pocket-casts-ios
pocket-casts-ios copied to clipboard
Automattic
Adjust Volume on Apple Watch could make volume go zero
Expected behavior
I want to adjust volume on my Apple Watch
Actual behavior
When I adjusted volume on my Apple Watch, the volume went zero.
Steps to reproduce the behavior
Whenever I tried, it happened
Tested on [device], iOS [version], Pocket Casts [version]
iPhone 11 Pro / Apple Watch Series 3 iOS 16.1 / WatchOS 8.7.1 Pocket Casts: 7.25
there are hiccups with the Apple Watch app when controlling volume. Sometimes it does not adjust correctly and completely mutes it. This happens every once in a while, but annoying when it does.
App Version: 7.29 Device: iPhone15,3 OS: 16.2
5881109-zd-woothemes
Phone and watch logs requested.
For what it's worth, I've seen this on other Apple Watch audio apps as well, so it might be something system-level rather than anything pocketcasts is doing wrong.
I often encounter this as well. It'll work for a while, but at some point, I'll adjust the volume with the Digital Crown, and the actual volume will go to zero, even though the on-screen gauge will still change visually. Force quitting and restarting the Pocket Casts watch app will fix it, but that's annoying.
I've tried using the stock Now Playing app for Pocket Casts playback, and it does not exhibit this issue. The downside is then I lose the ability to select podcasts, change advanced audio effects, etc..
It may indeed be a problem on Apple's side, in which case maybe a Technical Support Incident (TSI) could be opened with Apple?
iOS: 17.3 (21D50) watchOS: 10.3 (21S644) Pocket Casts: 7.56 (7.56.0.2)
Up until watchOS 10.3 and iOS 17.3.1, the digital crown volume control used to work most of the time for me, though occasionally it would stop working and uninstalling and reinstalling the app would fix it. But after either the watchOS 10.4 or the iOS 17.4 update, now the digital crown NEVER works for me to control the volume when playing podcasts on the iPhone (even fully reset the watch so on a fresh install with no backup that was restored). @bikrrr do you see the same change in behavior? (I updated iOS and watchOS at the same time, so I don't really know where the culprit is.)
I know nothing, but FWIW, the same thing happens on several other watchOS audio apps (Overcast, Castro), so it's not just Pocket Casts and is almost surely something Apple mucked around with in the latest update (thanks Apple). So I don't know what to do other than raise than for developers to raise Apple's attention until it either gets fixed or there is a new way to control the phone's volume on the watchOS app.
Also, it happens only when playing from the phone. The volume control app works fine for me when playing podcasts that have been downloaded to the watch.
I think think the behaviour under WatchOS 10.4 is an Apple bug, because the audio apps are suffering from the same problem. I've seen complaints on both Overcast and Spotify forums. Let's hope they fix this soon.
Forum user reports that issue seems to have been fixed with watchOS 10.5 🤞
I finally updated to watchOS 10.5 yesterday, and it seems to have fixed this issue! 🎉
I won’t get too excited, as before it was hit and miss, but things are looking promising.
More reports from forum users that had a success with watchOS 10.5:
I concur that it appears to be fixed in 10.5. I did notice, however, that the latency is increased as compared to before the issue cropped up. There seems to be a noticeable lag between rotating the crown and the time that the volume change takes effect.
Fixed for me as well with the watchOS 10.5 release (if anyone cares, upgrading to iOS 17.5 did not fix it, but subsequently updating to watchOS 10.5 is what did the trick, at least for me, so it was something in watchOS rather than iOS, I guess?)
