App version: 3.10.0 (from the Google Play Store)
Android version: 7.0
Device model: ASUS Zenfone Max Plus (M1)
Expected behaviour: New podcast episodes would appear in the inbox after refreshing the inbox.
Current behaviour: The inbox does not refresh (automatically or manually). An automatic refresh will start, with the refresh notification appearing at the top of the screen and the circle spinning, but it only lasts for 5-6 seconds, before the refresh just ends without loading any podcasts. If I attempt to manually refresh the inbox, the circle spins for a few seconds before it ends, and then produces the message: “Please wait some time before refreshing podcasts again.”
First occurred: First noticed that the inbox would not refresh on Oct. 31, 2025.
Steps to reproduce:
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I first noticed that the inbox was no longer refreshing on Oct. 31. Attempts to manually refresh the inbox were also unsuccessful and produced the message: “Please wait some time before refreshing podcasts again.” I left the AntennaPod app alone for several hours before trying again, with no change. I verified that my app setting for “new episodes action” has always been set to “add to inbox”. I reduced the “refresh podcasts” frequency from “every 2 hours” to “every day”. During the following week, I waited for longer periods of time (over 24 hours) before trying to refresh the inbox again, but this did not change anything.
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I did notice however when checking the “Download log”, that it had recorded error messages starting from Nov. 24th, where the connection to several podcasts feeds had failed to connect, or had an message like “I/O error”. This occurred for around 7 or 8 podcasts from different podcast publishers, so the odds that all of these publishers messed up their feeds in the same week seems quite unlikely. There were no messages in the download log after Oct. 30.
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At the end of the week (Nov. 7), I tried the “Force stop” option in my Android settings, but this did not appear to change anything. I rebooted my cellphone, but this did not change anything either. Then I cleared the cache storage for the AntennaPod app, by using the “Clear cache” button in my Android settings. This just made things worse, and made the AntennaPod app less functional. After clearing the cache, I was no longer able to click on any of the episodes in my “downloads” list, in order to read the episode descriptions, because the app would just produce an endless spinning circle and would refuse to load, regardless of how long I waited. However, I was still able to listen to podcasts by hitting the play button directly from the downloads list.
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At this point, I figured that my best option would be to delete the AntennaPod app, and to start over with a fresh installation of the app. To ensure that I would retain some record of my podcast subscriptions, I tried a “database export’. This did not work and just produced an endless spinning circle. It was unclear if it was working at all or was just really slow, and after waiting for 2 hours I gave up. The database file it produced contained no data (0 bytes). I then tried the “Favorites export”, which had the same issue and produced the same result. The “OPML export” function did appear to work and produced an OPML file.
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I uninstalled AntennaPod, rebooted my cellphone, and the downloaded a fresh installation of the AntennaPod app straight from the Google Play Store. I thought that this would finally bring an end to this issue, but when I went to “import podcast list (OPML)”, and selected the OPML file that I had saved on the phone, the “OPML import” page just produces an endless spinning circle, and does not load a list of podcasts for me to confirm. So, then I tried to add individual podcast subscriptions manually. I am able to search for the name of each podcast, and the app loads a correct list of search results, but when I click on a search result (which should result in the podcast popping up in a slightly smaller window that allows you to view a description, the list of episodes, and most importantly the “subscribe” button), the smaller window pops up with another endless spinning circle. So now I have a fresh installation of the AntennaPod app, but I am unable to add any podcasts to it.
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Other Android podcast apps appear to be work without any issues (e.g. Podbean, etc.). I have checked my phone’s battery settings and have changed the setting for “AntennaPod” to “Not optimized”, but this did not help. The “Choose data folder” setting for AntennaPod is set to: “/storage/emulated/0/Android/data/de.danoeh.antennapod/files”. Is there some sort of setting or feature that I need to enable/disable to get AntennaPod to work? Or is my phone just too old? Or does AntennaPod not support over a certain number of subscriptions? Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Environment: It’s an ASUS cellphone. It’s kind of an old phone, I guess? (32GB Storage and 2.7GB Memory). I started using AntennaPod around 16 months ago (after Google podcasts shutdown) and I’ve been very happy with it. I had not changed any of the app settings since setting it up 16 months ago. I have about 60 podcast subscriptions and around 170 episodes downloaded. I nearly always download podcast episodes from my inbox once or twice a day, and then listen to the downloaded episodes offline.
Crash info: