I know this has been in discussion for a long time. Found a service/app called My Media for Alexa. It is still indexing my music library but so far works flawlessly and playlists are directly supported (Internet streams or local).
Appears to provide a IFTTT type proxy and a server-side service. In my case the server app is on QNAP, but Docker and all the common OSs are supported. As slick as this service is, I can only imagine how much better it would from within the Plex/PlexAmp world.
If too hard to commit resources to solving the solvable Alexa needs, then please reach out to the My Media team for an integrated partnership.
I’m not sure I understand what exactly you’re suggesting…
What isn’t working?
If this suggestion isn’t about the “solvable Alexa needs”… what do you have in mind with regards to an “integrated partnership”?
Feature: Plex content being played reliable via Alexa (quickly would be good too)
Context: Plex skill for Alexa is not reliable (totally sucks, to be frank)
Background: Plex forums are full of the the official answer being “it’s Amazon or Googles restriction that we cannot integrate” (not an entirely true answer, but let’s accept it for now and not belabor the excuse).
Market Research/Example: My Media for Alexa
If a solution to Plex’s inability to integrate with Alexa for content playback could be fashioned similar to the approach taken by My Media for Alexa, then Plex content would be more accessible to users.
If development of such a service is not within Plex’s reach, a strategic partnership with a My Media for Alexa might solve the near terms goal and would make Plex content more accessible to users.
I personally like #2 – builds on the subscription model and serves as a value add upgrade. No point in having more indexing services running on a server, so imagine server overhead to be lower if the two organization can de-duplicate redundant indices. Plex offers the superior catalog mgmt suite; My Media provides working access via Alexa. Imagine that it would not take these two orgs long to do the same with other smart speakers.
Alexa finds the requested music but never plays it. This was working in the past.
On Window 10 Media Server Version 1.29.1.6316
Echo 8 latest version.
Alexa open Plex… “Welcome to Plex…blah…blah” After you said the album you want to play Alexa finds the album, repeats you the name but never plays it and after awhile just close the Plex screen.
I saw a comment in the above link from a Plex employee saying that nothing changed on Plex so seems to be an Amazon issue, Well if that is the case then Plex should remove the Alexa skill since does not work.
Could someone explain how to troubleshoot this problem?
FOLLOW UP:
My Media for Alexa works fantastically with .pls playlists for internet radio stations, Alexa routine set-up to hit a very specific playlist and Plex content indexed by My Media, well, at least to the extent that Alexa can process the number of words spoken to it.
EXAMPLE:
In a string command like “Alexa, ask My Media to play Streetlight Manifesto’s album ‘Everything Went Numb’” will result in a general Streetlight Manifesto playlist, the song ‘Everything Went Numb’ or a song entitled ‘Streetlight’ by the Fractions. I find this to be more of either Alexa’s limits or my organizational paradigm.
Otherwise, My Media pretty well with asking for a specific playlist created in My Media, most at the folder/album level and playlists it makes when asking for an artist by name. Until we have a working Plex app (or more ideally, a working PlexAmp for Alexa!), I have found this to be the easiest solution to playback on paired stereo Alexa Dots. Works so well I put a pair in my garage too.
The Alexa skill is not working as in the past. The new thing is that not only understands what you ask to play, now they just tells you all the new music additions to the library when nobody asked for that.
What a frustration…we paid for a product that does not work. I’m sure great people is working behind scenes but the lack of support is noticeable. The only way to communicate bugs is through this community channel and if you have lucky a response will be given.
Plex keeps adding new features but seems the number of pre-existing bugs is considerable.
Any new info on this? I’ve been experiencing the same issue. All three of my Alexas worked fine up until a few months ago. I would tell them to shuffle a playlist and it would play until I told it to stop or it hit the end of the playlist. Now it either says it’s playing but doesn’t, or it plays one song then stops.
Since this is not working as expected at least it could help if when we say “Alexa open Plex” a text box field open so we can type what we would like to play.
