Trouble working with podcasts, can anyone help?

[smbreau]

I am trying to use MB to keep my device up to date on 2 podcasts. I have the settings for both podcasts set to "keep only 10", but when I sync to my device, MB tries to copy all episodes (about 120 and 75) for each podcast onto my device. I only have room for 5% of this data, so this causes the sync to fail. I realize that the problem may be that all episodes of both podcasts are downloaded on my PC. I expected MB to delete all but the 10 oldest un-listened to episodes when I changed the setting, but it just kept all the episodes on my PC. If I delete the newer episodes from my PC, will MB re-download them as I listen to and discard old episodes, or are they going to be permanently deleted? Also, is there a way to tell MB to keep the 10 *oldest* episodes instead of the 10 newest ones?

My second problem, which is a smaller one, is that MB is keeping the episodes of one of the podcasts (not both) in two locations on my device. They are in Storage -> Music - >[name of podcaster] -> [name of podcast], AND they are in Storage -> Music -> Podcasts -> [name of podcast]. I managed to clear up some memory by deleting the duplicates, but how do I set up a podcast so that it only appears in Podcasts? Why would MB keep duplicate copies of the file under Music?

I hope these questions are not too confusing. I am using MB for podcasts on a second device, and I am shocked at how hard and confusing it is to get MB to handle podcasts properly! My other software detects which episodes I have listened to, deletes those, downloads a few new ones (I get to set the number), and updates them, all without me having to go into my device's memory and manage the files manually. I wish it would work with my second device too!

[MeeMeeMee]

I'm a bit puzzled myself regarding the Podcasts' keep option. I set it to All unplayed episodes expecting MB to delete downloaded episodes after I played them but that doesn't seem to happen.

[Steven]

I think this is a bug so i will investigate and try to fix

edit:
no - its working fine for me. As long as the episode is downloaded, the play count (check in the tag editor properties tab) is > 0 and you haven't flagged it for non deletion (right click command) then it should be deleted on the next restart of MusicBee or when the next scheduled refresh is run. One non-obvious thing it does is also check if the podcast is on a playlist and if so, not delete it.

[MeeMeeMee]

You're right, Steven, it was b/c the tracks were on the now playing playlist.
As always, thank you!

edit: Seems like there's a little visual glitch, that podcast episode that was deleted still appears in black, not grayed-out.
fwiw, in my settings, check for updates is set to every hour. I think it sorts itself out on the next update, I forced it with F5.

[phred]

Seems like there's a little visual glitch, that podcast episode that was deleted still appears in black, not grayed-out.

That sounds like a skin problem. Does it happen with every skin or just one?

[MeeMeeMee]

Seems like there's a little visual glitch, that podcast episode that was deleted still appears in black, not grayed-out.

That sounds like a skin problem. Does it happen with every skin or just one?

I don't know, just noticed it now. I'm using MusicBee3. I switched to Neutral->BeeTunes and I'll report back.

Edit: It worked just as expected using the BeeTunes skin. Just to be double-sure, I'm switching back to MusicBee3 and I'll try to recreate it. I'll report back when that's done, probably tomorrow or the day after.

[MeeMeeMee]

After upgrading to 3.3.7491, I set to recreate it. The next day, MB downloaded the next podcast episode, I listened to it, made sure play count is 1, removed it from the now playing playlist and it didn't delete on its own. I then opened and closed MB, and sure enough that did the trick, the episode was deleted.
Today It happened again.

Steven, although I removed the episode from the now playing list, it's info is still displayed in the track information panel, which is set to playing, not selected. This episode was (before I removed it) the last on the now playing list, so playback has stopped and I just let it sit. Could this explain it?
It's been a few hours since I listened to the episode and it hasn't been deleted. I'm switching the track information to selected so it'll show some other track's info. I'll report back if that did the trick.

[MeeMeeMee]

No, that didn't do the trick. I thought it might help using a different view, so I switched to mini player but that didn't help either.
Closing and reopening MB triggered the deletion of that episode. I don't know why, but it seems like I have to force it, or else it will remain.

[Steven]

Unless i am misunderstanding you, you are saying the episode is deleted on the next restart of MB.
That's what I would expect - its only deleted when MB re-sync's the subscriptions. The frequency of that is determined by the "check for updates" setting in the Library preferences panel.
You dont need to remove the episode from the Playing Tracks panel - only from static playlists

[MeeMeeMee]

Thanks Steven, only I set set the preference to every hour. Before, I thought I had to manually force the update on manually delete it. If it auto deletes on the next start It's fine by me.