Why does iTune lose my podcasts?

April 13, 2008 5:11 PM

Why does iTunes keep losing my podcasts?

I'm quite new to the podcast game, although I have used iTunes regularly (sans iPod) for a few years. I have iTunes subscribed to 5 podcasts, and set to check them hourly for new episodes, download any new ones, and keep all episodes indefinitely.

Most of the time I can listen to podcasts fine, however sometimes iTunes will download a new podcast, flag it as un-listened-to, and then when I try to play it say:
The podcast "________" could not be used because the original file could not be found. Would you like to locate it?

When I try to find the actual podcast file it's not in the itunes\itunes music\podcasts directory - but if iTunes hasn't downloaded the file why is it telling me there's a new podcast to listen to? (No, the podcasts is not still downloading - it is showing in the Podcast window as downloaded (not greyed-out, & no GET button) and new (blue dot next to it)).

I have tried rebooting iTunes, upgrading it to the latest version, and clicking "Update Podcast". I'm using Vista Home Premium.

The only way I've found so far of downloading the missing podcasts that works is un- and re-subscribing to the podcasts. Which is annoying and defeats the point of having iTunes automatically download them for me.

posted by EndsOfInvention to computers & internet (7 comments total)

This is the behavior I get when I manually delete a podcast mp3 file outside of iTunes, or rename the folder it's in. In case that helps.
posted by Dec One at 6:40 PM on April 13

It could also be that when you subscribed or set settings for the podcast, it chose to go to a folder other than the podcasts folder in your iTunes Library.
(On my mac, yours is the message I get when I've moved something from my regular library to the library I keep on an external drive. It shows up in iTunes because it knows I have it somewhere, or it used to be in the regular library, but gives me that error because it wasn't where iTunes expected it to be in the regular library).
Or it could be that the podcast is in a format that Windows Media Player (or some other media player) is set to be the default program for managing, and WMP "stole" your file from iTunes. Vista does wierd things.

If you're not doing any fancy self-indexing of your iTunes library, and are content to let iTunes organize it all for you, try going to the "Advanced" menu and choose "Consolidate Library". It will look for any iTunes-compatible files on your computer and add them to your iTunes library if they're not already there (sometimes even if they are - you might end up with some duplicates, which you can just delete).
posted by bartleby at 8:21 PM on April 13

The only way I've found so far of downloading the missing podcasts that works is un- and re-subscribing to the podcasts.

I would note that if they're fairly recent, you should be able to download the missing individual podcast episodes from the iTunes Store, if not from the podcast provider's site.
posted by mumkin at 11:37 PM on April 13

This happens to me a lot with certain podcasts. The podcast is downloaded (and even may reside on my ipod), the next time I start up iTunes, it is gone (but still on my ipod). I usually delete and re-download from the iTunes store.
posted by revan at 6:30 AM on April 14

I have had this happen when i had an unstable vista computer. What it came down to for me was if iTunes didn't close perfectly after downloading a podcast it would loose track of it and then i would have to do what you describe to get that episode.
posted by DJWeezy at 6:45 AM on April 14

I have had this happen when i had an unstable vista computer. What it came down to for me was if iTunes didn't close perfectly after downloading a podcast it would loose track of it and then i would have to do what you describe to get that episode.

Hmm, I wonder if shutting down Vista with iTunes open is causing the problem then. I'll try shutting down iTunes first and see if the problem reoccurs.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 10:30 AM on April 14

Update: Yeah I should mention the possible solution I posted above doesn't work and I'm still having this problem...
posted by EndsOfInvention at 7:20 PM on August 1