This time I installed a system storage, installed the new DPc app (in that order) and I Sign-in. When I go to launch DPC (not from settings), it says: Plex Server address not responding. I remember there is a setting for that in the DPC settings, so I head over there, click “Manage” next to “Plex Address” and… Nothing. I click again and very quickly, “connecting…” flashes and disappears.
The only button in the settings for the DPC app that works is “Sign in”. The manage button just flashes “connecting…” or does nothing (except short loading at the bottom right of the screen). For the other buttons, not any visible response.
I was hoping that THIS was going to finally work, but unfortunately not. You have an idea what might be wrong?
But it worked earlier…
When I first set up emplexer it WORKED!
Then one day it said error 403.
Isn’t DunePlexCenter supposed to fix that error by supporting myPlex and using login? Again, the problem with that is that I am unable to change the settings for “plex address”. Do I need to reset my dune in order to do this?
I have found problem with authorization on DPC and I’ll fix it, but DPC works only inside local network.
If emplexer worked earlier you may be need to check your router settings or something close to it.
Unfortunately I am back with another issue. I solved the previous one by allowing my home IP to access the Plex server without authorization. The problem now is that when I click on any folder inside the app (Movies or TV Shows), it gives me the 404 error, no xml or something like that. I tries popup menu and select any of those, don’t work either. I installed emplexer 2 at this point. all was successful until I type my address, port and click save. After clicking save, dune produces no message and just highlights the address field. I am very sure the information I put in is correct, I re-edited it many times to make sure. Emplexer 1 doesn’t work because of xml error regarding folders and emplexer 2 doesn’t work because I cannot save address and port…
@Teslenkon said:
But it worked earlier…
When I first set up emplexer it WORKED!
Then one day it said error 403.
Do you have NFS server on your seedbox? Are you able to mount your seedbox shared folder to your Dune?
For DPC you need to have connection to your Plex server via some file-sharing protocol (SMB or NFS).
Emplexer can also utilize HTTP protocol, that’s why it was working for you. But it’s long gone, abandoned by author. So it’s either working or not, no support. But allowing your IP to access the Plex server without authorization should’ve help with error 403.
I am sorry that I never replied back. I did many reinstalls of emplexer, changed my “access IP” on my seedbox a few time, restarted it a few times and it started working yesterday. I am very happy and thank you for all the help.
Thanks for the great plugin you made. I’ve been a long time user of Emplexer and just last week noticed that you wrote an alternative. I just tried it out and works very well. I did not have much issues installing it, which I expect is related to the fact I was already used to Emplexer and a lot of constructs are similar.
I find DPC overall very stable and really like the support for music in addition to video. Below are some items I think may benefit from your attention. The fact I’m reporting these is a result of the great quality of your plugin and I hope my feedback will help you improve it.
As to some background. I have two Dune Smart D1 devices. Both updated to the latest firmware. Emplexer has been working stable on these to date. (With one exception, it seems a power cycle / reboot does not preserve the Emplexer installation properly. At first I though this was due to my USB memory stick I mounted on the inside USB slot (below the harddisk tray) might be malfunctioning. This is where I had 8GB of Sytem Storage. After a complete reset and reformatting of the device and moving the system storage to the SSD I have in there with only DPC installed the device was stable even after a power cycle. Then when I installed Emplexer, the problem showed up again. My custom skin, Emplexer and DPC were no longer properly installed. Not sure if anyone else has seen this issue.)
For testing and playing around with DPC I have these two plugins installed side by side. I tend to like DPC a bit more than Emplexer because of stability, the music support, and some interface choices you made.
If there is anything you would like me to test and send you any logs, I’m happy to help.
Thanks for the great plugin!
Here goes, I hope this format is useful for you:
Cryptic error when media not available.
I ran into an issue where it turned out I had removed the actual media data from my NAS, but had left the library in Plex. In this case DPC cannot find the data when you try to play the media and it then gives a very cryptic message (see screenshot). It might be good to improve the error handling in case the media cannot be found. (Emplexer was not very good at this either, it would give a message that the media was in a format it could not understand.)
Missing Movie / Series Episode info during playback
One of the features I like and use a lot in Emplexer is the information about the movie and / or the series episode during playback. If you press the Info or Enter button (both have identical behavior) then you get information about the movie at the bottom of the screen (see screenshot). This also shows briefly when the movie is starting to play. I could find no key that would bring this up in DPC. I would love to have the Info key in DPC to behave the same as Emplexer. Maybe the current info that is showing up using the Info key could be bound to another key (the dune key maybe, not sure this is available on all remotes) or make this a setting in the DPC setup.
It seems the Enter in DPC key gives the chapters, which I think is useful.
Emplexer movie information during playback from Info / Enter buttons:
DPC chapter (?) information during playback from Enter button:
Missing music listing by artist
It seems the music listing filters/selections are somewhat limited. I could not find a way to see all albums from a single artist for example.As it turns out “All Music” seems to do this.
I love the way you show the albums with the covers. This is something that I really missed from Emplexer. It would be great if the Albums could be sorted and grouped by artist. Now it seems they are simply alphabetically listed. If these could be listed alphabetically by Artist and then by Album, that seems to me a more natural way to navigate through these.
Timeouts
This may be a minor issue as I can work my way through these. DPC (and Emplexer as well) run into timeout issues when I access my libraries (or specific views, e.g. recently added) for the first time. My Plex library is quite extensive. I’m not sure what triggers the timeouts. It may be processing time at the Plex Server side (not likely) or processing time at the Dune end. I expect it may be related to having to download and process so much information. After some tries and retries it seems the local cache gets filled and it starts working fine and responsive.
So I am having an issue where I cannot access any of the settings to get DPC to work. I tried multiple versions from 091-094. I DL’d the ZIP file, placed it on my thumb drive and loaded it onto the Dune. Each time it loads fine , but when I first go to access DPC it tells me that it can’t make a connection. This is correct as I haven’t adjusted the settings, yet. I am able to put in my account info and it logs me in (and even indicates that PP is on). However, when I try to adjust any other settings I get nothing. So, I’m not able to set up connections etc…
I have a dune_plugins_logs folder on my thumb drive, but it is empty. There is no HD in my Dune (D1) just a flash for system storage that has been working flawlessly for years. Do I need to look for the logs there? or on my flash drive that I am installing from? If it’s on the Dune system storage, I think I need some help to get access to it from my Mac. I have tried all settings I can think of, but can’t seem to browse to it to see if the log file is there.
update: So I can browse to the Dune, All I see is the flash that’s plugged in to install plugins. No log files anywhere.
I had the original Emplexer working fine for years, and it decided to crap out on me today, which prompted me looking at DPC. I can currently browse to my shares, and play them, from the Dune file browser, and my NAS (UnRAID running latest PMS) is on my local network.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
update 2: For whatever reason, after not working all day, the old Emplexer began working again and I can now get to the settings of DPC. I don’t know why, but I’ll take it.
Hello @noipapoti
Thanks for detailed analysis and advises.
Little bit about: 1.Cryptic error when media not available.
Say true it’s unexpected situation for me, but you are right it can be. So I’ll try check file exists before start play. But this action may get some delay before playing movie. 2.Missing Movie / Series Episode info during playback
Dune plug-ins engine gets me two possibility to start movie
a. “Direct” it can play any formats include DVD, BD, ISO and etc, but without detail info before (like now in DPC)
b. “VOD” it works like you ask, but in this mode impossible to play images.
I think I’ll do switch in settings for choose suitable plug-in behaviour. 3.Missing music listing by artist
Maybe I didn’t catch idea.But id “All Music” -> select Artist -> follow all albums Isn’t it?
I’m planning release new version in April, I don’t promise with all changes above but in new version is speed-up (3 times) download thumbs engine. I hope it will avoids time-outs.
Just checking in… my DPC install working great as always. Plex has new feature called “Managed Users”. Think of it as being able to run the client device (roku, browser, etc) as a less privileged user. I can set restrictions on viewing and actions. Great for the user account to be running when just watching movies.
After enabling a new “managed user” on my server, I logged into each client and switched users so it defaults to new managed user. My main account requires PIN to use now. Roku switched fine, browser & Android too. No luck with Dune…
Is there plans for supporting Managed Users? The dune/DPC knows something has changed as it required me to authenticate to main account when I started it. But it has no way to switch to the new managed user.
The VOD playback indeed explains the behavior, this is what I have emplexer set to. I convert everything to .mkv for size and practicality. So no need for direct playing of disk images. Quite a few did not work properly anyway, but with newer firm ware this may have been resolved.
i want to start a “making of” of my movie - so i pressed the info button so i can see the infos and a button named “Trailer” - after pressing this button i can see the thumb of my making-of clip. But when i start this making-of clip - dune says “format not supported” (i named the making of clip like: Avatar-behindthescenes.mkv ---- ??? i can’t figure out the problem of these… without plex i can play the making of clip
sorry - there’s no log-file - DPC doesn’t produce a log file.
All i can see is the message “format not supported” when i press the ok button i can see this url: http://plexserverip:324…Plex Platform=chrome
The movie file names in my case:
The movie - DPC plays it perfectly…
NAS…\Konzerte\Jean Michel Jarre Live in your Living Room\Oxygene Live in your Living Room.mkv
The Making Of File - DPC failed playing…
NAS…\Konzerte\Jean Michel Jarre Live in your Living Room\Making Of-behindthescenes.mkv
I need just clarify how it works