A new bug in Apple Podcasts neither displays the latest episode of a podcast nor lets the app automatically download it for users.
Apple Podcasts
The Apple Podcasts app is supposed to alert users to new episodes of their favorite shows, and if configured to do so, download and store it on the iPhone or iPad for immediate listening. However, in a few instances, the app isn't fully working in this way.
Initially reported by 9to5Mac, a number of users are finding that episodes of podcasts that were released on Friday were not populating in the app properly. The latest episode doesn't appear in the app's Up Next queue, and doesn't get downloaded to the iPhone or iPad either.
Looking at the episode list for a show can display previous episodes but not the latest, for affected users and podcasts, even after a refresh of the screen.
The app does still have the capability of playing the not-displayed episode, but only if the user finds it using the search function with the episode title. This would require the user to find out the name of the episode by other means for the search to work.
It is probable that the limited number of affected shows is caused by an Apple server issue, rather than one within the app itself. If so, a fix by Apple could resolve the problem for all users without requiring any further software updates.