It seems that when I am using my iPhone to listen to audio books, if i pause the file and then watch a movie or listen to a music file that when I come back to restart my audio book from the position I left off, the saved position is lost and the audio book starts from the beginning. The app does keep the position for my audio book but only if I do not play anything else on the app.
Will there be an update or fix for this feature so that audio positions are saved the same for audio as they are for video?
Iâve read many of forums, article, etc but have not found an answer for this as of yet.
@OttoKerner That was one of the first things I did. I verified that âStore Trackâ is ticked. It is. If I play one audiobook and stop the audiobook, close the program on iphone then restart the program later it will have my position within the audiobook saved. If, however, I choose to stop the audiobook and then listen to other music or watch a video file withing Plex, when I come back to resume the audiobook where I left off, the saved position is no longer there. It starts the book from the beginning instead.
The saved positions work for all video files, but doesnât seem to work for audio files even when âStore Trackâ is ticked. This is sole feature keeping me from getting the Plex Pass as this feature quite important to me and I canât seem to get it to work. I thought I was doing everything right, itâs just not working. IDK.
This appears to be an issue for both the computer and for iPhone app. Again âSave Trackâ is ticked. Yet progress is never saved. Always starts from beginning.
Be aware that the âsave positionâ option for audio files is one of Plexâs âit almost worksâ or âit works some of the timeâ or " it works but" function.
I think Plex tossed it in just to try to shut up many of the people that want to use Plex for audio books or podcasts.
They never bothered to fully implement it correctly on all clients and they do not bother to test it on each release. Sometimes it depends on exactly where you are when you start playback. That is if you are in the preplay screen it might work but if you simply press play on a poster it might not or it can be the other way around.
I wanted to make Plex work for my audio books but this âhalf wayâ measure convinced me to spend a little time to get a small computer running MidiaMonkey working with my Echo Dot through Bluetooth. My dot is hooked up to a multi-room system that allows its audio to be heard most places.
I can control it, once the initial playback is started on the computer, by simply saying âAlexaâ pause or âAlexa playâ and the playback starts and stops as directed. It seems that MediaMonkey accepts Bluetooth control commands.
BTW: Plex on a computer or other device that is fully BlueTooth enabled also accepts pause/play and some other commands via BlueTooth thereby avoiding the buggy and excessively complex Plex Alexa skill.
That sounds like a great idea Elijah_Baley and thank you for the tips and info, unfortunately most all my audiobook listening time is in my vehicle as I travel. I do enjoy, here at home, that the playback positions for video are saved and I can resume right where I left off, and that they work fine for video. One would assume that the coding for this âStore Track Positionâ feature wouldnât be that difficult to implement across all platforms, then again, I am no programmer.
For now it seems Iâll have to continue as I have without Plex for audiobooks. I have to take a screenshot of where I left off, then before driving, go into my camera roll and remind myself where I left off and find that on the audiobook. Time consuming and inconvenient whereas a one button âPlayâ or âResumeâ would be far more friendly. I do hope one day Plex fixes things so Audio âStore Track Progressâ worked the same as Video âStore Tack Progressâ.
MediaMonkey has a âSync between devicesâ feature that you might want to investigate. I do not know if it would/could help with your listening while out issues but it âmightâ and I do REALLY like MediaMonkey for audio.
BTW: I do not use the sync feature so I have no idea how it works.
This does work for Android. One issue I found with multi-file audiobooks is that it does remember the position location, but you need to remember the chapter file you are in. Same is true for some of my podcasts that are multifile. This is an improvement, but there is more work to do.
Yes it would definitely be nice if there was an indication of which tracks have been listened to. The track resume is very buggy on my android device also, even with media synced. Occasionally the track bar gets stuck appearing to play the same 3 seconds on a loop, though no audio. The âresume fromâ box usually pops up, but rarely gives good results. Most of the time it momentarily advances the track to the spot then starts playing from the start of the track. Iâm not switching media, this happens after I re-open the app after not listening for a time. I wish Audiobook playback was a higher priority for Plex. Iâd rather not use the Audible app because it drains my battery so dang fast, though it does work really well.
I also use Plex for my Audio Books⊠Iâd also like to have a feature that saves the position in the audio album!
Without a track marker itâs really hard to jump to the right track in audio booksâŠ
Will this bug ever get a fix? Two years and counting it is still not a priority of Plex product manager (with all due respect, you are not earning any respect from your users for this sir).
One more vote for properly implementing âsave positionâ for audio books. Adding a media type âaudio bookâ would be nice, too (rather than having to treat audio books as music files)
Would like this too â Unable to move around my house and listen to the same pod cast on different devices⊠Very frustrating â Trying to keep track of what has been listened to is a chore as well⊠I started using ratings ⊠5 for finished, 1 for âin progressâ, but it doesnt seem to share those traits across devices
Well i do not think i can agree it works on Android. Maybe only on some devices, as my Samsung S8+ does not save even a track progress, tested also on Samsung Tab A 10.1 .
I have started to doubt that it will ever be fixed if it is an actual bug or resolved if it is something that Plex decided to do.
Currently looking for another service to host my audiobooks to share across platforms and maybe to share to family members to keep their own progress.
I have given up on either Plex or Emby providing an even half way viable support for audiobooks. Neither one can even get resume working correctly. They seem to try to make there presentation âprettyâ without any real concern to actually making playing/resuming audiobooks work correctly.
Without proper functionality it does not matter how pretty it is.
I set up a separate server using a low power computer and MediaMonkey to handle my audiobooks and I am quite happy. I pipe the audio output through my home and I have multiple cheap RF remotes around the house to control the MediaMonkey computer and I have an app called âVickiâ running on my Echos that allow voice control when reaching a remote is not convenient.
MediaMonkey is VASTLY superior at handling audio to anything Plex or Emby have implemented or seem to have planed. Basically the audio support for either books or even music is crap or worse in Plex or Emby but I am very happy with my MediaMonkey solution.
