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Automattic / pocket-casts-ios

Pocket Casts iOS app 🎧
Mozilla Public License 2.0
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No Chapters in Audiobooks Uploaded to Files (M4a or M4b) #697

Open thabotswana opened 1 year ago

thabotswana commented 1 year ago

User reported that when they upload an M4A custom file to Pocket Casts, the chapters get removed. Reported in 5931028-zen.

Expected behavior

When you upload audiobooks in M4a format to Files, you should be able to navigate the chapters.

Actual behavior

The app merges the chapters in M4a files into a single file.

Steps to reproduce the behavior

  1. Open an app that has the audiobook (M4A file).
  2. Choose to share that file.
  3. Save to Pocket Casts.

@joashrajin was able to reproduce this. Slack discussion: p1675760418992739-slack-C02A333D8LQ

User details

App Version: 7.30 Device: iPhone13,2 OS: 16.0

joashrajin commented 1 year ago

Too add some extra context, an M4A file that you upload as a custom file to Pocket Casts gets the chapters stripped.

For example, I was testing with this M4A file: https://logbuch-netzpolitik.de/podlove/file/8489/s/feed/c/m4a/lnp451-exitstrategie-ai.m4a

I confirmed this does not happen with MP3

simplebunsen commented 1 year ago

Can confirm this is what happens. The very use of m4a for audiobook storage is diminished. Please fix

sigito commented 1 year ago

Unfortunately, it is not only limited to the audiobooks. I often use an m4a container for regular podcast-like files. The chapters are indeed not displayed for those files.

vshevch commented 1 year ago

Please look into this issue. I feel like it is an opportunity to make this app so much better and increase its use cases

es2337 commented 5 months ago

It's been a while since the last comment, I contacted support about this feature in mid 2023, my use case is a paid RSS that delivers m4a files. Personally it's quite important to have chapters as it's an 8hr file.

Support suggested to me it was an issue with it being an apple format, but a quick Google suggests apple released it under an Apache License in 2011, so unsure why this answer was given.

It's probably lower in the list, but I think it would be a great feature and encourage people to use pocket casts as their only app, rather than having a couple of different ones for different features.

sigito commented 5 months ago

@es2337, do you download the files from your private RSS manually and add them to the PocketCasts? Other ways, there is no problem with having an RSS that has m4a files fetched via RSS feed. I personally host multiple private podcasts that include m4a files, and PocketCasts has no problem with presenting the chapters for them.

The question is more why the files that are added manually to the app are treated differently than the ones downloaded directly through the RSS.