Yeah, I used pods for a few years. Went back to plain old liquid because this would happen once in a while. Or else this stuff would start gumming up the seals or out of sight waiting for the next time I used the machine.
As for the cause(s) take your pick from: water too cold, not enough water, tangled item(s) creating temporary pockets that only open up late in the cycle (which could be caused by:), overloaded machine.
I never understood the pods. I get this liquid detergent with a pump where one pump is like one pod. No opening a pod container just grab and squirt one to three times depending on load size.
I've never understood the liquid soap. It's more expensive by weight than powdered detergent, but a sizable chunk of the liquid detergent is just water...
Its all marketing, the powder v liquid is a fair consumer product debate (the different formats allow for different chemistry, but by weight/price, powerd is most efficent), but the pods for dish and clothes washers are meant to be as inefficent of a storage method as possible to get you to buy more product.
The youtube channel Technology Connections has several hours of midwestern rants about how bad pods are.
I use tap cold water for most loads. When I use powder I dissolve it in a cup in a bit of hot water before mixing it with the cold. It does a better job of cleaning like that.
If I was super rich I'd probably still use cold water so the clothes lasted longer, but I might switch to liquid detergent so I don't have to dissolve.
Not needing to measure is convenient. It not like the dishwasher were you have an area to put it in that gets the right amount and of course the amount varies based on load so it would be pretty hard to.
method. oh but I made a mistake. Its two squirts per load size so 2-6 depending but I don't think I have ever used 6 even on large loads and it works fine. I find it the most convenient for laundry and it seems as good as your going to get for the environment at a fair price.
Looks like it. We use dissolvable sheets for laundry soap, toss them in like a pod. No plastic, and short washes on cold leave no residue. And if it's a smaller load just you can just rip a sheet in half and leave it in the box. Plus they are super cheap. We've been using them for a couple of years, love them!