I had an ad play before I started a movie from my personal library today. I know what you’re thinking. “No, you didn’t.” That’s why I’m here. I’m not sure how it happened.
I immediately thought I must have selected something from Plex’s online library. I’ve seen the posts before and thought the poster at the time MUST have accidentally selected an online movie. I went back to the title page and didn’t see any option to play the movie from the Plex library. I verified that the one I was watching was from my own collection. I did a search for the movie, and it only shows availability from my library. I verified that online sources were already disabled for media. I did see that the option to show availabilities from other streaming services is enabled, but I don’t know if that can cause it.
I have looked from outside my server, and the movie IS available from Plex. I just don’t see any options to start it that way on my server.
If I started it online, I can’t see how. If someone can help me figure out what happened, I’ really appreciate it. I pulled the logs shortly after it happened, so I have them available if they will help.
There aren’t ads in front of personal media. There isn’t a function for it and it would open a huge rights\licensing issue for Plex if there was so at the very least it’s a big legal and cost issue for them not just a “we promise” situation.
The most common place to accidentally hit a Plex Library vs Personal Library title is in the Cast screen I think. Even if you have all online sources turned off there’s a “known for” row that will include titles from Plex Library. You can also get to Plex Library titles if you are browsing a cast filmography list as well. It’s nice to have that row for that Cast listing but it will open the Plex Library, not your personal library, if you hit a title in that row instead of your own personal media row and it’s easy to accidentally do that. Does that maybe fit?
There was a bug, on Roku at least, that the “plex movies and tv” row was also showing even with online sources turned off but I think that was fixed so just make sure you’re up-to-date.
That could be it. I believe it was in the “known for” row. I thought it was odd since I hadn’t seen ads start when I started movies from there before. That’s why I was trying to figure out how it could have happened.
It’s good to know. Thanks for the info. I thought I was going crazy at first.
They don’t inject ads into user content. They simply obfuscate the fact that, despite you having that piece of media on your server, they play their version so that they can inject the ad. The confusion is intentional and the result for the end user is the same. Any argument that they aren’t playing ads before your personal media is just semantics.
Its not technically illegal, sure, but the fact that I’m in Plex trying to play something that I have stored locally on my machine, but it instead misdirects me to the same media from a different source, just so that they can try and sell me something is still an issue that people are valid to complain about.
Disagree with you. They are not, in fact, playing ads before media on a users server.
I have all that online media sources stuff turned off and I have never had ads play before the media on my server.
I also never once said that people should not be complaining about this issue. I understand that there are people that want to use that and I am in no way saying what Plex is doing is right. They should be prioritizing users media in instances where the media is on the users server and also available on Plex’s on demand service.
However, just because a user unintentionally chooses the media from Plex’s on demand service, still does not mean that Plex is playing ads before your personal media. I also just enabled Plex’s “Movies & Shows” for my account. I don’t have any shows on deck that are also on Plex’s on demand service so I had to utilize searching (which I don’t normally do). I searched for a series that I have that I also saw was on Plex’s service. Before I even clicked on the result, it showed that it was available in multiple locations. Once I clicked, my servers (once is a test server with the series in 2 separate libraries), were all on top and the Plex option was at the end. I did the same for a movie and it was the same result.
Again, this is not saying I agree with Plex pushing the version on their service, but from what I saw in my (admittedly miniscule) test, I do not see how the wrong location can be selected from a search. And I cannot comment on a series being in your on deck and going to the wrong one since I am not watching something that would fit that.
Either way, Plex is not playing ads before personal media.
