Played podcasts showing up in as unplayed.

In most of the podcasts I am subscribed to, played podcasts most often from years ago, keep showing up. I listen to my podcasts from the Shows tab or whatever, and all my settings (in phone settings and the settings for each individual podcast) have the hide played episodes and remove played episodes selected and the automatically download feature is off. Why does this keep happening? Is this a bug that can be fixed? It's almost as bad as the continuous playback automatically turning on when I want it always and forever off.

My phone is an 11 Pro and all my software is up to date (I just checked and it is). Closing and reopening the app does not one thing except maybe add more played episodes to the unplayed list. Turning the phone off and then on does squat as well. I am not deleting the app and re-adding it because it will wipe how I have everything set up and I don't want to go through and mark years worth of episodes for multiple podcasts as played because I've already done that and it didn't change a thing except my attitude.

Thanks

m