Accessing Chinese pod in China?

sm146

January 21, 2015, 03:38 PM posted in General Discussion

It seems I am now being blocked from downloading lessons using the Chinese Pod app. I live in China... but am now no longer able to download lessons and learn on the go.

Is anyone else having trouble with this? 99% of the time I use my phone to learn. So I'm really missing out now. Please correct me if I'm wrong and there's something I can do.

britain21

January 23, 2015, 12:38 AM

I am also in China and have never been able to use the mobile app here. For me I can't even log in to the app, as it says the token can't be retrieved.

So far there has been no response from the Chinesepod team which seems to point towards the fact that they know there is a problem but as of yet have no way of resolving it.

I also feel like I'm missing out because of this :(

HI there Britain and sm146. Could you let us know the device and OS you're using. We have reset the token database so my advice would be to try to sign in again using your Cpod credentials. A screen shot would be useful too. You can email it to support@chinesepod so I can show the IT guys.

If there are any issues accessing the Google play store, you can side load the android APK via our FAQ page:

https://cpod.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/204006490-ChinesePod-Android-APK-for-users-living-in-China

markedman

Normally I can use the iPhone or iPad app in China but just now I've encountered. Problem that has been occurring more and more: I start the app, and it fails to load correctly. Just now it showed the start screen but when I try to go to either My Courses or vocabulary it spins and spins and ends up with a blank screen. If I go into airplane mode it loads instantly bit of course I can't get new content in my lessons and In Vocabularly it tells me the deck is empty.

Gwilym-ChinesePod

OK, there seems to be an issue affecting a lot of users. We're working on finding and fixing the problem asap.

Gwilym-ChinesePod

Can you try again please. First log out then log back in again. We have restored the database, so it should work now.

markedman

Worked about an hour after I posted. Now I'm trying again and going to My Courses I got the spinning wheel for about 30 seconds, then a blank screen. vPN is on. Turned VPN off. It works. Usual behavior is just the opposite. However I noticed two other apps that we're having trouble with remote database queries. Now, with the VPN off those queries are working too. .!?!?

藍狗

Assuming you live in China, VPN's are reported in foreign media as being the latest target by the authorities in charge of internet censorship.

markedman

Yes, it's been interesting lately with VPN's. But I think this may be a problem with my VPN provider rather than the Chinese policy. I can connect to other websites fine. It is only certain database queries that seem to give me trouble. I'm in the U.S. now so will test further without the VPN

britain21

January 26, 2015, 04:12 AM

Well I did send an email but never got a reply. I tried downloading the APK version onto my phone Huawei but it says "there is a problem parsing the package."