While scrolling through a large library, the app loads 40 titles + thumbnails at a time. At some point, it just … stopped loading any more. I had to switch contexts between Recommended and Browse, and switch back and forth between libraries a couple of times, before it finally decided to load more thumbnails. Initially it stopped at 160. I was able to coax it into loading 40 more. It is very easy to scroll past the last thumbnail into a deep, dark abyss with no visible thumbnails. Scrolling doesn’t seem to trigger the app to load more titles and draw even blank / dummy thumbnails while it fetches the art from the server.
Automatic Show Episode Download
Downloading individual movies and tv shows works. But automatically downloading the next 3 unwatched episodes for a show has not yet been implemented.
I’m not on the Testflight, so I wanted to ask those who are about the thing that bothered me the most. Are there any changes to the video player navigation and interface (please someone post a screenshot (with the seek bar) if there are)? Are there any useful gestures now?
The usual Plex experience on iOS has been a nightmare for those who watch foreign shows with subtitles. I’m watching some Korean and Chinese series, and translation length there is usually much longer than the speech. This means you have to pause or skip back a lot. And Plex does not make it easy on mobile. There are no gestures like in Infuse, which means that you can’t pause or skip fast enough - if you want to pause to read the subtitles, you touch the screen, then touch the pause, then touch the screen again to hide the huge panel that hides the subtitles completely, only to end up seeing the next subtitle line since the whole process is too slow.
I wanted to make a feature request for the Preview, but first wanted to make sure if there are still no improvements on that front.
Second question: can you now browse the home page and libraries in the landscape orientation on an iPhone? I often use it on a stand and having to turn it back between playbacks has been bothering me for a while.
For such an important touchpoint, it is bananas that the player interface is still so poor. That’s more important to me than anything they could change in the library.
iOS Preview Test Flight Release 2025.5.0 (859) makes my server crash every time i open the app. If I downgrade to previous version, the issue disappears.
@prekratic - Have you tried looking at your server logs? because, it seems you have the same issue as me. The build won’t load video (black screen), but if you look at the logs behind the scenes, it shows the server crashes.
I can confirm this. Though, it seems they’re not „gone“ (in the sense of a broken feature) but might be timing out to load. Some show up after 4-10 seconds. The ones that fail to load show up when I open the item again.
I believe Plex already downloaded clear logos to your server and uses that artwork in the preview app. While I also can’t wait for a local media asset option for clear logos, it appears those aren’t the issue.
Confirmed here as well. Logos aren’t showing up (at least not immediately). A few appear immediately but most take 5-10 seconds to show up (if they even do).
Today’s release of 2025.6.0 (844) has definitely improved load times on metadata content and navigation in the iOS app. It is still not as fast as the current app, but it is much better than the last few releases in my limited testing.
That said, I’ve noticed a few more issues that have arisen.
When trying to access the iOS Control Center with a swipe down gesture, the app itself is minimized into a Picture in Picture view or just crashes to the home screen itself and then control center will appear. Closing the control center leaves the device on the Home Screen.
When accessing Live TV from either the Plex channels or my local DVR, swipe L/R gestures do not work on the TV Guide to view upcoming content. Users need to tap on one of two small arrow touch targets under the playing video, and I’m noticing that they are not always responsive. Swiping across the guide is more intuitive on an iOS device.
Also in Live TV, rotating the device landscape disables vertical navigation on the device so that only the top half of the playing video window is displayed and there is no way to access the guide or full video window.
I’m noticing that Direct Play is somewhat inconsistent in this release. Some content will start in Direct Play and then convert over to Direct Stream. I’m seeing this with h264 content and a variety of audio codecs (AC3, EAC3, AAC), but it’s not happening with all media, or even with the same media after a stop and start.
