Which mobile apps have you used
Oh I get it. You donāt understand the words āPrefer Offline Content.ā
You think it means put the app into an āOffline Mode.ā
Thatās not its job.
Lol. Feel free to share a screenshot of the Android mobile app where it uses those words.
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@nibbles are you confusing the Offline Browsing toggle switch (in the Android apps Material theme slide menu) with the Prefer Synced Content option in player settings for download & sync?
Yeah, thatās not what this thread is about. In any case, I too have long suffered this issue so a +1 from me too.
Bump.
Bump.
Bump.
At this point I can only to tell people to avoid Plex and do not pay any money into it. I have been a premium user since 2018 and this issue has plagued the android app since (and even before when you look at posts)
Now they have removed the offline mode entirely, when I have low signal my āoffline musicā takes ages to play, but when I put my phone in airplane mode it loads my music instantly.
What is the point in buying plex premium (this being one of the major selling points) if in reality it does not workā¦ at all.
It is easier to download my music albums from my server and load them into google play or any other music app.
Plex app for android is garbage, and I regret paying very much so.
Plex does offer a great music/video server, but that is all in the free section.
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Similar problems have plagued the iOS app for ages. For a while the Offline Browsing toggle was an awkward manual fix that sometimes helped. I never really understood what the intention was there. Now that is gone. Moreover many times I am offline, the app refuses to show any content because the server is offline, āDUH,ā or because Iām not logged into Plex pass. Dealing with my ripped MP3ās, downloaded to my device, I donāt see how server connectivity or Plex user status should limit me in any way.
I use this app for music 90% of the time. At home, on Roku with an OSX server, it works great 100% of the time. On mobile it has only ever met my needs 25% of the time.
O.G. Plex pass subscriber.
It just seems like offline play is not taken seriously enough by the devs. They are too busy trying to find more ways to profit, teaming up with other streaming companies.
They should just fire whoever is building this app and dump cash at the who works on the Netflix appā¦ They have zero problem with you being able to play your downloaded content when you have no service. This has become like amatuer hourā¦ Some middle school science project.
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The thing is, it should be so simple. Go and find all the code paths that depend on a web call and make them go through a function that instantly returns if offline. Just put the app in offline mode whilst debugging it and pause the execution when it hangs. Check the stack and voilĆ , thereās a fix needed.
All this to say, I think if they wanted to work on this theyād have done it now. But the fact itās been crap for so long and the fact no plex staff have responded to this thread, speaks volumes 
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Similarā¦ Android Moto G4+, Plex 7.25.3.14365, synced music playlists to 100%, driving in area with spotty cellular and the music keeps freezing/play a few seconds/freezeā¦ and if I pull over and shut off cellular (now canāt get calls) then the music plays fine. Confirmed that "prefer local contentā is checked. Very irritating.
And on a previous plex android version in September, during a three day drive, playing only synced music playlists burned 2GB of cellular data.
Adding to the request to have āplay synced dataā not stream over cellular.
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Holy hellā¦ YOUāRE HIRED! I donāt know a damn thing you said, but you have me convinced. Plex, hire this guy. He canāt do worse than what youāve done.
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God damn, offline is so broken.
just a me too. was mostly working ok offline before the latest interface āupdateā, but now synced and offline content just doesnāt work at all on android for me. it literally doesnāt show up unless my devices have a network connection to the server. this makes the whole thing literally useless for me when I travel.
seriously. wtf plex. the feature is 100% broken as is. and the android app in general is now just so much buggier and worse than it was a year ago. unbelievably bad at this point.
Bump because Iāve seen the same error. Idiotic.
Bump.
The offline and sync functionality is just a pain in the ***. Apple had this feature for itunes / iOS years ago, working out of the box. There are numerous open source sync utilities that just work.
Plex DEVs, get this thing finally running.
Ok, the following just happened to me: theres music that i know is synced to my phone, i was offline. I browsed for the album on the app, and started playback. At first, nothing happened, but then the whole app crashed - I guess due to the lacking communication with the server.
Plex DEVs, this is not the intention off syncing stuff for offline usage. The whole sync feature can only be considered broken at this point.
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