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Podcasts not syncing properly since 15.19

mathsaey
over 1 year ago

Ever since update 15.19, podcasts synced using Garmin Express do not show up on my device when they are untagged, or in "other" when they are tagged.

To be clear, the following happens:

  • Podcast is synced through Garmin Express. This is done on a Mac, so it's pulled in from Apple Podcasts.
    • The podcast is added to the device (confirmed using Android File Transfer), at /Podcasts/<Podcast name>/<Episode name>/<file name>
  • Now two possible situations can occur depending on if the podcast file has id3 tags or not. The file is not recognized as a podcast by the watch either way:
    • If the podcast has no id3 tags:
      • The podcast will show up as "Unknown" in Garmin Express
      • The podcast cannot be found in the music player on the watch (the device cannot find podcasts or "other" files, see later)
    • If the podcast has id3 tags:
      • The podcast correctly shows up in Garmin Express
      • The podcast shows up in the music player on the watch in the Other category. It can be played here but it is not treated as a podcast (announcements don't pause the podcasts and the playback location is lost when any other content is played)

This is extremely annoying, and it was not the case prior to this update; in fact, podcasts that were on the watch before the update still show up as podcasts on the watch. Podcasts added after the update don't get recognized.

  • +1 over 1 year ago

    It seems to work when the content type of the id3v2 tags (TCON) is set to "Podcast". I've also set the Genre tag to "Podcast" to be sure.

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    I stumbled across this thread while searching the web. I've been trying to work out why MP3 podcast files I've been manually copying over (via Windows Explorer) into the "Podcasts" folder of my watch wasn't organising them as such.

    I thought I'd add another possible workaround (for other frustrated folk out there) I discovered after some haphazard tinkering.

    In my case, I've got a Fenix 6S and it's on version 26.00. I found that as long as the MP3 files had an "ITUNESPODCAST" tag (set to 1), when I navigated into the "Podcasts" item on my watch, all of the files show up there. I used Foobar2000 to update podcasts to include this tag, but any other program should do.

    P.S. Curiously, using "TCON" (set to "Podcast") doesn't work in my case. My watch shoves the files under "Other" instead. Could be a case of different firmware at play.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to atgsquatter

    I've been messing around with this on my Vivoactive 4, also copying manually via Windows Explorer. I've found that it doesn't matter where you put the file, it all depends on the tags. The minimal set of tags for it to be recognized as a Podcast appear to be:

    • ALBUM
    • ARTIST
    • GENRE (set to "Podcast")
    • PODCASTDESC
    • TITLE

    It doesn't show up at all if PODCASTDESC isn't set. I'm using the program MP3Tag to set the tags, formatted as ID3v2.3. Also I think the GENRE tag is mapped to "TCON" under the hood, see here.