you must go online within 30 days" message.  I get that message even though I have in *all* those cases been online within the previous few days.  So that is my question, why does it lock me out sometimes, thinking I have not been online when I have and other times it works fine to play my downloaded music? This has been happening for at least a year or two.  Maybe 3/4 of the time it works fine and the rest it does not.  I have never used offline mode even when my downloaded music plays just fine when without wifi of data connection.  So, I don't think it is necessary to use offline mode since most of the time it works fine without it.  The next time I get the incorrect message about having to go online, I will toggle on "offline mode" and see if that fixes it. 

[Eni]

Hey @Will_T,

Thanks for your reply.

If you don't enable the Offline mode, the app will continue to try and search for an available network to stream, and if it can't find any, there could be issues playing your content, even if it's downloaded. This could be the reason for the message you see sometimes about having to go online within 30 days. 

As mentioned, to avoid this, whenever you're in a place without internet service, you only have to enable the Offline mode in the app's settings so you don't have any trouble to listen to your downloaded content.

Hope this help clear things up. If you need a hand with anything else, the Community is here for you.