Today Plex has started inserting ads while i’m watching my own content from my own NAS server on two different AppleTVs in the house.
The ads come in chunks up to five minutes, for bras, insurance, and all sorts of things that aren’t the content i legitimately own from my own server.
Plex Server 1.25.9.5721-965587f64 on DSM 7.1.1.42962-1 on DS216+II,
Lifetime Plex Pass
Can you verify you’re seeing those ads when starting playback of the media from your own local library? Since the introduction of the Discover features, it occasionally happens that users start playing media that’s also available on their own server through e.g. Plex’ video-on-demand service… where the media is available for free but supported by ads.
If this is indeed media from your own or a shared library… can you confirm the file itself doesn’t contain those ads (e.g. because they were recorded)?
Plex themselves have been clear for years that they won’t touch media inside your own libraries (nor inject any ads into it). While there’s the occasional claim to the opposite, those have usually turned out to be because of the two options listed above.
Howdy
I can confirm in both cases, the content (movies) were selected directly from the local media sections in Plex, and that the commercials are not in the content.
I just now did a minor Plex update on my server, so let’s see if it continues.
But we’re very glad to hear this isn’t a new policy from Plex. Thanks!
This happened to me the other day, but it turned out it was non-local content.
I had the “movies and TVs on Plex” source pinned to home – though I never use it. Then, I started watching a new TV show, that I had files for.
With the new show started, the recommendations on my home screen included TWO icons for that show when I would have expected just one for the next episode. Unsure what was happening, I clicked one of them – which did NOT have an “unwatched” mark on it – and it began with an ad.
Then, I figured it out. I unpinned the Plex content from the home screen and the dupe show icon vanished.
I don’t know what the right way is to advertise content that I may be interested in, but “consider playing the streamed, ad-supported version of the episode you have the file for, oh and we’ll put it right next to the icon you actually want” was not helpful.
I think all the Plex content ought to have some kind of an overlay on the thumbnail, so we can see at a glance that there is something different about it. But for now, I have just unpinned that source, and it is out of the way.
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