4 ms·

This is a great idea and an exciting feature, but I wish it came to a better product. I've run into endless bugs with Chromecast streaming and library managemen

by apozem 9y ago

This is a great idea and an exciting feature, but I wish it came to a better product. I've run into endless bugs with Chromecast streaming and library management with Plex. When I google solutions to these problems, I find threads up to two years old and end with Plex staff 1) not responding, or 2) saying, "We'll fix it eventually." And after two years they haven't! That's not even counting how buggy or nonfunctional most channels are. So glad I never bought the Plex Pass- wouldn't be right to give these people any more money when their product is so unreliable.

elbrian 9y ago
It seems a lot of people in this thread are blaming Plex for their own low-quality hardware and/or lack of knowledge. I have a >10tb collection in Plex and stream to a Nexus Player (among many other devices, some over WAN) with zero issues. The biggest "issue" I've ever faced is that sometimes I need to lower my playback quality to 720p when I'm streaming over WiFi. So glad I bought the lifetime Plex pass- I am happy to support the folks who made such a reliable and lovely product. Generally speaking, if you are having issues with a product that is almost universally beloved by tens of thousands of paying customers, the issue is most likely on your end. edit: The downvoters are going wild in this thread. Anyone who advocates Plex is being buried. For a moment I thought I was back on reddit!
- polartx 9y ago
  I'd like to second this. I've been running Plex off of a Freenas server franksteined together from spare parts (from pc upgrades) for nearly 10 years now. The Plex clients I use are Roku, PS3, App, and Browser. I've never had significant problems, I even ended up buying a lifetime Plex Pass.
- squeaky-clean 9y ago
  > It seems a lot of people in this thread are blaming Plex for their own low-quality hardware and/or lack of knowledge. Plex crashes constantly on my Roku. (This may no longer be true, as I haven't touched it in a year because it crashes so much). That's not low quality hardware, it's bad app. I expect a dedicated hardware device for streaming videos that can stream Netflix, Hulu, Sling, etc, to be able to stream Plex.
  - elbrian 9y ago
    >Plex crashes constantly on my Roku. (This may no longer be true, as I haven't touched it in a year because it crashes so much). That's not low quality hardware, it's bad app. The crash could very well be caused by some kind of incompatibility or issue with your server. I'm sure that you've combed through your event logs on the server to verify this isn't the case, though. >I expect a dedicated hardware device for streaming videos that can stream Netflix, Hulu, Sling, etc, to be able to stream Plex. Why would you expect Plex, which plays back content served up by an environment which you control and maintain, to have similar compatibility as Netflix or Hulu, which plays back content served up by a multi-million dollar CDN infrastructure? That's like saying "I expect my self-hosted WordPress blog to have the same level of reliability and usability as CNN.com" -- it's unreasonable to put the burden on WordPress/Plex when you are the one who manages the server that the content is served from. Again: it seems to me that the issue is on your end, and not Plex's, because there are thousands of people who have no issues running Plex with Roku.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - lukewink 9y ago
    For what it's worth, I use Plex exclusively on the Roku, and I've never seen a crash before.
    - iaw 9y ago
      I've had various issues with Plex on my two Roku devices. It's always been my fault though.
- tokenizerrr 9y ago
  And third. Though my collection isn't that large, just a few TB. It's on a desktop pc turned server in my home with a nice CPU. Obviously transcoding HD video in a reasonable timespan requires a beefy CPU. It's a fantastic product, and I haven't even had to pay for it. I really ought to get a lifetime plex pass at some point.
mistermann 9y ago
Like searching based on filename when metadata isn't available, or showing long filenames in search results. These are considered to be stupid last time I bothered checking and I've since given up. It's a bizarre culture.
- elbrian 9y ago
  Purely out of curiosity: why isn't metadata available? Is it that you aren't naming/organizing your libraries correctly, or is it that you are consuming obscure media that isn't cataloged on any of the sites that power Plex's metadata functionality? Either way, you could either: a. Take the time to organize your library, like anyone who successfully uses Plex has. or b. Provide metadata to the open databases that Plex uses, to help both yourself and the next person who needs it. The important thing to remember is that Plex is not made by wizards... it's software, and for it to catalog your library you need to name your files in a way that it can comprehend.
  - wcummings 9y ago
    You can use filebot to name your files correctly for you, if thats an issue. I have it run as a postprocess hook in rtorrent.
  - mistermann 9y ago
    Home movies is one example, random clips from the internet that aren't proper movies. The notion of being able to find and play a file that isn't a formal mainstream movie doesn't seem all that obscure to me, and doing a search on filename isn't exactly what I'd classify as wizardry or difficult to implement. At the very least it doesn't seem like a crazy idea.
inopinatus 9y ago
We stream off plex to a multitude of devices, iOS/tvOS/desktops/Sonos/Android/Samsung (older)/Samsung (Tizen) and it's rock solid. Specifically never tried a chromecast, though. Plex Pass is one of the best home entertainment investments I ever made.
rhino369 9y ago
I love plex and never have issues. I don't subscribe to plex pass because they give away 90% of the features for free and the other 10% aren't worth 150 bucks lifetime, or whatever it costs.
bubblethink 9y ago
I was kind of excited to try out the Plex Cloud feature (paid) that they rolled out recently, where they host plex in the cloud for you. It has been riddled with problems, and wouldn't really pass beta in standard parlance. It seems like the Plex Cloud is quite literally that. Instead of adapting Plex to work as a service, they just throw the standard plex server in a really weak VM.

by apozem 9y ago

elbrian 9y ago

It seems a lot of people in this thread are blaming Plex for their own low-quality hardware and/or lack of knowledge. I have a >10tb collection in Plex and stream to a Nexus Player (among many other devices, some over WAN) with zero issues. The biggest "issue" I've ever faced is that sometimes I need to lower my playback quality to 720p when I'm streaming over WiFi. So glad I bought the lifetime Plex pass- I am happy to support the folks who made such a reliable and lovely product. Generally speaking, if you are having issues with a product that is almost universally beloved by tens of thousands of paying customers, the issue is most likely on your end. edit: The downvoters are going wild in this thread. Anyone who advocates Plex is being buried. For a moment I thought I was back on reddit!

polartx 9y ago
I'd like to second this. I've been running Plex off of a Freenas server franksteined together from spare parts (from pc upgrades) for nearly 10 years now. The Plex clients I use are Roku, PS3, App, and Browser. I've never had significant problems, I even ended up buying a lifetime Plex Pass.
squeaky-clean 9y ago
> It seems a lot of people in this thread are blaming Plex for their own low-quality hardware and/or lack of knowledge. Plex crashes constantly on my Roku. (This may no longer be true, as I haven't touched it in a year because it crashes so much). That's not low quality hardware, it's bad app. I expect a dedicated hardware device for streaming videos that can stream Netflix, Hulu, Sling, etc, to be able to stream Plex.
- elbrian 9y ago
  >Plex crashes constantly on my Roku. (This may no longer be true, as I haven't touched it in a year because it crashes so much). That's not low quality hardware, it's bad app. The crash could very well be caused by some kind of incompatibility or issue with your server. I'm sure that you've combed through your event logs on the server to verify this isn't the case, though. >I expect a dedicated hardware device for streaming videos that can stream Netflix, Hulu, Sling, etc, to be able to stream Plex. Why would you expect Plex, which plays back content served up by an environment which you control and maintain, to have similar compatibility as Netflix or Hulu, which plays back content served up by a multi-million dollar CDN infrastructure? That's like saying "I expect my self-hosted WordPress blog to have the same level of reliability and usability as CNN.com" -- it's unreasonable to put the burden on WordPress/Plex when you are the one who manages the server that the content is served from. Again: it seems to me that the issue is on your end, and not Plex's, because there are thousands of people who have no issues running Plex with Roku.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- lukewink 9y ago
  For what it's worth, I use Plex exclusively on the Roku, and I've never seen a crash before.
  - iaw 9y ago
    I've had various issues with Plex on my two Roku devices. It's always been my fault though.
tokenizerrr 9y ago
And third. Though my collection isn't that large, just a few TB. It's on a desktop pc turned server in my home with a nice CPU. Obviously transcoding HD video in a reasonable timespan requires a beefy CPU. It's a fantastic product, and I haven't even had to pay for it. I really ought to get a lifetime plex pass at some point.

mistermann 9y ago

Like searching based on filename when metadata isn't available, or showing long filenames in search results. These are considered to be stupid last time I bothered checking and I've since given up. It's a bizarre culture.

elbrian 9y ago
Purely out of curiosity: why isn't metadata available? Is it that you aren't naming/organizing your libraries correctly, or is it that you are consuming obscure media that isn't cataloged on any of the sites that power Plex's metadata functionality? Either way, you could either: a. Take the time to organize your library, like anyone who successfully uses Plex has. or b. Provide metadata to the open databases that Plex uses, to help both yourself and the next person who needs it. The important thing to remember is that Plex is not made by wizards... it's software, and for it to catalog your library you need to name your files in a way that it can comprehend.
- wcummings 9y ago
  You can use filebot to name your files correctly for you, if thats an issue. I have it run as a postprocess hook in rtorrent.
- mistermann 9y ago
  Home movies is one example, random clips from the internet that aren't proper movies. The notion of being able to find and play a file that isn't a formal mainstream movie doesn't seem all that obscure to me, and doing a search on filename isn't exactly what I'd classify as wizardry or difficult to implement. At the very least it doesn't seem like a crazy idea.

inopinatus 9y ago

We stream off plex to a multitude of devices, iOS/tvOS/desktops/Sonos/Android/Samsung (older)/Samsung (Tizen) and it's rock solid. Specifically never tried a chromecast, though. Plex Pass is one of the best home entertainment investments I ever made.

rhino369 9y ago

I love plex and never have issues. I don't subscribe to plex pass because they give away 90% of the features for free and the other 10% aren't worth 150 bucks lifetime, or whatever it costs.

bubblethink 9y ago

I was kind of excited to try out the Plex Cloud feature (paid) that they rolled out recently, where they host plex in the cloud for you. It has been riddled with problems, and wouldn't really pass beta in standard parlance. It seems like the Plex Cloud is quite literally that. Instead of adapting Plex to work as a service, they just throw the standard plex server in a really weak VM.