@elan I am not here to give feedback on the current app but the way Plex handles issues and bug reports in a discourse forum is cowardly. Yes cowardly, because it seems as through y’all don’t want to deal with the deluge of issues in systematic way. I am a Plex fan and rooting for your company’s comeback as much you want to.
Why is it so hard to open a GitHub just for issues and let users file issues there?
Is it even practical for users to follow up on issues here on discourse forums. This is not what discourse forums are meant for.
Mismanagement like this has only led to bigger impending chaos on other forums like reddit. Which spreads like wildfire and no looking back on company image after a certain point.
It’s better to open a GitHub and channelize all the bugs reports over there.
Honestly, we’ve tried everything in the past 15+ years, including public issue trackers, and they just didn’t work out. It was way too much work to try to keep them in sync with internal issues, reply to them, manage, etc. They sound like a good idea and maybe could work in some scenarios, but that’s not been our experience.
I’ve posted several times about your player not stopping after viewing a movie, many others have too. Nothing, no response.
Not a “hey dude, we hear ya, we’re working on it” not a “can you give me more info” nothing.
So, this method isn’t working either.
I could deal with learning the new unintuitive, kludgey interface, and live with it. But, when I fall asleep and wake up with a dead iPad because the movie will play over and over, draining my battery. I have to use safari to view movies on my iPad.
I’m sure someday, probably by accident it’ll get fixed.
There are thousands of companies that don’t have a github page for their software. There are a ton of junk software where bug reports aren’t taken care of in github. To say that github is some sort of panacea is false and misleading.
@elan
I’d suggest looking into the process the Open-WebUI team uses to manage their GitHub feedback/suggestions/bugs. I’ve been impressed. Their team accomplishes a lot and is active in those threads. The process you use is even more important than the tool you choose (perhaps something to reflect on about your previous attempts?), but GitHub has proven to be a good tool for this.
Responses are generally made from the Open-WebUI team within 1-3 hours of reporting something, and the item is classified, sorted, and taken to the next step in its journey. And those items can be tracked by those who care, voted on, and re-opened if necessary. The process is organized, transparent, and builds trust.
I personally do prefer the plex forum visually when communicating with people, but GitHub can be integrated into a product-ops and dev-ops workflow in a way that this forum can’t. There’s value in that.
In looking at other media server/player apps, I like the way Infuse handles their upcoming features. An updated forum post with in progress and planned pending requested features/fixes. Also links back to original request post, communicating to the community, we acknowledge this and it’s on our board. No reason for Plex to keep quiet. It’s not a secret the new app is missing a ton of features.
I’ve been a Plex user since my switch from XBMC 15 years ago. Plex is good, however there are too many things that seem half baked or need to be refined. As a paying customer there is NO good way to access a help desk. I’m here because my database just took a dump after the recent update and I found this while searching. I work in IT and can testify that the information is organized on a minimal level here but it can be a lot better. At least provide a chatbot to find stuff if live support is not in the works. The sad thing is I have spent 15 years developing my server just so you can develop a product to sell.
Honestly, we’ve tried everything in the past 15+ years, including public issue trackers, and they just didn’t work out.
I’m with the other users in this group: I don’t feel like it’s working out with the present setup either. It’s near impossible to figure out whether an issue has been previously reported or not and most posts remain “un-acknowledged” and it feel like you are posting to the void. Issues keep on accumulating and at this point, I rarely want to waste my time reporting bugs.
It was stated, and assured, by the Plex representative in the previous Fireside, when the question of better support options came up, that every post gets reviewed by a Plex rep so forum topics work just fine to address support issues. If you post a bug or issue or question and never hear anything - or get the “please post logs” or “here’s the file naming rules” and then never hear back result - it’s because the Plex rep has made the choice not to address it.
Even if the actual answer is Plex just isn’t staffed to address issues as well as they used to do or priorities have changed internally - again, a choice; after officially stating the above it changes the color of the lack of response.
There are some Plex reps who take time to regularly and genuinely help users\customers out - but not enough of ‘em anymore.
And a lot of the “community” resources evaporated as a result of some of Plex’s choices that took that good will for granted.
Emby and Jellyfin support areas are done the same way as Plex, but they are more responsive for anybody looking for that support environment.
It might be easier to just lower expectations than to try to get an improvement in this area.
I find it hilarious considering the marketing team, whoever they are, has no problem pushing the idea, the magic, the awesomeness of the many supposed features that are now generally speaking, on a media streaming platform, but Plex and their exec team are somehow incapable of solving their own bugs, they created from within.
