Server Version#:1.40.1.8227-c0dd5a73e
Player Version#:1.60.1.134-49fed73d
Please can someone look into issues with Plex HTPC ability to be controlled from other Plex apps ?
These issues have been present for quite a while and reported a few times but without being noticed.
What’s not working ?
-when Plex HTPC is selected as a player from another Plex App and playback is initiated, the video starts playing at the HTPC, but the controlling app times out after 30 seconds as it doesn’t receive confirmation that the playback has been successfully started.
this is more of an issue when using Android as when it times out after 30 seconds, it terminates the playback on the HTPC.
when controlling from a Plex for Mac, the playback on the HTPC keeps playing, the timeline in the Plex for Mac just gets stuck at 0 but doesn’t stop the playback, or later on it sometimes somehow recovers and updates the timeline
-can’t resume a video, it onlybstarts from the beginning
-when sending commands via API , like play/pause , the commands get to HTPC and they work, but the API call itself doesn’t respond and in 30 seconds times out
-sometimes the Plex HTPC doesn’t show up in the available players on the other apps, which can be resolved by restarting the Plex HTPC
I use the Plex HTPC as a ‘streamer’ and ‘cast’ to it from either an Android Plex app or Plex for Mac.
Even though the primary use case is using a remote / keyboard to navigate the HTPC, I think the ability to be controlled from other apps makes it a great ‘streamer’ for Plex as there isn’t any other Plex player, that I am aware of, which plays as many video and audio formats.
Unfortunately, those issues are making the whole Plex HTPC experience very frustrating and often unusable, therefore it would be greatly appreciated if someone could look into fixing this.
Here are some other threads mentioning those issues :
This is a very useful feature for me too! I have plex HTPC running on a dedicated monitor because I like having background noise of some sort while I work. Since I use a KVM to switch between my work and personal computers I need another way to control Plex.
The companion feature was insanely useful here as it let me use my phone to control Plex HTPC.
Unfortunately, as detailed in this post that functionality has degraded to the point of unusable.
Right now I’m using an iPad with the plex mobile app to control Plex HTPC. That seems to work well, but again the same issues as described in this post are happening. Many times the connection seems to time out because Plex HTPC isn’t responding, even though its working. At least with the iPad app, Plex HTPC itself doesn’t quit playing. With Android for some reason when the android app thinks its lost connection and times out, Plex HTPC also goes “yup lost connection”, stops playback, and returns to the home page.
Its actually kind of funny, Plex HTPC doesn’t respond, the app thinks plex HTPC quit, Plex HTPC quits because the app DOES send some sort of “quit playing” command. Apparently that last command wasn’t implemented in the iOS version of the app.
This is all speculation, but I remember seeing something saying the old plex client code base was a huge mess, and I can imagine it being so with different teams working on different apps. So I understand letting go of features for the sake of unifying the code base, but this feature seems like such a killer feature to let go.
As of right now I only have one solid use case for the companion app, and thankfully I have an alternate route when the feature does get sunset. I’m going to purchase a mini keyboard, I’ve wanted one anyways for other reasons, but it will be connected directly to my personal PC and thus provide a way to control Plex HTPC while my primary keyboard and mouse are connected to my work PC.
