Yes, this Photo’s track record is all the more concerning when looking at the current state of the Plex app, especially when Plex, Inc. said breaking up the functionality into separate apps is the best way forward. Um, how are either of these two apps currently better in a way that the users can measure?
But, don’t worry, trust us. I’m trusting, but this is a bit difficult to go through.
I just had to give a big heads up to all my remote users about this new Plex app. I wanted to promote it, but all I could say was that it is not working well, and hopefully Plex will fix later. Not a great way to retain remote users.
i noticed that downloading an item to your device and watching there will not add the content to the continue watching section. the content still shows as unwatched everywhere else so you cannot just pick up at the same point on a different device.
Milestone payments. Putting my PE hat on, Jason’s PE firm Intercap had a substantial milestone payment (and likely RSU bonus to Plex,inc FTEs) to Plex,inc if this new experience could be delivered end of Q1 and Keith made the decision to push to production.
Note: Plex’s entire existence going forward is to become a social media company per disclosed statements to press:
The real value to the end user would be the aggregation of the content into one place that makes it easy to search, discover, play and even recommend content to your friends.
So sad, if true. Does make all those “I’m leaving for Jellyfin” people appear to be the smart ones.
As for the Forbes article, I don’t think the normal streaming service takes apply to Plex, as long as Plex focuses on “Your content, Your Way.”
Other streaming services are chasing the licensing of content. Plex isn’t, at least for our content. My users come to my server because they know what they are looking for will be there and isn’t going away. It’s one of the reasons I started Plex: to stop chasing content between subscriptions services. My biggest reason was content CONTROL.
As a long time Plex fan and lifetime pass subscriber, my general feedback on this week’s Plex app update is that it was grossly premature with many significant bugs and feature regressions as a result. I also see significant discontinuity and inconsistencies with the UI experience across the three iOS apps. I am very disappointed…
Without getting into the UI / experience issues, here are some of the major functional items I found so far with respect to bugs and features…
Plex / Live TV
Plex IOS app version: 2025.10.2 (981)
The Guide’s detailed listings for each channel’s scheduled shows ends at 8:30PM for today.
** It appears that the guide is therefore effectively limited to a partial listing for only today’s shows.
** There are no scheduled shows listed for any channels for the next 7 days. Effectively this defeats the ability to record any upcoming shows.
The Favorite Channels were all broken upon app update. All my favorited channels needed to be un-favorited and re-favorited for them to work again under the “Favorite Channels” tab.
Upon first entering Live TV and selecting Guide or Favorite Channels, the channel begins to immediately play the show and ignores the audio disabled default state. One must toggle the audio on and then off again to actually mute the show audio.
There is no way to stop or pause the live tv show while in preview mode; one must go to full screen to stop the show video from playing.
There is no way to see or manage the DVR scheduling or recording for Live TV shows that are set to record. This is a major issue for those using Live TV.
PlexPhotos
PlexPhotos iOS version: v0.3.0
Noting that photos and photo library features are no longer part of the Plex app and that they are now exclusively accessed via the PlexPhotos app. Here are the issues with the PlexPhotos app…
The Timeline is effectively unusable…
** Load time for the Timeline is about 5+ minute for me (I have ~85,000 photos). There appears to be no caching as this happens every time the app is opened.
** Once Timeline photos do load, there is no scroll thumb or year index.
**There is no way to filter or search by date taken.
** One can only swipe up/down to scroll which cannot work for anything more than a trivial few hundred photos…
Photo Details (“i”) lacks EXIF meta-data for location. And, has lost the mapping feature.
There’s no way to control/manage the Recommended tab beyond the default. For me the default shows only 3 rows: Recently Added, Photos from 1967, and Photos from 1930s. Certainly an odd choice for default.
Plexamp
Plexamp iOS version: v4.12.0
Noting that music and the audio library features are no longer part of the Plex app and that they are now exclusively accessed via the PlexAmp app. Here are the issues with the PlexAmp app…
The Plex feature support for an audio track’s, “Play Music Video” is completely gone. And likewise the feature for artist “Extras” for Music Videos is also gone.
Fortunately my music video library remains available as a simple non-integrated video library.
Asks for the Plex Team…
Can we get a plan / schedule from the Plex team as to when some of these bugs and feature regressions will be addressed and fixed?
Will you consider re-releasing the original Plex app as a discrete “v1 / legacy” app for us to continue to use while you sort out the issues with the new app trio?
I remain optimistic that you can recover from this major release regression…
Yeah in reading what happened at Sonos it sounds eerily similar to what Plex is currently going through. About the only good thing with Sonos is that the CEO actually took some responsibility and started replying to the issues. Doubtful Plex would ever do that!
Is there an email address for the CEO of Plex available? Maybe more would happen if he heard directly from the customers rather than being filtered up and through the forums.
I don’t go that far. Plex has done things like the new HEVC transcoding. Plexamp is still getting many updates.
Yes, there is a strong focus on the Plex, Inc. content but currently I see the two working in parallel currently. I don’t like it, but so far Plex has done a good job keeping them separate (I have all Discover items disabled and don’t see much of the social stuff).
But, it will eventually come down to where is the money coming from: investors or this new higher price point? Investors will look for revenue from stocks or streaming profits. Users purchasing Plex will look for content server abilities.
Yeah I know, but I don’t know how much impact he has on the software development/direction of the company any longer. I think he mainly works on Plexamp (and other more fun projects lol).
Gotta wonder how much they actually make from selling their streaming content? Funny thing is we actually do watch some of the Plex FAST channels (along with Pluto TV stuff), but we don’t use Plex to watch those - we have them combined and watch via Channels DVR instead - mainly because we can integrate multiple Live TV sources together in Channels.
I will say, I think they hear a lot from us. They aren’t ignoring us, but are making decision based on things we don’t always see.
We must remember Plex isn’t a bunch of hobby programmers at this point who take pride in just making users happy. They are looking to grow a company to a point to sell it and profit handsomely. It hasn’t paned out that way so far.
To me, the streaming market is going through too much chaos. It shook up the cable TV market but now is becoming that market itself (subs and ads). Now streaming is worse than cable, because you have no channels; you have multiple subs on different apps.
Plex is trying to fix that, but that really isn’t the problem. The problem is the greed around the content. This is similar to the music industry.
Napster shook up the music industry and that led us to no DRM MP3s and Spotify (Prime, Tidal, etc.): a place that has ALL your music for a cheap price.
This is the future of video content. It’s value is in its first showings otherwise, it is just collecting small view(s) revenue (but in large numbers). Look at the current “Snow White.” A complete flop, but it is going to make back all its money from global theaters and then initial DVD/Bluray release. The rest is gravy. Right now greed is what drives the streaming services with high licensing fees.
Thank you so much, that drove me crazy.
I had this set for years on every device, seems the update reset the setting and I assumed this was a bug and is no longer possible.
So people will get frustrated and stop using plex for personal libraries, then in a few years they shut it down and use the excuse no one uses it for that
hello
I am very very disappointed by this new app for iphone and ipad. nothing is really working. it crashes regularly. and it somehow stops after 5-10 minutes and jumps to the next episode. download is not working at all. not in TV-Show, not season, not episode level. and the navigation needs 3-4 steps what needed before 1.
why?
and when is it fixed?
am I the only one having this issue?
can you not just please bring back the app version 1 week ago.
happy to get feedback if I maybe do somethings wrong. but this is one of the biggest steps back I have ever experienced in from SW release. did you actually sound this version with real user and test it?
