Overcast is not to blame

But how to track down the problem?

Lately I've had some difficulties with Overcast, my podcast player of choice. It would simply stop playing and go dark after about 10 seconds. It hadn't actually quit, and could be re-opened on the phone and then, even if I didn't touch a thing, would go dark again. I was baffled, and even asked on Twitter if something was up. (No reply, yet.)

On Friday, a friend via micro.blog asked whether anyone else was having dificulties. Oh yes, I said, and then later, somewhat cockily, announced that "Overcast is the problem," because it cut out both when using bluetooth earbuds and a bluetooth speaker,

I was wrong, and I apologise to Marco and Overcast.

Today, out for a walk, everything worked smoothly. As it happens, when I got home there was just a little bit left of the episode, so I just kept listening, and after being home for a little while, less than a minute, Overcast cut out and went dark. 1

Ahah! Although I have had similar experiences outside, perhaps this is actually something about being at home. So I turned off wifi on my phone. And Overcast proceeded to play to the end of the episode.

I had turned off continuous play, as suggested, and that hadn't made any difference. So I manually started the next episode while eating my breakfast, and that played fine too. Turned the phone's wifi back on. Overcast stopped.

So it seems that something has changed recently, because wifi is interfering with Overcast. But I have absolutely no idea how I go about pinning that down.


  1. If you have any interest in what I listen to, the log is here

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