podcast problems

I'm not a programmer. Know nothing, don't ask me tech details. Rhythmbox 
has recently been installed on my new computer (running Linux/Ubuntu). 
Music and podcast archive have been transferred. Podcasts have been 
subscribed to.

Problem: It gets confused and won't play nice when I want it to update 
podcasts. At first it wanted to update everything at once, it got 
confused and shut down. (This happened on the old computer too but I 
figured out how to choose manual update.) Now it:

a) won't update some of the podcasts at all, even the ones it was trying 
to update before.
b) won't download the podcasts that it posted when it would update. Tell 
it to download, it tries and then says Failed.

Problem: There's no menu from which to choose manual download or post 
columns (like ratings, last played.)

Can't figure out most of what's on the website so despair of finding the 
answers there. Please help.

Althea Webb
Dallas, Texas