I would like to be able to continuously play a playlist or television show without plex stopping. I find it perplexing that I cannot have plex play in the background without stopping after three episodes.
A playlist should auto-play without the counter in between and keep going until the end of the list. If you just play from the menu then yes, the app will stop if there hasn’t been any user activity in the past 2 hours.
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THIS should be a user or admin option.
I want to have uninterrupted continuous playback.
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It’s been requested to have that be a user option. I don’t have any news on that.
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why is there in the first place?
who and/or why was it decided that an arbitrary 2 hours is when the player should stop?
why not 3 hours?
why not 30 minutes?
why not 30 days ?
why not when it gets to the end of the unplayed shows and/or movies?
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I don’t know why the time was chosen, but the reasoning was that we were getting reports of users falling asleep and waking up to a ton of stuff already played or if they were remote, using up their internet bandwidth. Plex figured it’s easier for a person that’s awake to hit play, then for an asleep person to hit stop. 
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OK!
that is an excellent and reasonable point.
perhaps the limit should be ON by default for remote users, and OFF by default for local users.
either way, it should be optional and the time configurable… like any other normal sleep timer on just about any TV in recent memory.
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If you have a sleep timer on your TV, the app will stop when the TV goes off.
I personally do not like that feature either, but it’s above my pay grade to make those decisions.
That is not how Plex is currently treating playlists. There is always a 20 second counter between episodes and after three episodes it stops playing.
I would like to be able to play seasons at at time without plex stopping like I use to be able to do. I’m not Netflix so trying to save money by turning off idle streams is not something I want.
mh
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that does not sound like a playlist. that sounds like auto play.
and three 45 minute episodes would be longer than 2 hours, at which point the player stops per the above comments.
This idle feature has broken my plex viewing experience. I no longer have control over my content.
I like having some sort of tv show on in the background when I’m working, you know akin to broadcast tv it keeps playing til you turn the tv off. Hit play and plex plays the entire playlist or I hit stop. I want to be in control on my content, not some uncontrollable timer.
It seems simple enough to be able to disable this feature entirely or change the amount to time needed to be idle.
mh
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Sure, but that’s not what Plex was meant for. As mentioned, if that’s what you want, generate a playlist of the things you want to have playing and use that, then it won’t stop.
BTW - What client are you using? There is a bug with some clients that even this will not work.
really? You are going to go there?
how is it that any one type of viewing is not what plex is for?!?
that is the kind of presumption that Plex has that creates discord between plex and users
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That’s surprising because I’ve been using plex to binge play videos for years.
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In regards to the clients I use the latest versions of the following:
- Web client using Chrome casting to a Chromecast
- Web client using Safari
- Lg Plex
- iOS Plex
- RasPlex
I meant playing videos as if it’s a TV station. Your description of just hit play and keep going forever, is not the intended usage, so it’s not the default behavior. It’s meant for streaming content on demand, which it does. If you want to queue up a bunch of videos and play them continuous, that ability is also there through the use of playlists.
Edit - FYI, this feature has been in many Plex apps for years too.
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but hitting play and keep playing forever is not any different usage than streaming on demand.
It is simply continuing usage of what is the basic functionality.
which is where the frustration comes from.
I totally get it, from your point above, and I even completely agree with it.
It simply frustrating that the decision was taken out of the users hand and an arbitrary and non-optional non-removable sleep timer added.
And yes based on this long time plex behavior, I am surprised that there isn’t already a suggestion thread for this very topic (there probably is, but I’m not going to go look for it now, lol).
I’ll close by saying thank you for the info and feedback. It is helpful to understand why a behavior was implemented, even if (or especially when) the feature is both annoying and useful at the same time.
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@anon18523487 you are not helping by telling us something that we’ve used plex for years to do, plays videos when we want them to play, is not the intended use of plex.
I have a playlist that’s two days long. Use to be able to play that playlist with no interruptions on numerous clients. I can no longer do this because of the user idle that I have no control over.
The plex admin, me in this case, should be in control of how long content is played for a user before they’re considered idle.
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The Roku app does this now, at least with TV series… I have never tried with Movies or Music… The Roku app will play one episode after the other, with no countdown in between, until I press the stop button… No two hour timer or three episodes or whatever they use… To do this I was told to I had to start the first episode, then get to the action buttons (pause, fast forward, rewind, etc)… Highlight the loop button and press on that twice… The Roku streams from PLEX all night long and is still playing when we wake up in the morning… Works like a charm…
Now I don’t know if the apps you listed work the same but it might be worth a look see… YMMV!!!
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+1 for this, I do understand why there is a timer but it would be nice if there was an option so I can enable infinite continuous playback. I’ve found that once it stops playing I have to click play on every episode after that unless I close out and reopen.
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