A New Interface suggestion. Assume you’ve watched a movie. Suppose now I want to review a scene, so I want to look for the chapter. It appears that when a movie is marked as played, when I go to rewatch the movie, Plex does not show CHAPTERS, instead showing what’s below it (scrolling down to it), namely, PLAY QUEUE. Plex should always show CHAPTERS in a movie. It appears I can get around this problem as marking the movie as UNPLAYED; then CHAPTERS show up. I would like this to be automatic.
Which Plex client(s) are you using?
How chapters appear varies by client.
I am using the current client on NVIDIA SHIELD. (I bought the SHIELD because all the smart TVs, smarrt players, etc. did not have enough “horses” to Direct Play 1080p TrueHD 7.1. I read here I believe that SHIELD could do it. It does.)
Regarding Plex clients, I have noticed Plex clients on non-SHIELD devices do behave differently. For example, on SHIELD, I hit what I’ll call the INFO button, it shows me where I am in the movie and offers some options. It does NOT show who is in the film, even if I “arrow down.” On a Roku box I tried, it does show who is in the movie as well as all the other stuff. Frankly, I find it a little disconcerting that different clients behave differently (sometimes). It is also hard to figure out what a feature is and what a bug is.
I would’ve replied sooner, but I had no idea someone replied to one of my messages.
To clarify: sometimes setting a movie to UNPLAYED makes the CHAPTERS appear. Sometimes it does not work. But I do know one thing: if I look close enough, I can see the CHAPTERS appear and then they scroll off, usually to PLAY QUEUE I believe. Maybe this behavior is not by design. I should also point THIS NEVER HAPPENED in the old interface. I was forced to move to the new interface because the old interface no longer works on SHIELD. That is a bug I would have to think, but I don’t know how to formerly report a seeming bug without simply complaining.
I always use the current version as determined by SHIELD offering to update the app. It is currently on 8.7.2.xxx. I find this very interesting. So you’re saying you have a SHIELD and I have a SHIELD, and you have the Plex 8.8.1 client and I have the Plex 8.7.2.xxx client. I don’t think you’re lying, but how can this be? Why isn’t my SHIELD offering to update Plex?
(I don’t like letting SHIELD update apps without telling me, so I don’t allow it to do that. But I would hope it still checks! Maybe not. Also, could this be a server or SHIELD version difference?)
Same.
You have to manually launch the Google Play Store app and check for updates.
There is no notification by the Google Play Store app that an update is available (on my Shield anyway…)
You can subscribe to the Plex for Android announcement thread to be notified when an update is available. Scroll to the bottom of the thread. Change Normal to Watching (just like any thread on the forum).
I do manually launch the Google Play app. It occasionally says there is a Plex update, but the last time (it seems) was a couple weeks ago, and before that it had been a while. SHIELD to my knowledge gives me no way to go to Google Play like on a phone or a tablet, and then go to “My Apps” and check there. If I could do that, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Both my phone and tablet alert me when there’s at least one update to something. I don’t like the behavior of SHIELD, and mentioned my dislike of it as an aside in a support thread with NVIDIA; they said that’s just the way it is. If there is a way to download and run the regular Google Play app, please let me know how to do it!
Is there anyone using SHIELD that has a “normal” Google Play app? SHIELD was a surprise to me. It’s geared toward games, TV, media, etc. If I attach a USB TV Tuner card (so they say), it already has an app that works with it. It totally wants me to play games – Google Play makes that very clear. I have no interest at this time. SHIELD can also HOST a Plex server. I just use it as a client. My Plex server is on a beefy Windows 7 Pro PC where I have a 4-tuner Hauppauge TV Tuner card. I bought the SHIELD because no other Plex client I had supported 1080p with lossless 7.1 audio. FWIW, I also had some HDCP 2.2 problems. I lost that battle with NVIDIA – they claimed my older Denon AVR didn’t do HDCP correctly. I use a different AVR for Plex…
To add to @pluxology’s reply,
That’s pretty normal. You can view the release history in the previously linked Plex for Android announcement thread.
If you want more updates you can join the beta program. You may get one update/week or three/day. Be forewarned, it is beta. In addition to testing new features, sometimes existing things break.
I agree a notification would be nice. As you mention, that’s on Google and/or Nvidia. Hence, my suggestion regarding subscribing to the announcement thread.
Do people just think I’m an idiot or something? THAT is NOT the normal GOOGLE PLAY app as it appears on my PHONE and on my TABLET. On non-SHIELD devices, I can take a menu to MY APPS. It is there that I will see whether PLEX (or anything else) has an update. The above, which is the SHIELD version of the screen (which I am quite familiar with), starts off with this offering of free crap. You have to ARROW UP to GOOGLE PLAY and then ARROW RIGHT twice [or something like this] to get to MY APPS. And then it does NOT look like MY APPS on a phone or a tablet. On SHIELD, the first thing it shows is to TURN ON automatic updates. Since SHIELD gives no indication that an app has been updated [after it’s updated it] and what is new, I do not want this to happen. I want to have an idea (if possible) what is going to change BEFORE it changes, because THAT is another peculiarity of ANDROID that I cannot “drop back to previous version.” (If there’s a way, it’s well-hidden to mere mortals.)
Now, as an aside, PLEX v8.8.1.xxx magically appeared on my SHIELD yesterday. I installed it. I don’t know if it fixes any of the problems I’ve “complained” about because there was no listing of what is new. Perhaps the biggest current frustrations are REWIND 10 SECONDS (and other) buttons not working (seemed to happen a lot in last CHAPTER of a movie) and CHAPTERS not showing up (scrolling away, leaving PLAY QUEUE). I am not imagining this folks, and I don’t get my jollies writing about it. I don’t know what causes it, but it happens on my SHIELD. I don’t know if either of these problems is fixed/changed or whether they present on other clients. Depending on your point of view, current functionality could be considered a feature. Give me a way to change the default behavior. I’d like to quickly toggle subtitles off/on [normally I want them on; move current button to the right would help] and I’d like to be able to quickly change LETTERBOX-STRETCH-ZOOM (but have it default to a value I set, probably LETTERBOX) or, better yet, let me set it in the web interface so it’s remembered on an item-by-item basis, with a LETTERBOX default. I think STRETCH and ZOOM may be ignored if you’re watching a 1080p show on a 16x9 TV. But pull up an older, 720x480 DVD, and it will be distorted [on SHIELD at least!] if not LETTERBOX. ORIGINAL does something, but never seems to do anything I would want. Don’t get rid of STRETCH and ZOOM – I just removed my ffmpeg-adjusted movies and put back the original ripped versions.
I’m not the one yelling in a Plex forum regarding issues with a Google app.
Quite correct. It is the Android TV version. It has a different look and feel than the Android mobile version.
The Horror! 
Again, chat with Google.
As mentioned above, consider subscribing to the announcement thread. You will receive notifications of new releases which include release notes.
I’m unable to replicate this with my 2015 Shield Pro.
Which model of Shield are you using?
Which Nvidia release are you running, and are any Nvidia updates available?
Which remote - the old model with the slide bar, new version that ships with 2019 Shields, the game controller, a 3rd party remote?
Do you have similar problems with other apps on the Shield (Netflix, etc)?
Original displays the video at its original resolution. For example, if you play a 720x480 video on a 4K TV, you will see a video taking up 720x480 pixels in the middle of the screen. If you play a 4K video on a 1080 screen, you see the middle 1920x1080 pixels of the 4K video.
Yeah, you have to dig to change it. The good news is letterbox is the one you’ll want most of the time. I’ve content with many different aspect ratios. I’ve never used stretch or zoom.
FYI, there is another thread regarding distorted aspect ratios for 4:3 content after applying the latest Nvidia update. I’ll link it if I can find it.
Not a bad idea. Put the buttons used most the closest to the default location.
I’m seeing the same thing as the OP.
Chapters are quickly appearing for any movie (2k or 4k remux) and then disappear to be replaced by “PLAY QUEUE” text over an image of the movie. I verified this on 10 titles. However, when I checked a couple of TV show’s, their Chapters do show up and stay displayed.
This is occurring on the native Plex client on my Shield 2019. All software (Shield, Plex Server, Plex Client) is the latest version.
Is this being reported anywhere else?
Same behaviour for some films in Plex client on my Shield 2017. I haven’t noticed it on Fire TV. I keep server and clients always updated to the latest version.
A while back, all of a sudden, my SHIELD started updating PLEX, and over the course of a week or two a number of updates were installed. At some point it seemed like, for 99+ percent of the movies, CHAPTER SELECTION was showing up as it should. I thought it was fixed. And on the last update, the problem is back (and there’s been no PLEX update for a while on my SHIELD). While this problem may be specific to PLEX on SHIELD, it is, I believe, a PLEX software problem. It comes and goes, but the SHIELD itself is a constant. It used to be I could fiddle with the PLAYED and UNPLAYED settings, and I could get CHAPTER SELECTION to show up. Not anymore. The only way I could get CHAPTER SELECTION for a certain movie to show up was restarting SHIELD, which has the side effect of restarting PLEX. I do not have any weird problems with any other S/W (e.g., NETFLIX, PRIME VIDEO), except I will say this: in NETFLIX when I ask for MORE INFO on a movie in a list, instead of just giving me MORE INFO (e.g., menu with episodes if TV show), it gives me the menu AND starts playing. It is rather frustrating. All through the earlier PLEX updates I have also received SERVER updates. I am up-to-date on app and SERVER.
Regarding CHAPTER SELECTION working OK on FireTV and not on SHIELD, I have another observation. With FireTV and SHIELD going to the same TV (but on different inputs but with all the picture settings the same), the TV PROGRAM video (e.g., TERRA NOVA) from the Prime Video app on SHIELD is superior to the video from FireTV. I believe both use 1080/60p for TV-show output. I don’t understand this, but it sort of obsoletes my FireTV for TV- and moving-watching. Not to start a discussion, both also go to different AVRs (why two AVRs and one TV? long story). For TERRA NOVA, I use Prime Video because I can get HD there. (I bought the series.) Assuming FireTV and the Prime Video app receive the same stream, the claim is it is already “p”, so I’m not sure what’s causing the difference in video quality,
Regarding different GOOGLE PLAY apps on different devices, I wish they wouldn’t do that. SHIELD thinks I want to play games, and I believe GOOGLE PLAY is oriented toward that. I just wish they gave me the option to override it. I would even love to bypass all the nonsense and let the box update the apps automatically, except when I do that I don’t get to look at what changes are made. So I do not allow automatic updates. I check almost every time I turn the box on. I would also like to be able to DROP BACK when I don’t like what happened to an app, but I’ve been wanting to do that (to no avail) ever since I started using Android. I know some apps have download sites for different levels; I just wish it worked that way for all apps in GOOGLE PLAY.
This is actually an ANNOYING ASS BUG in Plex. It has nothing to do with watched status, and the fact that you fix it by changing watched status is just probably part of the bug. I have this all the time and sometimes exiting out and back in will even fix it. I have no idea what actually causes it, but this is absolutely a bug.
See here BUG: Randomly chapter thumbnails disappearing using new player on shield
If you’re not using a ShieldTV then that simply confirms the bug isn’t specific to the ShieldTV client.
I concur! This is extremely annoying!!! And the fact that us Shield TV users have to literally restart the device to get the chapters to actually show is crazy. FIX THIS!!!
I just installed a new version of Plex on my SHIELD TV. Now CONTINUE WATCHING on the HOME SCREEN doesn’t show MOVIES. It shows TV SHOWS*, but not MOVIES. If I go to add CONTINUE WATCHING MOVIES to the HOME SCREEN, there is a little house there. In other words, part of Plex thinks it’s already there, and part of it doesn’t think it’s there. In any case, it doesn’t appear on the HOME SCREEN, and I have tried everything. For the record, CONTINUE WATCHING continues to work (shows MOVIES and TV SHOWS*) on, for example, the PC where I house the server. It also works correct on my Android phone. But it does not work on SHIELD TV anymore. I am so sick of the steady stream of bugs in Plex. I have a relatively enormous amount of time, effort, money, etc. invested in Plex, and I keep hoping there will finally be a version that all the things I like all work correctly. A while back I mentioned that the OLD INTERFACE became so broken it was unusable, which forced me to the NEW INTERFACE. (Old news.) The other day, in attempt to see if the CHAPTER SELECTION problem still worked in the OLD INTERFACE, I discovered that the OLD INTERFACE toggle isn’t even there anymore. So I am forced to use a product with bugs, and new bugs get invented, e.g., hubs not showing up in the HOME SCREEN correctly anymore. Is there a way I can see the source code; maybe I can help fix some of these bugs. Another recurrent bug is lyrics only sometimes work; very frustrating.
asterisk (*) I put an asterisk next to TV SHOWS because not all TV shows show up! I have multiple TV SHOWS libraries (I do some segregating, but under the hood they’re TV SHOWS). Only one of the TV SHOWS libraries is showing up in the HOME SCREEN, and I had at least one TV show in progress in at least two libraries, but now only one show shows up. That’s it. One TV show in progress (not all of them); and NO movies, and should be 10 (approx.) of them. It’s just new weirdness in Plex that makes me question the quality control of the changes. Plex is really cool; I just wish it wasn’t so prone to bugs and regressions. A year ago (?) using the OLD INTERFACE, all this worked fine. And the CONTINUE WATCHING bug is new in the latest version of Plex; I’ve had 2 in the last couple/few days, and it happened after the second recent “enhancements.”
P.S. If there is a way I could drop back to the previous version of Plex on SHIELD, I would at least get back the CONTINUE WATCHING functionality. AFAIK, there is no way for me to drop back. When I install Plex, I take it on faith it will improve. I have been so wrong about that, and now I have no choice but to install new versions hoping to fix all the recent bugs and regressions. On this last update, instead of fixing the CHAPTER SELECTION problem, it added the CONTINUE WATCHING bug. In a word: ARGH!
P.P.S. I was browsing, and I noticed I reported the CHAPTER SELECTION bug/regression more than a year ago in this rant.
At the risk of appearing as an idiot (yet again?), I don’t know how to subscribe to the announcement thread. Also, FWIW, my intuition is telling me there may be a time lag between announcements here and adoption on a SHIELD TV. I always (lately) apply updates when they’re available, and my versions have been quite out-of-date at times (based on comments here).
I have the older remote with the slide bar. This is a completely useless remote. I bought an AMAZON remote, and it works great – very much like a Fire TV remote works with a Fire TV. I can even change the volume with the volume control.
I do not use LETTERBOX. I never seem to need it. As mentioned here, I need STRETCH for (I think) one movie and ZOOM for about 20. I have more than 1000 movies, so that’s not a lot (of STRETCH-ZOOM). As mentioned there or here, what would be ideal is to set an attribute in the web interface that selects the STRETCH, ZOOM, etc. mode, so I don’t have to switch it. It would go back to the default setting when not watching a video that’s been set to ZOOM, etc. So there would be a SETTING in the web interface (which I run on the same PC as the server) – OR what we have now, a sane default – and an overriding setting for each video akin to how I can select audio. When not in an overriding video, the default would be in force. I usually watch on a SHIELD TV. (Along these lines, sometimes I watch the Plex-provided Extras, and sometimes they STRETCH on their own; in other words, they’re probably 4x3 SD videos “stretched” to fit the 16x9 screen. I’d rather see the black bars by default without the distorted faces. It’s not worth going through the aggravation of manually switching because the Extras are usually short anyway.)
Yes, put buttons in priority order. Let the user set the priorities, if possible.
A follow-up. I guess I lied about one thing. I didn’t try removing CONTINUE WATCHING and then re-adding it. I didn’t want to lose what I had (which was CONTINUE WATCHING for TV SHOWS and missing for MOVIES). Just now I tried to test a fantasy – turning on SHIELD TV to see if there was a new version of Plex that fixes this CONTINUE WATCHING problem. Fantasy failed. So I said I may as well remove CONTINUE WATCHING and see what happens when I add it back in. I did that, and then added MOVIES. That worked! I then attempted to add TV SHOWS. I got the “reciprocal” version of what happened originally. When I looked at the TV SHOW hubs, the “home” icon was on CONTINUE WATCHING. Something said REMOVE? or something like that. So I pressed it, and it said ADDING TV SHOWS to the HOME SCREEN. I believe the summary of this is if you (1) remove CONTINUE WATCHING then the (2) first thing you add back “sticks” and (3) none of the others that used to be on. Who knows, really. All I know is I have MOVIES back in CONTINUE WATCHING instead of TV SHOWS, and that is much more preferable than just TV SHOWS as it was after the new client was installed. Both should be there like in all previous versions. But if I’m stuck with only one, I’m glad it’s MOVIES.
RANT:
FWIW and as an aside, I just noticed the right-hand screen was chiding me for how I reply to posts. I apologize in advance for my misuse of this forum, which I find confusing to use. It’s been established that I’m somewhat of an idiot, so I won’t lose any sleep over it – unless someone deletes my posts. I didn’t need to offer this insight into this latest bug/regression. If the product just worked predictably well, I would be a much happier camper. If the PLEX CLIENT code behaves differently on different boxes [which it apparently does] you folks need to set up regression tests for each client instead of foisting bug and regression after bug and regression. If I sound like just a complainer, I’m not. I’m just aggravated as hell that such important things like main interface elements can break and, at the rate I see updates on SHIELD TV, it can be weeks before I see the next update, and, based on history, it won’t fix known bugs and there is a nonzero likelihood it will introduce new bugs and/or regressions. It’s just so frustrating. I oftentimes sing the praises of Plex, but if it were not for COVID, I’d have to explain during demos that, “Yeah, that used to work, but they just put in another new bug/regression.” If nothing else, it seems like SHIELD TV gets short shrift. I bought it so Plex would have a powerful enough box to play to, and now it’s features are broken left and right. I just don’t get it, really.
BUG IS STILL HERE. SO AGGRAVATING. I HAVE A PLEX PASS AND THIS BUG HAS BEEN HERE FOR MORE THAN A YEAR! I HAVE VOLUNTEERED TO REVIEW THE CODE MYSELF. WILL THIS EVER, EVER GET FIXED? THERE ARE SO MANY BUGS IN PLEX, BUT THIS ONE REALLY GETS ME; I DECIDE TO WATCH A SECTION OF A MOVIE I HAVEN’T SEEN IN A WHILE, AND I CANNOT BECAUSE CHAPTER SELECTION DOES NOT WORK. IT’S BEEN THIS WAY FOR MORE THAN A YEAR! WHAT ARE YOU PLEX PROGRAMMERS DOING? THIS SHOULD NOT BE ROCKET SCIENCE!
And a new weirdness in this God-forsaken interface. It said BODY SEEMS UNCLEAR or something like that. Maybe by putting in two paragraphs with some lowercase characters it will work.
I continue to find this forum confusing to use. (Yeah, above I was deemed an idiot.) What I wanted to say is the following. One day some weeks ago my NVIDIA SHIELD box got a new version of Android TV or something. The result was ads for “channels” on my SHIELD home screen. (Not the Plex home screen.) I cannot complain to Google, but I did complain to NVIDIA. They are in bed with Google as far as I can tell. I read in various forums ways around this disgusting thing that Google did. One solution (back out Google Home Screen changes) worked, but within a day or two the ads were back. How disgusting! The only solution I’ve found is to turn off Google Play Services on my NVIDIA SHIELD box. I no longer get the ads on my SHIELD Home Screen. But I can no longer update apps.
The only app I really use (besides my security-cameras app) is Plex. So I no longer receive Plex client updates on my main Plex-watching TV (NVIDIA SHIELD box). (As stated elsewhere, the NVIDIA SHIELD box was the only box I read about that had the horses to deliver 7.1 1080p.) I am quite pleased, on the other hand, that the CHAPTER fix appears to be FIXED In the client, which, again, is the last client I will ever install on this NVIDIA SHIELD box.
My concerns are two-fold: (1) what happens when NVIDIA dumps a new version of THEIR S/W on my box, and it has the side effect of “locking in” an “ads version” of Android TV. I have been told by NVIDIA that an old version of the OS can be installed, but I lose any warranty. No big deal there. (2) What happens if I keep updating my Plex server, and it no longer gets along with my client? Or my Plex client no longer plays well with anything on the Internet it uses. (I perhaps naively assume that, minimally, the Plex client goes to the Internet when I auto-log in.)
It does occur to me that I can block access to the Internet from the NVIDIA SHIELD box. but I don’t know the effect of that. I just don’t want ads on my SHIELD home screen.
I read something recently that said hubs were going to change to completely customizeable. I dare say I will not benefit from this change. I will also not benefit from other improvements, e.g., clicking an actor (round actor icon) and having it do an auto-search for other movies/whatever that actor is in. As previously reported, this works on some clients, but NOT the one on my NVIDIA SHIELD box.
Well, that’s all for now. I am concerned about scary, unfixed bugs/features that I will be forced to live with if I allow updates to start up again. So client updates are suspended for now. The last thing I want on my SHIELD home screen is ads for Tubi, etc. Why Google even thinks this would be a good idea (never mind as a source of revenue for them) is beyond me; don’t their employees use their products? They want this crap getting in the way of their experience? Good grief. MADison Ave.
