Continue Watching is buggy? Unable to figure out why

Plex Media Server
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Server Version: 1.40.0.7998 (via Docker)

Greetings everyone,

I’m reaching out for assistance as I’ve been grappling with an issue concerning the “Continue Watching” feature on Plex, which has become increasingly unreliable and erratic. Despite my appreciation for Plex, I find its content discovery capabilities to be lacking compared to other streaming platforms. This is why the “Continue Watching” feature is crucial for me, especially for keeping up with new seasons of TV shows.

Over the past year, I’ve noticed a decline in the reliability of the “Continue Watching” feature. Similar issues have been reported by others on Reddit and this forum, yet a solution or response from Plex engineering seems elusive.

Here are SOME the problems I’ve encountered:

  • The “Continue Watching” list is inconsistent, with some shows appearing while others do not.
  • New seasons of TV shows I’ve previously watched often fail to appear in the “Continue Watching” list.
  • Occasionally, if a show does not appear in “Continue Watching,” marking an episode (from a previous season) as unwatched and then rewatching it can cause the show to suddenly appear in the list.

I’ve adjusted the settings in an attempt to troubleshoot the issue, with notably high values:

  • Weeks to consider for “Continue Watching” set to 156.
  • Maximum number of items to display in “Continue Watching” set to 200.
  • Option to include season premieres in “Continue Watching” enabled.

Additionally, I created an advanced filter to try troubleshoot, which was surprisingly slow to query, leading me to question if there might be an underlying issue, especially considering I’ve already tried rebuilding the database from scratch as a troubleshooting step.

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For instance, the TV show “Expats” appears as number 5 in my filtered list but is absent from the “Continue Watching” list, despite having watched the first three episodes of its four-episode season.

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This situation is incredibly frustrating, and I am seeking guidance on how to resolve it. Does anyone know the SQL query Plex uses for the “Continue Watching” feature, or can anyone offer advice on how to further troubleshoot this issue?

2 Likes
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If you view your library by episodes and apply the “Unmatched” filter is anything listed? In the example provided (Expats) episode 4 appears to not be matched; I wonder if that is impacting its consideration for inclusion in Continue Watching. Does refreshing the show’s or episode’s metadata allow it to match and, if so, cause it to appear in Continue Watching?

Other potentially-relevant questions:

  • Do you have multiple TV Shows-type libraries? If so, does this impact all of them?
  • Which scanner and agent are you using for the affected libraries?
3

Hey @pshanew,

I assume you think it is unmatched due to the lack of an episode title. I checked, and it wasn’t on the unmatched list (nothing was). I forced a refresh of the metadata, and the ep title shows now, but still nothing in continue watching.

To answer your other questions. Only 1 TV Show library. Here are all my settings.

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Any plex employee who can share the continue watching query? I feel that is the fastest way to get to the bottom of this vs guessing :frowning:

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@stevezau for Expat, on the show details page, does it state that that episode 4 is On Deck?
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It could be that the show was removed from Continue Watching by the Remove from Continue Watching action. If this is the case you could mark the entire show as watched then unwatched. This returns the show back to tracking what’s On Deck. Not a great solution but it’s there.

Could you share your logs and DB? You can DM them to me.

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Hi @Atomatth, you are correct it is not showing “on deck”. That’s odd as i’ve never removed anything from continue watching before. Well, i don’t think i have. It is entirely possible i did by accident but from what i can see this is an on-going issue not just specific to this one series. I’m just using it as the example.

Are you able to share how “On deck” is meant to work? I.e if i go into a brand new show and mark some ep’s as watched (but not actually watch them), will that mark the show on deck? I was watching on prime but then i moved to plex… That’s what i did with Expats.

I will ping you re DB and logs. thanks.

1 Like
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Ahh ok that makes sense then. Continue Watching looks at Watch State and Watch History. With the recent change in PMS, only actual watching will create Watch History AND update the Watch State thus moving that show and it’s episodes into On Deck and Continue Watching. Because your show and episodes only had a Watch State change to Watched and no Watch History it won’t be in Continue Watching.

This was added in 1.40.0 :

  • (View History) No longer create a view history entry for items marked as played (#10888)
8

Ok so this is kind of loopy but follow with me. If you had Sync View State and Ratings enabled AND if you had added Expats to your Watchlist, marked the episodes as watched on PMS, your Watchlist, or in Discover, you could have used the Watchlist source’s Continue Watching hub to start watching the next episode On Deck (E04) from PMS. This would have created the Watch History required to have the show exist in Continue Watching on PMS with the next episode On Deck (E05).

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Hi @Atomatth,

Thanks for the information. So Continue Watching required play history to work. Is there a reason for that change? Means i need to change my approach.

I don’t really use watchlist or discover. However, this is not the only show i am seeing this happen. To give you another example.

Resident Alien Season 3 Ep 1 came out on Feb 14th. Season 1 and 2 are watched in my plex. It also has a play history and is showing “On Deck” However, it is not showing in my continue watching?

Something feels off? Shouldn’t that be showing? Any advice on how i troubleshoot what’s going on? Is there a query or something i can do in the DB?

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Just want to be clear, the change was to how Watch History is created and not a change to how Continue Watching works. CW has always operated this way.

That’s fine. I wasn’t trying to say that was the solution, just another way to kind of get you where you wanted to be. Not the silver bullet just another path.

For the Resident Alien example there are a couple more settings to check just to make sure. In your Server settings > Library can you share your settings here? Specifically this group?

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Hey @Atomatth, heres my settings. I was changing values while testing.. hence the high numbers

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@Atomatth If i watch an old ep of Resident Alien or unwatch/watch an old ep the show will then show up in continue watching. I am purposely not touching the series or watching it so we can use it for troubleshooting.

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I was trying to add a work around while i wait for this to be troubleshooted… by creating the following filter. However i am also seeing more odd behaviour…

This filter i created and you can see gold rush showing… You can also see 349 results

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The query was quite slow to run so i added a limit of 500. I was expecting the same results given the first query returns 349 results. However, when i add a limit gold rush and other shows are not showing. How can this be?

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14

So, this seems to have devolved somewhat about the advanced filter instead of the original issue that Continue Watching isn’t working as intended.
@stevezau have you tested difference in behaviour from different plex players?
I have the same issue, but only on Windows/Web player, however Android player works fine.
Definitely needs to be fixed on Windows/Web.

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@SonnyZ01 I am not sure i understand?? The issue is with continue watching…

I used the adv filter to try validate shows that should be showing in continue watching but are not.

This has nothing to do with plex players… It is the same on all players.

@Atomatth any idea when you’ll be able to take a look? I’ve reached the limits of what i can t-shoot, shy of having access to the code :slight_smile:

NOTE: I built a brand new plex server, imported the watched flags. I am seeing the same issue which leads me to believe there is a plex bug.

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Yes, continue watching feature is on all players. I was commenting about the discussion being misdirected to your filter which was just for diagnosis, and was distracting from the fact it was a real bug. Filter or no filter, the fact that you could watch an item on the continue watching list, and then a different episode would appear, is enough evidence that it was hiding things and therefore a bug.

On Windows/Web I had a reduced amount showing (usually only 1 or 2), but on Android it showed all of them (8 in this case).

Sidenote, there was an update that came through last night and now my continue watching is actually showing 8 items on all players (Windows/Web/Android). This bug had been a problem for months, and seems to have been resolved last night. I didn’t do anything other than refresh web and restart (which caused update) Windows app. I hadn’t changed anything on the server.

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Hello @SonnyZ01 , I get your point. The discussion hasn’t shifted off course towards the filters thought? @Atomatth, to clarify, possesses my database and intends to evaluate it whenever he finds some free time. However, I’m still waiting for a response, so I’m uncertain when that might happen.

It’s challenging to get Plex to address issues like these because they’re often difficult to replicate and depend on specific conditions to manifest. That’s precisely why I demonstrated the issue with the filter—to confirm the inaccuracies with the “continue watching” feature. It’s a straightforward method to substantiate this glitch and assist developers by providing clearer information, rather than simply stating, “It doesn’t work.”

Additionally, you mentioned “there was an update that came through last night.” However, the most recent beta version was released more than a week ago, and it hasn’t addressed this issue. I appreciate you suggesting that it’s resolved but i am not seeing any difference on my end.

18

Bad news, the same issue returned again. Not sure why it came good for a small period.
Annoyingly I saw it return in front of my eyes, I had 3 items on Continue Watching, and they literally swapped from 3 items, to a different 3 items.
Then checking on Android Plex and tada, all 6 items are showing there, but on Windows and Web apps, each only show 3.

19

In another thread, someone noticed that the Continue Watching section is working on the individual categories (eg. Movies, TV Shows, etc) but only breaking on the Home tab.
I checked this and indeed, that seems to be the case.
@stevezau do you find the same behaviour? Does it work when you go to each individual tab?

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Hi, @SonnyZ01 that might be a different issue/bug. The issue I’m reporting behaves consistently. Regardless of device, home or looking on the library home page.

@Atomatth any updates on when someone can take a look at this?