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iPod Shuffle Not Able to Play Podcasts

September 22, 2008 by debbie T | iTunes & iPhone • Mac Corner

I was having difficulty with my iPod Shuffle (bought refurbished a couple of months ago). I could not play podcasts. It would play music, but when I tried to play a podcast, the little yellow light would flash, and nothing.

I reset several times (which by the way, doesn’t seem to work on my Shuffle anyway) and I tried deleting and adding several different files in iTunes.

I was all set to call Applecare and request a replacement, when I realized the “random shuffle” switch was on. I clicked it back on “normal” and voila, it now worked. sigh. I wonder why podcasts cannot be randomly played, and why it makes the shuffle choke.

As a whole, the iPod Shuffle is a bit buggy, and I probably wouldn’t ever recommend it to anyone. I only purchased mine because I needed a cheap replacement for my 20gb iPod until I decided on an iPhone or iTouch. But they are cute and small, and it does the job. It is a little irritating that there is no screen and I still don’t know why it won’t reset properly either. (Something for google another day)

At least I got it working again~

There are 8 comments

  1. Podcasts can’t be played on shuffle because podcasters actively disable that as a courtesy to users. Imagine you’re jogging along to a great set of tunes and suddenly a podcast on law comes in – might ruin the mood!

    here’s a snapshot of the Get Info window where I select the “skip when shuffling” option as part of my workflow each week:
    http://skitch.com/nosillacast/s4jp/nc-2008-09-21

    Comment by Allison Sheridan on September 24th, 2008

  2. Well thank you Allison! That makes total sense!!!

    Comment by debbie T on September 24th, 2008

  3. Bless you. I was going crazy trying to get my podcasts to play. Your solution was all I needed.
    Thanks!

    Comment by Tim on October 14th, 2008

  4. Thankyou SO much; I’ve been having the same problem and not being able to figure out what is going on. I was going insane…but now am cured.

    Ta

    Comment by Smuttley on December 14th, 2008

  5. Thank you for this, I was about to toss my shuffle! This information was a lifesaver.

    Comment by Jim Leonard on February 17th, 2009

  6. Hey, thanks. I’ve been tearing my hair out trying to get my shuffle to play podcasts, and it never occurred to me to switch the shuffle off! Thankyou so much. Sarah

    Comment by Sarah on September 9th, 2009

  7. This trick still works 2+ years since the last post. The google search that got me here was my last resort. Thanks!

    Comment by kerri on January 18th, 2012

  8. Thanks Kerri, glad to know it’s still a valid solution!

    Comment by debbie T on January 18th, 2012

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