Unable to search the library as a paid subscriber of The Rest is History

Hey @TheRestIsaMystery -

Your alias earned a solid grin out of me. (:

I may have a couple thoughts, but first I’d like to make sure I clearly understand your issue. And, since you’ve already done a fair amount of troubleshooting, it’d be helpful to know what you’ve learned already. To that end, i’d like to ask a few clarifying questions.

1. Is this an accurate rephrasing of your issue? => When you access the episode library for TRIH via the podcast app, the episodes all lack your paid subscription features. For example, they play with ads.
2. Did you sign up & pay the fee through the podcast app or through TRIH website?
3. Did either TRIH or Apple provide any suggestions (ie, that didn’t work)?

Cheers

Hey TRIAM,

Since iOS 18 introduced all kinds of new bugs and functionality issues with Podcasts to so many people, I figured Reddit might be helpful. I don’t have good news to report. Or bad news. But I do have weird news. 😁 I also have a potential solution for you to try. 🙂

First, the weird. Lots of people reported having this issue at the same time you begin to experience it. And there are also lots of people who followed up indicating the issue resolved itself - this happened basically within the same timeframe…almost immediately or within the first few days. The weird thing is I really couldn’t find much of anything at all in the interim to indicate anyone else is experiencing it as an ongoing issue like you are. 🫤

So, now, the potential solution. 🙂 Premium features apparently have a storied history of being problematic on the podcast app (long predating the release of ios 18). I get the impression it just crops up sometimes… The following manual process has been successfully used to resolve similar issues:

• Unsubscribe/Unfollow all versions of TRIH you have in your app. Make sure there is no mention of the podcast in your list of subscribed podcasts.
• Find the email you got when you originally subscribed, and use the link to get the RSS feed (copy the RSS link at the bottom rather than using the direct Apple Podcasts link)
• Go into Apple Podcasts, onto the Shows tab, click the … in the upper right corner, click Follow a show by URL, then paste in the link

Hope this helps!

As an aside…I subscribed to TRIH at some point, but I don’t remember why. Should I give it a listen? Lmk if there’s a particular episode you recommend.