Need to redownload lessons every time

vanwel

August 25, 2013 at 09:40 PM posted in ChinesePod Mobile Apps

I have downloaded chinesepod for android for my new Nexus 7. So far I am very disappointed as I am facing lots of issues:

- The app crashes constantly, especially when I'm downloading a lot of lessons. I have noticed that this becomes far less when I turn off the pictures.

- The library is extremely slow. This issue is resolved when I turn off the pictures. However, when I turn of the pictures, the color indication (whether a lesson is downloaded or not) also disappears.

- This is the most annoying of all: When I press the 'download all' button to download all the lessons in the list, it will download for hours but in the end only a handful of lessons have been downloaded. I have since downloaded every newbie lesson one by one and checked them all, they were all there. A day later, a few were missing. Downloaded them again, but a day later, almost all lessons have disappeared. Is this a bug? Or is this intentional? This makes it impossible for me to download lessons and study as I travel, it totally defeats the purpose of the app for me. Very disappointed, especially as it took me so long to download.

- You need to log in before you can use the app. If I am logged out and I don't have internet, I cannot login and cannot study the lessons I have downloaded for offline use.

I hope these issues can be fixed soon.

Thanks,

Menno

vanwel

September 24, 2013 at 03:08 PM

Hi Rich,

I'm afraid I can't really test it. My subscription expired and it seems that contenct I have downloaded before is no longer accessible. I get the message "You do not have sufficient access priviliges to view this content". So, does this mean you can only use the content as long as you have a premium subscription? As soon as I cancel my subscription, all lessons that I have on my tablet will no longer be accessible?

Hope you can let me know whether that is indeed the case, because I can't really find any information about it anywhere.

Thanks!

vanwel

November 24, 2013 at 07:05 AM

Hi Rich,

Late reply as I have been occupied with other things.

Thanks for that explanation, at least I know that's how it's supposed to work. Understandable from a commercial perspective, but it does affect the user friendliness of the app. I for one, would like to use the app on many occasions where I don't have internet (e.g. in the plane, or generally when being outside and not in a Starbucks), but since you need to be logged in, this isn't possible. That's a major issue and I wonder if something can be done to improve this (e.g. the app remembering when I last logged in and give me access for 24h, regardless of whether I have logged out or not)?

Will do some more testing in a couple of weeks, when I have some more time on my hands.

Cheers

rich

October 15, 2013 at 04:31 AM

Vanwel, there is the "Complimentary ChinesePod Course", a free course of lessons, that has all the lessons anyone can view without a paid subscription.

Yes, our lessons are subscription-based, meaning that they are no longer accessible if you don't have access rights. It is suppose to be similar to the website, where if your subscription has expired, you also can't listen to the audio file on the website.

Please make sure you have the "Complimentary ChinesePod Course" as one of your courses (if not, add it by going to chinesepod.com in a web browser and going to the Course tab, then click the button "Get a Free Course") and then access it from the "Courses" page in the app. That should let you have all access to those lessons like a premium user has.

Appreciate you trying the fixes out.

rich

October 15, 2013 at 04:28 AM

Vera, is it possible to give vanwel some access to see if it is working?

verazhang100

October 09, 2013 at 01:05 AM

Rich will be back after vacation.

vanwel

October 05, 2013 at 03:42 AM

Also tried the "live chat", no response. Same for email, no response whatsoever.

Legless

September 29, 2013 at 02:02 PM

... Dead silence ...

vanwel

September 24, 2013 at 02:33 PM

Thanks Rich, I saw the update coming in just now. Will give it a try and let you know.

rich

September 24, 2013 at 07:13 AM

Ok, I've published an update, v3.8.6. It fixes simple things like now indicators for Bookmarked/Studied/Downloaded are still shown if you have turned off images in lists and have turn off some of the processes that run to monitor downloads. I'm not sure if that will solve the problem where files are being deleted, but have reverted back a bit to how it used to be in 3.7. Please let me know if you still see lessons disappearing.

vanwel

September 01, 2013 at 07:43 AM

Thanks Rich, I hope you can make good progress with it, because at this point I have stopped using it as it is just too frustrating...

rich

September 24, 2013 at 03:39 AM

I have, in my working version, made it so the Bookmarked/Studied/Downloaded icons show up, but the reason I had those removed is because it was slowing it down to have to process and draw each of those buttons...the main reason behind turning off images in the settings.

rich

September 24, 2013 at 03:21 AM

I'm mainly looking at your disappearing lessons problem right now. Hard to debug though, but will figure out something.

rich

September 24, 2013 at 03:04 AM

Sorry for the delayed response. While I have gotten my hands on a Nexus 7, I have had no problems as you have stated, with the app from Google Play. I'm currently once again downloading all audio files in my self-study list, but no crashes yet. Will keep investigating though.

vanwel

September 23, 2013 at 03:56 PM

I might be expecting too much too fast, but three weeks have passed... any update? I've canceled my Chinesepod subscription in the meanwhile, as it serves no purpose to me in its current state.

Hope this app gets sorted soon!

vanwel

September 12, 2013 at 04:11 PM

Hi Rich, any progress? Have you been able to find the same problems I am having?

Legless

September 04, 2013 at 10:35 AM

"Please BARE with me."

"Will get to the bottom of this."

LOL

rich

September 04, 2013 at 10:25 AM

I'm getting there. Been testing a lot, seeing if it had to do with it sometimes downloading files from Chinese servers, etc. Please bare with me as I have been building another app, but do intend to give ChinesePod app more focus tomorrow. Thanks for reporting this, and sorry for the inconvenience, really. Will get to the bottom of this.

rich

August 26, 2013 at 01:35 AM

Menno, thanks for your post. I'm the app developer. The download all feature actually passes the URLs and the place to put the file to the Android device's download manager. We just acquired a Nexus 7 last week so I can finally test this with Nexus 7, as that does seem to have dispay issues (not sure if the download issue would be due to the device model, but we'll see). Thank you for taking time to write these issues out and I will do my best to address them.