When facing issues with playing podcasts or using our app, we recommend that you check the following. If episodes won’t stream, play, or download on your home WiFi but work fine on mobile data, the cause is usually an ad blocker, VPN, firewall, or filtering DNS service (such as Pi-hole, AdGuard, or NextDNS) on that network. See If Pocket Casts works on mobile data but not on WiFi below.
- Tap on the Profile tab
- Select Help & Feedback
- Click the three dot menu
in the top right - Tap on Status Page on Android or Connection Status on iOS
- Select Run Now to test your network connection
The connection test will display information about the following:
- Internet Connection
- Unmetered Wifi (iOS only)
- Refresh Service
- Account Service
- Discover & Search
- Common Podcast Hosts
After the test completes, you will be given the option to run the test again. On Android, you will also see the option to share the report with the Send report button.
If nothing streams or downloads in Pocket Casts on your home WiFi or one particular WiFi network, but everything works on mobile data, something on that network is usually blocking the episode files (episodes won’t play on WiFi, nothing streams at home, playback failed on home WiFi, “Playback failed, please try again” only on WiFi, downloads fail on WiFi but work on 4G or 5G). Common causes are:
- Network-wide ad or tracker blockers and filtering DNS services, such as Pi-hole, AdGuard, or NextDNS
- A VPN on your phone or on your router
- Router firewalls, parental controls, or security features that filter traffic
Many podcast episodes are delivered through ad-tracking and analytics links, which these blockers often filter, so episodes can fail even when the rest of the app loads normally.
To check whether your network is the cause:
- Pause or turn off the blocker, VPN, or filter for a few minutes, then try playing the episode again.
- Or try the same episode on a different network, such as mobile data or another WiFi network.
- While connected to the affected WiFi network, run the connection test above and check the Common Podcast Hosts result.
If the episode plays once the blocker is off or on another network, add the podcast’s hosting domains to your blocker’s allow list, or keep the blocker paused while you listen. If episodes fail on every network, see Download & Playback Errors or contact our support team from Profile > Help & Feedback in the app.
Please check the following:
- Do you have a firewall, VPN, or ad-blocker active on your device that could interrupt your network connection?
- Are you using any ad-blocking or filtering software on your network? Some examples would be PiHole or AdGuard.
If this is the case, we recommend disabling these services or ensuring our Pocket Casts domain is fully whitelisted (on allow list). Once that is done, please recheck if the issue persists.
If the same firewall, VPN, or security software is signing you out of the web player or desktop app repeatedly, see Why do the web and desktop apps keep signing me out? for steps specific to that problem.
