I have a rather general question which is, per the subject, does Plex actually offer genuine support for their product? I’m not just venting, I’m genuinely asking.
For example, as a paying customer, the DVR hasn’t really worked properly for over a year. I’ve engaged in discouraging conversations on here without knowingly encountering an actual support engineer. I’ve almost gotten used to this since, for the years I’ve been using Plex it has been subject to shipping broken releases that severely limited functionality in one way or another for several months at a time with no recognition or apology after the fact.
To be fair, it’s come a long way, it used to be barely usable when I started but then I was using the free version.
For the years I’ve been paying I don’t see a lot of value and am currently evaluating my position. For example, since the EPG debacle I’ve been aware of a spreadsheet where I was support to investigate the issue for Plex and enter the details so they could do nothing about it. It seems indistinguishable from an open-source project in terms of having to hack it all together myself except I’m paying for this. Now, it’s got to be well over a year since the DVR (the thing I pay for) has worked with any kind of reliability. I set things to record on the off chance that some of them might actually work. But there’s nowhere I can see to go with this situation, no meaningful way to escalate it or actually get someone’s attention.
There are helpful folks here but virtually every issue seems to involve the user doing all the leg work. Now, I used to work in software so I understand the need for information, but it’s all try this, and what if that, no-one ever takes ownership of an issue. There is, to my knowledge, any way to raise an issue formally, no way to be assured of an official response, apart from some users, tagged as employees who seem to appear occasionally, apparently at random, and seemingly in their spare time.
My current issue is that I deleted my DVR and can’t re-add it because it doesn’t recognise my postcode. There are at least two threads on this issue, dating back a year, neither of which has a solution or any meaningful engagement from Plex. But that’s not my real issue right now - I’m trying to think more fundamentally and decide whether or not to just give up on it because none of what I’m describing what I think can meaningfully be called support. So why pay?
So I have two questions:
Does Plex actually offer any support for the paid service?
Is there any comparable alternative to Plex?
Server Version#: 1.19.1.2701
Player Version#: 4.22.3
Tuner Make/Model: HD HomeRun CONNECT
Guide/Lineup name: Don’t know what this means - I’m in the UK
Using XMLTV?: No
Channel number/Name:
That you have to answer yourself. Plex Pass does not guarantee access to support, you probably know that. There are employees around in the forum and they do answer and pass on information to the devs.
So yes there is support but obviously not to a level that you wish.
The alternatives are easily found via google, the biggest one in green also has the support over forums. Since they have a smaller user base, questions are often answered more quickly. If this makes the service better overall is up to you to decide.
I checked your history and have only seen a single thread about DVR. You had one reply which did probably not satisfy you.
I would suggest to open a new thread with more details especially server logs when a wrong recording happened. @sa2000 is the guy in charge of the guide, which might be the source of your issue (or not, hard to tell).
There’s no support, and if you speak in a way that can even be interpreted as negative about all of the many many problems with Plex, you’ll be mobbed by fanboys who worship Plex because they use it to sell pirated access to content (what type of idiot pays for this service, I don’t know). It’s a lose/lose. sa2000 is actually pretty great, but I wouldn’t expect anyone else to help you, and the fanbois are rabid around here. May gawd help us all.
Certain player apps do have a charge which is used to defer the development cost.
Plex Pass helps pay for:
a. Development of PMS (Engineering dept)
b. Codecs
c. Plex.tv servers
d. People like SA, a few others, and myself.
A survey was sent out offering a higher level of support than the existing “Community Based Forum” model which asked if folks would support a “Subscription” or “Per case” mode or even embed the support cost in licensing Plex or Plex Pass.
The overwhelming result of that mailing: NO!
Given Plex must be a for-profit company and must minimally make some profit just to keep the lights on,
Just how far must that $5/month be stretched ?
Codec prices are fixed by the patent holders but subject to change each renewal
Operations costs continue to rise.
Staff still needs to eat.
Would people be willing to pay for a server software license ?
Survey results concluded another emphatic NO.
Would people be willing to pay for an additional support level?
Again: another emphatic NO.
If the “support” expectation is based on how a company like Apple or HP or others given they manufacture tangible products which MUST be purchased,
I assert that expectation cannot be applied here until such time as:
everyone starts buying a license to use Plex (like everyone buys a license to use Microsoft products)
-or-
there is sufficient need to justify the costs to establish a “support center” (N.R.E.) in some form of Subscription or Per-Case payment.
It’s unfortunate but financial resources can only be stretched so far.
I appreciate the well-reasoned response. It’s clear that you as a company have given this a lot of thought. But let me make two points in response.
Firstly, speaking as a former software engineer, there are serious quality assurance issues in your development process. Granted the service you’re trying to deliver is complex, but the number of breaking changes I’ve experienced is just too high, and the response time for what seem to be widespread failures is just too slow.
Secondly, although there are very salient reasons for why you don’t offer support, that decision will continue to function as an absolute constraint on how large a market you can ultimately reach. No matter how valid the reasons, Plex will never reach much beyond the nerds and hobbyists so long as every (too frequent) issue requires hours of work, dredging up log files, compiling patterns of failure, filling in online spreadsheets, and engaging in prolonged discussions with fellow sufferers. My own circumstances mean that I haven’t spent the hours trying to sort out the DVR issues on my own, so that I’ve had a barely functional system for the better part of a year. That means that my decision is likely to be to drop Plex. Plex operates on the edge of consumer electronics space but that’s where it seems destined to stay because I don’t expect to have to engage in all of those diagnostics to make my TV work, or my phone.
I don’t pretend to have an answer of course, but thank you for helping me clarify my own understanding.
I switched over to using Channels DVR product instead of Plex DVR. It has different limitations (only supports SD HomeRun products, no Roku client…) but overall has been an excellent DVR product for me. I don’t use the Live TV part at all so I can’t speak to that.
It can be integrated with Plex so that you can use the strengths of Plex (remote multi-user support for instance) to serve up the files that Channels DVR creates. You just have to be aware of the limitations of integrating the two. Such as you cannot delete a Channels file from the Plex interface and have it reflected correctly in the Channels interface.
It also integrates TV Everywhere support to expand the sources for recording.
Their support is also based around their forums but with the reduced scope of the product they have been exceptionally responsive. Check out their forums.
I am a recently-retired software & systems engineer in the aerospace industry (35+ years) focused on aircraft and orbital systems.
My contributions here at Plex focus on Linux-based systems at the OS level on a part-time basis. This includes the desktop and NAS platforms.
My primary support areas are server-linux, server-synology, and server-qnap.
I do not work in the Engineering department. I am split between Customer Support and Continuing Integration (compiling & packaging)
I cannot, nor will not, engage in any discussions about what Plex is (in the grand view) or what it might achieve.
As an engineer, I too see the issues.
I see that DVR has problems.
I see the other areas which need serious attention as well.
The assertion has been raised that Plex won’t achieve because it’s too slow to fix.
In response, I ask:
How does a company resolve issues in a timely manner when there are insufficient staff resources due to the lack of paying customers?
This is the dilemma which every company faces. Plex is no different.
“Timely” to one person is “Unacceptable slow” to another and “Amazingly quick” to yet another.
It’s a No-Win scenario. Everyone wants it their way and they want it now ( here it comes back to the money again) but nobody is willing to pay for it.
There are 3 ways to develop
Slow - and right
Fast - and usually or completely unusable
Half-fast - which nobody wants.
Please choose only one.
If you’ll excuse me, I do need to get back to my work.
I saw the thread and thought I could contribute but this is clearly a bigger discussion than I have time for.
I’m trying to bring my tasking to a reasonable stopping point before end of the day.
I have to comment on the times I have needed support. I get the feeling that the cases that support looks into are triaged according to some basic buckets.
What is an absolute break fix?
What may impact the most number of people?
What is low hanging fruit?
If your problem will be hard to diagnose because it may be localized to your particular use case, your issue may never be resolved because you are one person. Sorry. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few - or the one (As Spock would say).
I had a problem last year with music scans basically shutting down my server. Chuck asked for some logs. Why? Because there is literally no other way for them to know what is going on othewise. So over the course of the next few months we went back and forth with me sending him logs and him sending me alpha and test versions of the server to see if the issue got better.
Why all the attention? Because I wasn’t the only one who had the problem. You could look around the forumandfind multiple people with the same issue. I just got the attention because I was very responsive with my testing results, and my system was an extreme version of what was causing the problem (I have waaayyy too many audio files). So if they could get it to work on mine, the rest of the world would be a breeze.
And eventually they figured it out. So I’m a happy camper. If it was a problem that only I was having and therefore it prbably wasn’t going to be resolved in a timely manner or at all, I would be upset. But I don’t use the DVR, I have YoutubeTV and it has a 9 month unlimited DVD as part of the package so I don’t need PLEX’s DVR.
I hope you get your issue resolved one day.
Just my 2 cents - I understand the difference between community supported and pay supported. My frustration and at least part of that expressed in the OP is the ‘tracking’ and ‘acknowledgment’ of issues. If something like a issue/problem tracking system could be implemented I think that would be very acceptable for most people. Most of my frustration is not knowing acknowledgement, owner(ship) and priority of my problem.
I am joying what is, I hope, your upbeat outlook on what were some bad dark days in another life. I worked on the other side of that table, if you know what I mean?
If I were to list all that’s changed since 1.15.0 , I’d be here for the next few hours.
In short.
Plex Cloud, without warning, became unaffordable unless the price of a PlexPass rose dramatically. That could have been communicated MUCH better.
Don’t know what happened to VR. I think it was at the vendor request to do and then the vendor lost interest. Communication with everyone should have been better.
PMS 1.15.0 was that first step in having an agnostic build system (which replaced the bank of dedicated computers; one on each OS) which is capable of producing every binary form and packaging needed. Not only was it predicable, it was repeatable across all platforms with ease.
The kinks got ironed out. It took time because it was crafted internally. There was nothing commercially available to do the job needed.
Software building went from the ‘favorite saucepan, frying pan, cookie sheet, and microwave’, into something like an InstaPot which will do it all with a whole row of them lined up waiting to crank out as needed. The recipes needed a lot of tweaking.
You fairly point out the QA. It was lacking for a LONG time. That’s been a painful growth that any startup company goes through. (from garage project, to first office but still wearing your cutoffs and sandals, to blue jeans and dress shirt, to (what’s happening now) proper suit & tie to the “WHAT!!! We need TE / QA !!!”
If you could see internal work flow and how accountability is now being brought into the equation, you’d know where it’s all headed. For the first time since I’ve joined the company, I feel as if there is someone in management who understands the Test Engineering / QA equation and has both the know-how and experience bringing the rest into the fold. That’s happening now. Keep your eyes open and watch. The latest builds are already starting to reflect it. If you saw the process I now follow just to release a change in the packaging, you’d be shocked. I have one change which has been in test & closed beta now for 2 weeks. It was a healthy overhaul but not a full rewrite.
Summary: No more A-429 crashes while at V2 and starting to rotate ; full to the gills with pax, fuel and cargo.
You’re going to see the cycle time lengthen. It’s already starting. The reason for this is because of T.E. It is happening. Just like turning a 74; it takes time. You have to start every change way ahead of when you need it where you want it (e.g. On the mark in all regards required to put it down ON the numbers when you get there). Same thing applies at Plex.
in general? I feel very good about what’s happening but I also come from the MIL-STD world too where we have SOW, SRS, SDP, STP, to name a few.
Hope that makes sense. I also hope I haven’t glazed over folks asking “What is he smoking?”
Hmmm… after reading through this thread, one significant (and overlooked) issue stands out for me.
How is it that plex don’t have enough resources to improve the software development process yet, there seems to be ample capacity to create new obscure features (mostly ones which nobody really wants).
What’s more important, working on a fix for an issue that is impacting thousands of paying customers or developing something completely new that could be regarded as “nice to have” or “novel” just because a developer had a light-bulb moment?
New features attract new people that bring new money. With the Movie & TV VOD feature there is also now a completely new type of stream of income from license owners.
Most people buy their lifetime Plex pass once…
