Error: no such column ZFIRSTTIMEAVAILABLE

[chrisdotslash]

I tried generating a transcript following the instructions and got the following error in the Chrome (v 138.0) console. Maybe this helps debug it.

Exact error message:

sql-wasm.js:89 Uncaught (in promise) Error: no such column: ZFIRSTTIMEAVAILABLE
    at e.handleError (sql-wasm.js:89:254)
    at e.exec (sql-wasm.js:86:501)
    at HTMLBodyElement.<anonymous> (podcasts/:304:32)
e.handleError @ sql-wasm.js:89
e.exec @ sql-wasm.js:86
(anonymous) @ podcasts/:304

[dado3212]

@chrisdotslash do you mind emailing me a zip of the folder you're uploading to <my_first_name>c<my_last_name>@gmail.com?

[chrisdotslash]

Done that. Digging around, I wonder if that might be an OS compatibility issue, affecting your app in pre-14.4 macOS versions.

[dado3212]

Awesome, thanks for the .zip that was super useful. Good news and bad news! First, I made the UX better by wrapping the errors in a try-catch to encourage people to do what you did.

I fixed that issue, but it was hitting this. It might be that on earlier macOS versions it doesn't locally cache the .ttml files. What macOS are you on, and what specific podcast episode were you trying to download? I can try to poke around on a VM.

[chrisdotslash]

Good thinking with displaying the error message!

I downloaded an episode and tried again, but to no avail. Here's the podcast episode I was going for: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ai-i/id1719789201?i=1000715452437.

I'm running an older 12.6 macOS version and I'm starting to suspect that is the source of the issue, also because there are no Transcript or View Transcript options displayed anywhere in the Podcasts app.

[zoomelk]

I'm having the same issue but running the latest 15.5 macOS so something else must be going on. Can't figure out why it's no longer working. Any troubleshooting success?

Awesome, thanks for the .zip that was super useful. Good news and bad news! First, I made the UX better by wrapping the errors in a try-catch to encourage people to do what you did.

I fixed that issue, but it was hitting this. It might be that on earlier macOS versions it doesn't locally cache the .ttml files. What macOS are you on, and what specific podcast episode were you trying to download? I can try to poke around on a VM.

[aspsenyo]

Adding my experience here as well. I'm on macOS 15.2 and am facing the same problem where files don't seem to be caching locally.

I'll be following this thread for any updates. Thanks for looking into this.

[zoomelk]

Hi all, I built a custom version of this viewer a few months ago to add some extra features (multi-select, ZIP export, metadata download, etc.), but it also recently stopped working — no results were showing.

Turns out two things needed fixing:

• readEntries() limit: Large folders (100+ files) weren’t fully processed. Now handled via recursive batching.
• Missing MTLibrary.sqlite: Added fallback handling so partial data still loads instead of crashing.

My fork isn’t based on the latest repo version, but might help with debugging or comparison: https://github.com/zoomelk/apple-podcast-transcripts

Still pretty new to GitHub, so not across all the best practices for collaboration but wanted to share in case it's helpful. 😊

[dado3212]

Nice catch @zoomelk re: readEntries limitation! Pulled that section into this repo in a427386. I think the updated commits I already landed will handle the crashing problem, but LMK if anyone hits a repro for that.

Not planning on adding the select/zip-export to this version, but that's exactly what forking is for! I pointed someone who filed a similar issue in #2 towards your repo, thanks for building that!

[dado3212]

@aspsenyo can you see if @zoomelk's fixes the issue (or @zoomelk can you validate that my version is also no longer broken?). @aspsenyo especially in the folder that you're dragging in, are you seeing any TTML files in ~/Library/Group\ Containers/243LU875E5.groups.com.apple.podcasts/Library/Cache/Assets/TTML?

[aspsenyo]

@aspsenyo can you see if @zoomelk's fixes the issue (or @zoomelk can you validate that my version is also no longer broken?). @aspsenyo especially in the folder that you're dragging in, are you seeing any TTML files in ~/Library/Group\ Containers/243LU875E5.groups.com.apple.podcasts/Library/Cache/Assets/TTML?

Several subfolders are generated under the TTML folder. However, as shown below, the innermost folders are empty, containing no data:

/243LU875E5.groups.com.apple.podcasts/Library/Cache/Assets/TTML/PodcastContent211/v4/60/7c/bf/607cbf44-2144-8787-ddb3-5d32baf58ab0

/243LU875E5.groups.com.apple.podcasts/Library/Cache/Assets/TTML/PodcastContent221/v4/b5/70/ab/b570abfd-9062-8e59-1c71-6da2f1c7da3a

In my environment, it seems that the podcast subtitles were not generated in the expected location even before running the tool. I might need to update to the latest macOS to check the situation

[zoomelk]

Thanks @dado3212 yeah your version is working great now on my end.

@aspsenyo you could also try opting to download the podcast episodes you want the transcripts for – that might force the transcripts to register and be saved.

@aspsenyo can you see if @zoomelk's fixes the issue (or @zoomelk can you validate that my version is also no longer broken?). @aspsenyo especially in the folder that you're dragging in, are you seeing any TTML files in ~/Library/Group\ Containers/243LU875E5.groups.com.apple.podcasts/Library/Cache/Assets/TTML?

Several subfolders are generated under the TTML folder. However, as shown below, the innermost folders are empty, containing no data:

/243LU875E5.groups.com.apple.podcasts/Library/Cache/Assets/TTML/PodcastContent211/v4/60/7c/bf/607cbf44-2144-8787-ddb3-5d32baf58ab0

/243LU875E5.groups.com.apple.podcasts/Library/Cache/Assets/TTML/PodcastContent221/v4/b5/70/ab/b570abfd-9062-8e59-1c71-6da2f1c7da3a

In my environment, it seems that the podcast subtitles were not generated in the expected location even before running the tool. I might need to update to the latest macOS to check the situation

[aspsenyo]

Thanks @dado3212 yeah your version is working great now on my end.

@aspsenyo you could also try opting to download the podcast episodes you want the transcripts for – that might force the transcripts to register and be saved.

@aspsenyo can you see if @zoomelk's fixes the issue (or @zoomelk can you validate that my version is also no longer broken?). @aspsenyo especially in the folder that you're dragging in, are you seeing any TTML files in ~/Library/Group\ Containers/243LU875E5.groups.com.apple.podcasts/Library/Cache/Assets/TTML?

Several subfolders are generated under the TTML folder. However, as shown below, the innermost folders are empty, containing no data:
/243LU875E5.groups.com.apple.podcasts/Library/Cache/Assets/TTML/PodcastContent211/v4/60/7c/bf/607cbf44-2144-8787-ddb3-5d32baf58ab0
/243LU875E5.groups.com.apple.podcasts/Library/Cache/Assets/TTML/PodcastContent221/v4/b5/70/ab/b570abfd-9062-8e59-1c71-6da2f1c7da3a
In my environment, it seems that the podcast subtitles were not generated in the expected location even before running the tool. I might need to update to the latest macOS to check the situation

That worked perfectly! Thank you for the suggestion.

[dado3212]

@chrisdotslash are you running 12.6 macOS on an ARM Mac, M1/M2/M3? Or is it Intel?

[dado3212]

Regardless you or others could give the instructions I wrote up here a shot to download arbitrary transcripts — https://blog.alexbeals.com/posts/downloading-arbitrary-apple-podcast-episode-transcripts#building-a-binary-to-do-this

[chrisdotslash]

@chrisdotslash are you running 12.6 macOS on an ARM Mac, M1/M2/M3? Or is it Intel?

It's an Intel Core i5 specifically.