I’m not seeing any way to communicate with users connected to my server… no message / chat or anything. Is there any way to talk with the people connected?
There’s nothing built into Plex. Most folks use email.
Wow, really? That’s amazing. I’m surprised there’s no chat or messaging built in. Is this planned for the future?
There is a very popular feature request: https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/51593/popular-send-server-messages
So maybe in the future we will see such option.
I really hope some sort of Community interaction is added to Plex soon. It seems very boring to just run the server and see people connect but not be able to talk with them.
Chat, Private Message, Newsboard… these could all be part of the server and give people a way to interact with one another and talk about the server!
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I am using a slack community to communicate with my users. originally it started as a means to inform myself of downloads. since then it has morphed through many stages. now the slack team has a coming attractions channel that users can subscribe to (things that are soon to be added) as well as the main channel where they can post requests and i can blast out messages regarding planned service outages (e.g. i just upgraded my processors and was able to notify my users that way). Just a suggestion.
You guys don’t think this would be incredibly hard to use in real-time? I couldn’t imagine trying to have a chat with someone on a Roku or any other device using a remote. May not be bad with a Shield TV since it could use voice or with anyone on a computer or maybe cell/tablet.
I could see it maybe being useful at times but most users wouldn’t be able to chat and play video so if you are trying to help them they would need to leave chat, try what you suggest, back to chat etc. I just don’t see this being an easy process to use.
How would you guys use it?
Personally, I would consider it extremely rude if I’m watching a movie from a friend’s shared server, and he thinks it’s okay to interrupt to chat me up.
Also, as Cayars mentioned, I would think a 2-way chat would be very impractical on some players, such as Roku.
Plex is a media streaming solution. I think 2-way communication is well outside the scope. There should be some facility for the server owner to post notices like “Server down this weekend” or similar, but that should be the extent of it.
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So while I’m still messing with it, there is a new feature in the latest version (3.2.1) that now allows you to stop playback for a specific user. When you click it, it allows you to type a custom message and send it to the user if you like. Not sure if it’s working correctly yet or not, but it’s there. Also, when viewing user playback, it now tells you if it’s transcoding or direct play (both audio and video). VERY NICE ADDITION!! I’m running Plex on a Synology which doesn’t have a lot of horsepower for transcoding, so I typically try to convert everything to MP4 that I put on there, though there are a lot of legacy items that are still avi or mkv - when those are playing, it will show me what it’s transcoding now and how. Sweet feature - waytago Plex!
That’s a step closer to a full messaging system. 
I bet someone could write an unofficial channel which implements server-side chat or MOTD type functionality. It would require users to go into the channel, though…
I would like some easy method of contacting users. Not a regular chat, per se, but two usage cases I have…
- Talking to friend in the pub, recommend a movie. Friend has to remember that movie then go and find it on my server. Some way to push a direct recommendation link to a friend, or broadcast a playlist
- I’ve just set up Plex Request. I’d like an easy way to tell users about it. Not interrupt them with a box on screen, but some mechanism to send a message. Be it similar to Plex’s “Announcement” system, or just fire off an email
Granted, it’s only family and a few friends, but it makes things a lot easier
Actually, if you could duplicate the Plex Announcement system for users, and have the ability to tag titles in your collection (and maybe filter the list of recipients - I don’t want to recommend Sausage Party to my father!), that would be perfect (for me).
At the very least… a splash message when they connect. The ability to send a message to the plex server owner easily. Getting notes back to tell me that certain files are failing to play, or there is a problem with the quality, etc. The library at times needs to be fixed, and there is no easy way to do so short of hoping that the users remember to tell me in some other way.
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MOTD would be a good idea but I do not want an IM service built into Plex.
@beckfield said:
Personally, I would consider it extremely rude if I’m watching a movie from a friend’s shared server, and he thinks it’s okay to interrupt to chat me up.
This is my thoughts exactly.
Definitely MOTD would be nice.
“Hey guys, server will be offline this weekend… etc.”
@seidler82 said:
MOTD would be a good idea but I do not want an IM service built into Plex.
+1
Any news on this guys?
Any updates out there on this one? Love to have a personal server based message board / forum, where users can leave comments, reviews, or just communicate with other users on the same server. Would be useful for posting notifications on outages and updates too. Maybe something app enabled, so mobile users can access as well?
There is a project on github for an automated requests solution that includes a system for communicating with users via email, both automatically and manually. It is pretty handy if you are running a server and people are constantly reaching out to you about when/if specific content can be added but the messaging portion of it is very handy as well. It integrates with all sorts of popular third party software that most PMS admins are probably/should be running.
I don’t really care too much for the chat feature, wouldn’t really want to bother someone that’s watching something but what’s needed is the ability to send notifications to all users or individual users about new uploads.
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Plex Pass users can stop a video in progress being played by friends and send a message to them that will pop up in real time - intended only to explain why you stopped it. Friends could not respond and would need to restart video so of limited use. Personally I would like to see a simple option to have an announcement show to all or specific friends when they login.
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