I mean, at this point the higher ups are fully aware of the issues that have plagued plex’s live tv offering for years, and they’ve made it painfully obvious that they couldn’t care less.
If you’re looking for a solution, Channels DVR or Emby would be your best bets. They both work as advertised, which is a lot more than I could say for Plex. Channels is pretty much the gold standard, while Emby is a close second. And plex is the kid sitting in the corner devouring paste like it’s going out of style.
While that obviously won’t work, I’d highly recommend filing a chargeback with your credit card company since the software clearly does not work as advertised.
Not saying you shouldn’t send a bill as well, but since nothing else seems to be getting their attention, maybe they’ll notice when they start having to pay chargeback fees too.
I’ve had to move over to Emby and it does very well, but it doesn’t have commercial skip. That is the only downfall of Emby that I know of. Channels DVR has commercial skip and does look solid, but has the monthly fee with no lifetime option.
Just wanted to chime in that this is my number one grievance with Plex as well. Can’t “Watch from start” using Shield TV or Website (firefox) clients.
Server = DS1520+ DSM 7.0-41890
Plex Version 1.24.3.5033
It is soooo obnoxious for NFL like others have said.
Not sure if it was a fluke or what but my 4k Google TV stick let me play a show from start this morning. Tuner is a HD Homerun Extend and server is Windows PMS Version 1.24.4.5081.
Edit: Must’ve been a fluke as it didn’t work today
I recently tried DVR-ing a football game. I hadn’t tried using Plex DVR for months - because I’ve given up. Thought maybe an update had finally resolved the issue. I tried starting the game about halfway through. I was given the options “Start from beginning” or “view live”. I definitely chose “start from beginning”. It went to Live. I saw the score of course, thus spoiling the first half of the game.
For those who said this issue has been going on for 6 months - it’s been going on for years. For those who says the problem is limited to Android TV - it isn’t. Plex DVR has been riddled with issues from day one, on any client I’ve tried to use - Android TV, Roku, LG Web OS, Windows. And here we still are.
Given that many people purchased a Plex pass primarily due to this feature that was released with so much fanfare, the fact that it has never worked correctly in all these years is borderline fraudulent.
Week 7 of the NFL season, and we’re still here asking for this to be fixed. And to think, I ALMOST went and bought a Shield TV Pro to replace my Fire TV thinking that would solve this problem.
After a couple times of ruining football scores I’ve gotten pretty good and remembering to mute my tv, look away, and know what buttons to hit to go to the beginning after giving it 10 secs or so to load the time shifting bar. Sad that this is still happening. It did work decently for a while. I think even last football season though it could be the one before now. I use both firestick and google tv sticks with Windows 10 PMS
You also have to remember to do this before the game goes beyond its end time on the grid. My experience has been that If not there is no way to even get to it before the recording is over.\ - note : if you have a workaround for this, please share it.
You just can’t watch football with friends on Plex even live as the app crashes randomly. - it’s embarrassing. even more so when you admit to them that you PAID for this…
Yes, user experience for sports fans on Plex Live TV/DVR seems to be pretty pathetic at the moment. All possible ways to watch reliably appear to be blocked.
Record with 60 minutes extra padding time - During the regular scheduled time for the event, you can choose watch live or watch from start. As many have noted, “Watch From Start” goes live for a lot of users, causing you to see the score and spoil it for you. When the regular scheduled end-time is reached (i.e. excluding the padding), the stream will likely fail. At that point, Plex removes the playback ui in the guide. With no way to start playback, you have to wait for the recording to completely finish to begin playback - like us old people had to with VCR tapes. By the time you can actually start watching, chances are that the result will get spoiled somehow (news/browsing/family getting home). I encourage Plex to tell me how any part of this doesn’t suck.
Watch Live and pause TV when needed - The current bug is that live tv aborts whenever the current program in the EPG ends. So when that happens and you have paused LiveTV for a total of 20 minutes for whatever reason, that last 20 minutes is gone for good. Sure you can start Live playback again, but you’re never going to see that 20 minutes that you missed.
And next month, I’d be telling you about completely new problems, but just as stupid, that make watching sports with Plex just HORRIBLE.
Edit: Less than a week and now it appears that Live TV is broken in the web player, It’s just never ending.
Hahah I done the same. During formula 1 race, I ask my son to rewind to beginning and let me know when I can start looking at the TV
First chance I get few hours at home alone, I’m getting rid of Plex DVR, I feel like an idiot
This is the new state of IT (devOPs) Push untested crap faster than ever before and let marketing team to run wild.
It happens in expensive enterprise software so don’t be surprised it happens with software like Plex. Vote with your dollar/time/views/clicks.
It’s amazing how this thread has kept on going, though saying that, it’s a shame it has too. I’ve just had to post up two more issues with regards to recorded TV and playback. One has an issues that files can play at ‘double time’ when commercials are skipped, the second is I can’t playback files in my Chrome browser!
… I really hope some time is ploughed into sorting out these sorts of problems. This ‘watch from the start’ issue might only be the tip of the iceberg if people are no longing the DVR function because of all the problems?
