Found multiple bugs related to podcasts playback with new v7.24 Android Beta app (Mine currently 7.24.0.13291)
Android Player app no longer syncing partial or fully listened statuses back to server. During or even at end of playing episode.
Local podcast listened to positions therefore being overwritten by server status soon after stopping playback
Already listened to episodes still being sync’d locally when set to ‘Next 3 unplayed episodes’, makes any listen in order ‘Earliest to latest’ order podcasts unusable for sync.
Using new ‘Delete on next refresh’ option can cause all episodes to be deleted on sync, even if they were still un-listened to. So causing re-download of same un-listened + ‘Playback failed for the selected item’ if trying to resume playback of locally sync’d podcast.
Evidence for 1 + 2:
Started playback of new ‘Design Thinking 101’ podcast episode and paused it 20:45 through track:
However when I went back to episode screen you can see that 1/3rd playback position is NOT showing on episode yellow Play button (even though you can see playback state in bottom of screen bar)
When I then went to a different ‘Design better’ podcast episode that I’d previously got to near 50% listened to with previous Android client, and who’s state had been sync’d down to app from server on fresh Android Beta re-install, that did show partial played state on episode Play button + correctly prompted resume from partial played state. However when I did that and moved the episode on to 75% played the podcast position remained at previous 50% state as soon as I exited and tried to come back to the episode.
See below screenshot for evidence in bottom play bar that I’d listened to 75% of episode, however on coming back out of now playing screen to episode screen (or other screens and back in) the episode progress bar around Play button stayed at old 50% progress
At the moment I can not get any episode to remember it’s podcast listen position from within Android Beta app, however if I set partial playback positions via local server browser those all appear correctly down in Android app. So it appears it’s just sync from Android app back to server (not both ways) that’s broken.
Evidence for 3) “Already listened to episodes still being sync’d locally when set to ‘Next 3 unplayed episodes’, makes any listen in order ‘Earliest to latest’ order podcasts unusable for sync.” see below where despite manually triggering multiple Android app sync’s it is still only sync’ing ‘1st 3’ instead of ‘1st 3 unplayed’ of available earliest to latest sorted podcast episodes:
Evidence for 4) “Using new ‘Delete on next refresh’ option can cause all episodes to be deleted on sync, even if they were still un-listened to. So causing re-download of same un-listened + ‘Playback failed for the selected item’ if trying to resume playback of locally sync’d podcast.” while I didn’t get to capture screenshots of delete and re-download I managed to capture this screenshot of app then complaining it couldn’t resume a locally sync’d episode it had been playing before that re-sync and re-download happened:
Thanks for your reply Sam, afraid mine are all separate podcast problems, not related @volkris’s thread.
My main problem is no podcasts episodes are remembering their partial or full played status after upgrade and clean re-install of Android Beta 7.24.0.13291 (7bfb1d33)
However I have now captured attached requested logs for @jesusmc which should show me:
Going into a server side set 1/3rd played 22:57 of Design Thinking 1010 - The Innovator’s Compass episode.
Resuming playback from that point,
Then jumping to 2/3rds played and letting play a moment.
Then pausing and gracefully coming back out to episode, then podcast series then podcast home screens.
However within 5 sec of staying on Podcasts home the play progress indicator on podcast home on deck icon for that episode reverts to old 1/3rd played - Presumably as server wrongly overwrites old 1/3rd played over client’s newer 2/3rds played position?
Pausing playback at 2/3rds 46min position and coming back to episode screen you can see incorrect 1/3rd played status on upper yellow Play icon, vs 2/3rds played progress of bottom Now Playing bar:
However shortly after (within 5 seconds), with or without dismissing Now Playing bar, the progress for that episode reverts to old incorrect 1/3rd played. And this is confirmed when going back into that episode as Resume option prompts to start playback from 1/3rd 22:27 instead of latest and expected 2/3rd 46min progress:
Just in case there is some shared cause for our problems, I’m also seeing what @DigitalAmoeba is describing here with play progress not being saved.
Even if I listen to episodes to the end, whether or not they’re part of a playlist, they don’t show up as watched in the list later. I can manually set them to played, though.
Thanks for adding your experience and confirmation that partial play progress and end of podcast episode auto-listened features not working @volkris
From @volkris mention I’ve checked and yes I can manually set full episode listened/unlistened status successfully via per episode Tick icon. But overall podcasts are effectively broken for me without expected automatic episode progress (and therefore resume) working.
@DigitalAmoeba@Forkboy is there any chance you could test latest beta? We’ve been fixing a couple of bugs around play queue creation that might be the cause of the issue you’ve been experiencing. If it doesn’t work as expected, please could you share new app logs?
Thanks in advance
I don’t know about the other reporters, but this is fixed for me.
Plex is recording heard podcasts as heard, and if I skip to the middle of a podcast episode then go back to the main screen I see that Plex has recorded my progress.
Great to hear that it’s working as expected now. @DigitalAmoeba if you could take a look to latest beta and mark this as solved if it works fine for you, it would be great. Thanks!
Hi @jesusmc in my latest 7.24.0.13684 my issues 1) and 2) about partial and end of episode played position recording for podcasts now seem resolved
I’ll look to test more this evening about other issues 3) and 4) I reported which are about Sync, instead of playback position. Unless you want me to mark this thread Solved, but then link off to a new thread about Sync when I’ve tested latest behaviour there?
Happy to confirm 1) & 2) podcast listened to position, auto read state at end of episode and sync back to server state all still working with Android client 7.25.0.13841 + Server 1.18.2.2029
In terms of other items:
This is a regression issue that I have had before now. Still present and re-confirmed with 7.24 onwards even after full offline content delete, sync settings cleared and app re-installed.
Updated evidence from Design Thinking 101 podcast, set to Earliest > Latest episode order and asked to sync ‘Next 3 unplayed episodes’. However even though first 2 episodes have previously been marked as played + multiple syncs occured, it is still syncing episodes 1-3 of 2x listened + 1x unlistened. Instead of expected 3x unlistened episodes of 3-5:
I haven’t yet more recently caught app doing this delete and then re-download issue (as need to be watching closely at point Plex is syncing. But will keep an eye out and let you know if/when I can replicate.
In the meantime however I’ve found a new issue of incorrect sync episodes being kept with a different daily podcast I listen to of First Ring Daily, which is set to default Latest episodes first order, and requested to Sync 5 Latest episodes.
However I don’t think new ‘Delete downloaded episodes - On Next Refresh’ option is working properly as soo far I now have 9 Sync’d episodes on my device, instead of configured max 5:
