Google Podcasts App problem?
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For some reason the new Google Podcasts App does not play our SSP episodes. The old Google Play Music app handles them just fine, but in the Podcasts App we are getting an error –
Something went wrong This episode couldn’t be played. Please try again later.
This error occurs on every episode but one. It is possible to download the episodes to play them in the Podcasts App.
I’ve checked our iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn and Podcast Go feeds and they are all working fine, so this is apparently something related to the Google Podcasts App specifically.
Any ideas?
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Interesting, yes Jonathan your ‘WP Hacker Cast’ podcast plays fine. I also just reevaluated my podcast and surprisingly it is finally working!!
Unfortunately, I tried @samabuelsamid and @kimstuart ‘s podcast and both of those still have the same issue with not playing. The only change I recall that has occurred during the last 6 months is we moved our podcast content from Google’s GCS (Google Cloud Storage) to our VPS web services. This may have had an effect on how content was delivered as our own configuration for serving static content differs from the way Google does (caching, etc.).
Hope this helps someone on this thread.
@kimstuart I’ve been following this thread for way longer than I’m happy to disclose and am heartened that you’re back on the case. I can reproduce this upon demand on a variety of Android phones in our device lab.
My daily driver is a OnePlus 6 running Pie. The podcast “The Livin’ La Vida Low Carb with Jimmy Moore” has, for example, always failed for me under all recent builds of Google Podcasts (currently at 1.0.0.200631462 with a Google version of 9.66.3.21.arm64).
As you run down the clues shared by others please feel free – should you need – to drop APKs for testing on a variety of manufacturers’ phones running Marshmallow, Nougat, Oreo, and Pie.
I’m excited by the possibility of this one finally getting put to bed. [Edit: QE here.]
AND THE MYSTERY IS SOLVED…
@psykro @michaelsattler@backpationet You, my friend, are a genius, even though you may not have realized it. The issue here is not a problem with Google, it’s the use of absolute paths for calling assets.
LSS, if you use the relative paths instead of the absolute paths in your episode URL, you should have no issues – at least as long as you’re using SSL on your site.
For us, we preload the episodes using FTP and Add from Server, then select the episode from the Media Library when we create it for publishing. So its just a matter of removing the domain and leaving everything after the first /
Apparently Google is treating the podcast episodes for the Podcast app in the same manner as if they were displaying content in an iFrame. However, https frames cannot serve non-HTTPS content, that’s against the rules and you get a blank display.
The part that clued me in was the reference by backpationet about the HTTP vs HTTPS, and I had a quick look at how our URL was formatted in the individual episode posts. Once I saw what I thought was the issue, I changed to relative path and voila! The episodes are working just fine in the Podcast app.
We initially had episodes, at least two, that were playing fine when Google Podcast app launched, so I don’t know if they changed something or if we changed something without realizing it. Oh well, it’s working now.
Hmmm….That’s very interesting. I have replaced one of my files using the relative name instead of specific. It is unfortunately not playing on any platforms now. So, that may not be the entire resolution but I definitely think it’s making headway. Ultimately, if Google handled its HTTPS redirection better it would resolve the issue for everything. Sounds like this might be a viable workaround for a few folks though!
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