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Bug in iOS 6 Causes Multiple Downloads of Podcasts, Is Fixed in 6.0.1

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Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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The Next Web reports on an apparent bug in iOS 6's AV Foundation that caused podcasts and audio streams to be downloaded multiple times unnecessarily.

The issue was first discovered by the Public Radio Exchange labs, which thoroughly examined the issue.
The issue is a potentially major one. The audio streams that are being pulled down by iOS 6 through a variety of apps including Apple's Podcasts and others are being increased in size by a huge factor. The streams are being downloaded multiple times as connection errors cause them to fire off a new session. And, the entire time that a stream is active, it is being downloaded over and over.
Click to expand...
TNW notes that the issue appears to be fixed in iOS 6.0.1, and did not occur in iOS 5. It appears to affect both customers on Wi-Fi and over cellular networks, so there is the potential for data overages affecting users downloading podcasts frequently. TNW claims that "some users have reported success contacting their carrier to have the overage charges removed."

Article Link: Bug in iOS 6 Causes Multiple Downloads of Podcasts, Is Fixed in 6.0.1
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2012/11/14/bug-in-ios-6-causes-multiple-downloads-of-podcasts-is-fixed-in-6-0-1/
I am wondering if that was the cause of the some of issues with the podcast stand alone app? It took for ever to load and when it did it would start and stop in the beginning.

So far I have not had this issue.
 
Not sure how Android got in the comments - but shock horror - software has bugs! Wow just wow :-/

And Steve would have never of let this happen :more sarcasm:
 
First discovered my eye!

This has been known about since launch within the Mac & Podcasting communities.

First outlet to have the balls to report it more like.
 
xionxiox said:
SARCASM NOT DETECTED BY BOTH PARTIES. Please try to get your point across without assuming the other person is an idiot. Makes the forum a lot better.
Click to expand...

Smilies are a good way of getting emotion across - better to use them than not.
 
I got crushed by this bug. Racked up 6gb of data in 48 hours. Had to wipe whole phone and OS to get it to stop.
 
The world is going to Hell in a handbasket. Of course if you're a dude, then it's a European carry-all
 
I downloaded 2 gigs in 2 days over 3G because of this. I just knew it was the dodgy podcast app. How can they release something so terrible and big ridden. Got charged $160 excess data fees. Luckily I got it removed as I have never ever gone over my data cap before let alone download that amount in a single day.
 
I managed to get about $550 cut off my bill from my carrier.
Also switched to iCatcher podcast app. Didn't like the Apple one anyway.
I like the fact that it has a "Leo Skip" of 2 mins for Leo Laporte's commercials ;)
 
I guess that explains my AT&T bill last month.

I stream podcasts and SiriusXM radio regularly. I noticed last month I used over 3 GB of data streaming a 640 MB video podcast. I did a test after that and watched 10 minutes of a 150 MB file and it came in at over 300 MB.

I had read about the podcast bug when investigating my data usage and so started to download rather than stream to conserve data (though it appeared to download even when playing a downloaded file too). Since I thought the issue was isolated to the Podcasts app I got to where I only streamed SiriusXM. Problem is it clearly wasn't. For those who do not know SiriusXM is a 128 kbps stream and in five minutes it used over 50 MB. Due to all of that I just quit streaming things altogether.

Maybe now I can roll the dice and safely try streaming again.

PS - I contacted AT&T but no luck on getting them to credit my unnecessary overages.
 
I definitely noticed this. After seeing my data usage shoot way up (3GB in two weeks, usually I do less than 2GB for the whole month) I started testing the data usage of various tasks using the Usage tab in Settings.

I noticed that when I streamed a podcast from the Podcasts app instead of downloading it and then listening to the downloaded copy, it would use 200mb+ of data for a podcast that was only 20-30mb total to download.

Glad they fixed it, I've been avoiding streaming completely for the past month.
 
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