App version: 3.6.0 (Play)
Android version: 14
Device model: Pixel 4A 5G
Expected behaviour: Better sync
Current behaviour: Episode positions seem accurate on Nextcloud/RePod but are often wrong with AntennaPod, see below for more specifics.
First occurred: Started using AntennaPod about a week ago and it’s always happened
Steps to reproduce: See below for 2 scenarios I’ve tried and questions.
Hey folks, thanks for making AntennaPod. I recently started using it plus RePod with Nextcloud and it’s almost exactly what I need from a podcast setup, but I can’t get sync to work and would like to debug it. Here are the scenarios I’ve tried and what has happened:
Scenario 1
- I start playing a podcast on RePod on my laptop. Everything here works as expected. I can start/stop an episode, reload the page, switch episodes, etc. When I return to the podcast feed and then to the episode, the position is where I’d expect it to be.
- Having started an episode, I then load up AntennaPod. When I pull up the podcast, it doesn’t seem like my episode progress is synced at all. Further, if I start streaming the episode, it seems to always start at the beginning.
- Once the episode starts in AntennaPod and plays for a bit, it seems to update the playback position in RePod. It seems like AntennaPod is specifically not paying attention to RePod’s playback position and just starts from the beginning. I haven’t exhaustively tested branches beyond this point so I don’t know if it’d pick up the position later but I suspect not.
Scenario 2
- I start streaming an episode on AntennaPod and get a significant way through–say 10-15 minutes.
- I load the episode on RePod. AntennaPod doesn’t seem to have synced its position even though it’s been hours since I paused the episode in AntennaPod, so I find my position manually and finish the episode in RePod.
- When I relaunch AntennaPod, it still shows the episode as if it were unchanged–same position it stopped at. Actually, having checked things a bit closer, I can’t confirm whether the episode still shows in the episode list, but it’s still in the player bar at its same position. I’ll pay closer attention to this specific case to see if it goes away as expected but it’s a bit confusing to see it still in the player bar–tapping Play on a connected headset could accidentally restart playback, send episode data, and clear the played state of the media.
Questions
I’m trying to figure out how syncing is supposed to work, and it doesn’t seem as frictionless as I’d like. Specifically:
- Does streaming/non-streaming playback make a difference at all? Not entirely clear how seeking to specific positions might work when streaming–range requests maybe–but that seems like one possible cause of breakage.
- When should syncing happen? It doesn’t feel quite as magical as I’d like–I can’t, for example, stop playback on my phone and then immediately pick up from a web browser connected to a nicer sound system.
- Any tips on how to debug this? I really want to get this working, even if it means dusting off some rusty Android app dev skills and contributing. If I can get sync working more seamlessly, the AntennaPod/RePod combo is exactly what I need from a podcasting setup right now.
Thanks a bunch!