How to use API to make Episodes appear on Continue Watching?

Trakt Questions & Help
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1

Hi all.

I have been trying to integrate Trakt with my app, however even though my scrobble seems to be working fine with start and stop… I cannot see anything appearing on the Continue Watching.

Any reason for this?

Some examples of my Scrobble calls:

Start:

POST /scrobble/start ok HTTP 201 Created response={“id”:0,“action”:“start”,“progress”:0.0,“sharing”:{“facebook”:false,“twitter”:false,“mastodon”:false,“tumblr”:false},“episode”:{“season”:1,“number”:1,“title”:“The Hungry Ghost”,“ids”:{“trakt”:11413966,“tvdb”:10287742,“imdb”:“tt31140164”,“tmdb”:5119022,“tvrage”:null}},“show”:{“title”:“Margo’s Got Money Troubles”,“year”:2026,“ids”:{“trakt”:223228,“slug”:“margo-s-got-money-troubles”,“tvdb”:445651,“imdb”:“tt31137273”,“tmdb”:245318,“tvrage”:null}}}

Stop:

POST /scrobble/stop payload={“show”:{“ids”:{“tmdb”:245318},“title”:“Margo’s Got Money Troubles”},“episode”:{“season”:1,“number”:1,“title”:“The Hungry Ghost”},“progress”:16.356764469270352}

00:35:29.241  D  POST /scrobble/stop ok HTTP 201 Created response={“id”:1767200981,“action”:“pause”,“progress”:16.356764469270352,“sharing”:{“facebook”:false},“episode”:{“season”:1,“number”:1,“title”:“The Hungry Ghost”,“ids”:{“trakt”:11413966,“tvdb”:10287742,“imdb”:“tt31140164”,“tmdb”:5119022,“tvrage”:null}},“show”:{“title”:“Margo’s Got Money Troubles”,“year”:2026,“ids”:{“trakt”:223228,“slug”:“margo-s-got-money-troubles”,“tvdb”:445651,“imdb”:“tt31137273”,“tmdb”:245318,“tvrage”:null}}}

00:35:29.635  D  GET /sync/playback/episodes HTTP 200 OK response=[{“progress”:16.3568,“paused_at”:“2026-06-01T20:35:49.000Z”,“id”:1767200981,“type”:“episode”,“episode”:{“season”:1,“number”:1,“title”:“The Hungry Ghost”,“ids”:{“trakt”:11413966,“tvdb”:10287742,“imdb”:“tt31140164”,“tmdb”:5119022,“tvrage”:null}},“show”:{“title”:“Margo’s Got Money Troubles”,“year”:2026,“ids”:{“trakt”:223228,“slug”:“margo-s-got-money-troubles”,“tvdb”:445651,“imdb”:“tt31137273”,“tmdb”:245318,“tvrage”:null}}},{“progress”:6.38883,“paused_at”:“2026-05-17T14:37:20.000Z”,“id”:1755761499,“type”:“episode”,“episode”:{“season”:1,“number”:1,“title”:“Protect Her”,“ids”:{“trakt”:6101168,“tvdb”:8836549,“imdb”:“tt13789458”,“tmdb”:3704263,“tvrage”:null}},“show”:{“title”:“The Last Thing He Told Me”,“year”:2023,“ids”:{“trakt”:195284,“slug”:“the-last-thing-he-told-me”,“tvdb”:406686,“imdb”:“tt13745850”,“tmdb”:201289,“tvrage”:null}}}]

So it appears the progress appears on the sync/playback/episodes. So why not appearing on Continue Watching?

Thank you all!

2

Are you stating that scrobble works but watched doesn’t? Do completed show up in your history?

Or do watched episodes show in history but you don’t see it under continue watching?

3

Its not about watched.

Its about the continue watching section on the trakt website. I expect that if I started watching something on a media center that is scrobbling to trakt, it should show the movies or series/episodes in the continue watching. Isn’t that correct? At least makes sense if the user wants to come to the website and browse what they have been watching.

5

I’m asking about watched because there are parts to the API calls. There was a lot in your post that you edited after my response (you also doubled your reply and should delete the second).

There’s the process of tracking progress of an episode that allows resuming. That seems like it’s working. Then if you complete it, it should show in your history as watched. If it’s a show with multiple episodes (not a single episode special) then it should show in continue watching (what you mentioned). I specifically asked about the marked as watched to determine if that is functional. If you’re only able to start and resume but it’s not marking as watched then that’s an issue. Trakt won’t add to continue watching unless an episode is marked as watched.

I’m asking for all this because support will ask this from you anyways. The more details the better.

6

Well I am actually trying to understand the logic of how Trakt works because to me should be that if a user started watching but have not finished then it should automatically appear on continue watching section so users can resume.

If users are to mark an episode as watched doesn’t it mean they finished it?

Very confused with the logic to be honest.

In my case it’s a series so yes it has more episodes as well.

So from an integration perspective what would be the appropriate steps to call the API and make it appear on continue watching?

Thanks for your support.

PS: I just edit above because before by mistake I added as Quotes instead of code the API logs.

7

TLDR: not until the first episode is marked as watched.

Full Response:

I can’t speak to the integration but I can speak to Trakt behavior. Note that in my example I will reference a streaming app but it has an API that addresses Trakt.

Continue watching happens after the first episode (doesn’t need to be season 1, episode 1). If I start watching a show, there is no status for continue watching or watched. Once that first episode is watched and it shows in my watched history on Trakt, then I will see the next episode show up in continue watching.

I will see the scrobble status on the Trakt side (e.g., watching new scrubs S1E1) but nothing in continue watching.

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8

So my integration works fine with Scrobble… I can see the show playing and stopping etc..
As far as I understand when the duration gets to a certain point the scrobble marks the episode as watched automatically is that correct? Or I need to call a specific API to mark it as watched myself?

Also why continue watching requires one full episode to be seen? IF the user stops watching the first episode in middle of it… it should still be a continue watching for that episode no?

Thank you.

9

Ok I tested it out and it does mark as watched automatically and then it appears indeed on continue watching. But its a weird feature if the first episode does not appear if left in middle.

Thanks

10

It’s not weird, when you scrobble the first episode, it’s not marked as watched yet until it reaches 80%. And bc it’s not marked as watched yet, it can’t be in continue watching yet until then. if you’re talking about check-in, which is different from scrobbling. Check-in will mark the episode as watched but mark it at a future date I.e. say the episode is 45 mins, then it will get marked as watched 45 mins from the time you “checked in”

when you save a playback progress scrobbling for the first episode, it is just that, just a playback progress. It hasn’t marked the episode as watched yet.

11

I get it, but to me Watched is one thing and Continue Watching is another thing.

I understand that for Shows maybe the concept is continue watching the show… and not the episode… if that makes sense.

12

not sure what you mean… continue watching and watched episodes are linked hand and hand.

  1. you start watching a show you haven’t watched yet
  2. you start watching an episode of a show… 1-2% to 79% you can scrobble and save a playback progress (scrobble). Show is not marked as watched yet.
  3. episode is 80%+ watched and at this point you can no longer save a playback progress and if through an app, the API will mark the episode as watched
  4. as soon as an episode is marked as watch, if you had it in your watchlist, it will auto get removed and it gets moved to recently watched AND continue watching.
  5. if the show is caught up with aired episodes, it will not show up in continue watching. any new episodes will then have it show up in continue watching again.
  6. then it’s repeat repeat repeat until series ends

As you can see here continue watching IS linked to watched episodes. it’s how it calculates what’s next to watch in CW.

I’m also not sure what you differentiating between “episodes” and “shows”. It’s essentially one of the same. continue watching is all about episodes for shows.

13

you’ll need to add a logic to do a check if a show doesn’t have any watched episodes, then it would show up in continue watching or create a new row call “in progress shows” for shows that has no watched episodes yet.

14

Continue watching can only populate based on your watched history. A partially watched episode is not in your history yet. The best way around this is to have a separate row that looks at in progress episodes where no episodes of that series have been marked as watched yet. Name it something like “New watches in progress”. This is exactly what I have done in my application. When that row is empty it gets hidden. Handy for quickly resuming an episode that is yet to make it’s way to continue watching.