Absolutely not a good workaround if the recording is a sports event. You will almost certainly have the score spoiled because of this long standing problem. Live TV/DVR users appear to have been one of Plex’s lowest priorities for months/years now.
I’ve not actually tried this for a looooooong time, is this a newish fix? As this didn’t work on my Android TV before?
With the recent ‘new’ problems I’ve found, it feels like things are getting worse.
Thanks for at least coming back and letting us know things have not been forgotten about. I’ve had to add in a couple of new topics as I’ve not found other ‘new’ problems with regards to watching shows that have been ‘finished’ recorded. 
I spotted the web playback being an issue a few weeks ago. I’ve only just had the heart to post up a new topic on this, along with server logs
@DaveBinM - Can you provide a little insight into how Plex operates? I feel like that might calm the crowd a bit.
-Are all bugs assigned a ticket number and addressed one by one?
-Are bugs assigned higher and lower priorities?
-Are bugs worked on continuously until fixed, or do staff hop around from one problem to another?
-Is there one person at a time on each bug, or do several people tackle each bug?
You do a good job of popping in from time to time to say it is still being investigated, but, obviously a whole team has not been working on this for months/years. Our worry is this is a ticket that is technically open, but that no one is actually working on it…
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Obviously all the dev resources are being sunk into the ad supported “free” streaming movies + streaming live tv (revenue).
+the offline “Downloads” functionality, which assumes people already have a populated library of previously sourced material.
I do wonder if the (real time) viewing / time shifting area is potentially a niche requirement and NOT an item of priority for Plex as a product offering…
Which is a shame because i personally (and i assume a whole bunch of Plex pass subscribers) migrated to Plex from Windows MCE when it became unsupported, and my primary reason for doing so was to replace MCE as a DVR.
There is an opportunity here to be recognized as the best MCE replacement / DVR offering in the market, if only Plex could be improved to be as useful / reliable as MCE once was.
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While I do have some movies on a network drive, you are correct, I switched to PLEX to replace WMC when they stopped supporting it. WMC was sooooo good. I miss it…
Time shifting was perfect and INSTANT.
Channel surfing was INSTANT.
I NEVER had a failed recording.
The signal seemed to be stronger.
I will say, the GUI on Plex is very good, but that only matters if the software works well too.
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And right on cue I got another email from Plex to let me know about their “New for You on Live TV”. Having paid for a lifetime Pass, I guess that’s how they extract more revenue from me.
So the bottom line is that the product I paid for, the Plex Pass, had been falsely advertised as it (still) does not work as intended.
I’ve said this before, but the ability to time shift live TV is the most very basic component of a DVR service.
This has been dragging on and on and on.
What kind of operation are Plex running here exactly?
Maybe I’ll drop a line to the ASA here in the UK to give you guys a buck up regarding advertising falsehoods…
More effort is clearly being put into finding new ways to monetize the product (and annoy long time users) rather than making sure the core functions actually work!
Buyers beware… This is Plex support at it’s finest.
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I think we are at the point where refunds are warranted. I got the Plex Pass 16 months ago. I noticed the problems right away but decided to give Plex time since we were in the midst of Covid. By March, I’d finally lost patience and my posts reflected that. I was banned for 3 months. It is now October. I’ve waited 16 months and Plex has failed to deliver something I can use. I want my money back. I’ve asked and was denied. So I continue to complain. But @DaveBinM, what I want is my money back. If you can help make that happen, I will just go away. Failing that, I really feel that I have been defrauded and I’m not going to stop talking about it.
I totally understand everyone’s frustration, it does kind of feel like the higher-ups at Plex did take our money and run. Dave didn’t take the money and run as he just works for them. This being advertised as a paid feature and not being maintained is warrant for a refund in my opinion, but in the same token I get enjoyment out of Plex every night when I watch movies and TV (on the parts that do work). I asked a question of how they planned on supporting this in the future and was ignored. I’ll say it again a lifetime subscription is not sustainable! There really isn’t a solution to this except for reporting it to your local consumer division if you feel like you’ve been defrauded.
Live TV & DVR works nearly perfect with a few tweaks on the Roku platform. (build your own XMLTV guide like I do if you don’t like Plex EPG. eg: guide2go)
Watch from start works on Roku. Go buy one. Android has been broke for 1+ year so anyone who hasn’t switched platforms is just torturing themselves. Roku’s are CHEAP. The developers working on Roku are pro-active. This ecosystem is huge and Android is not the end all be all. I personally have both. I suggest others have a backup platform too!
The Second to latest Roku update caused server deadlocking but was immediately remediated per my forum post as this was extremely urgent to a stable server. Nobody can say the Roku developers are not performing above and beyond. This itself is enough reason to switch. So switch!
Plex totally supports Live TV but what we are working with here are individual groups of people working on specific platforms. It’s not just “Plex” so if you don’t care for how a group of developers are handling your platform eg: Android then you could try another platform with developers that take more kindly to the issues at hand.
Or everyone here could tag (instert Android developers here) in a big long chain to bring attention to this issue as a form of protest but I assure you they already know.
@kegbeach I agree, Just one thing so the reason why Roku works so well is I believe there is only one or two dedicated developers that work on Roku like @ljunkie. This person is a Roku Guru and truly makes Plex shine on this platform! I believe it’s because he also uses it for live TV which makes a huge difference. Just wanted to make sure credit was sent where it’s due 
.
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I’m not looking to buy new hardware. I’m very happy with my FireTV Stick (Lite) and my TV boxes. They work great. It’s Plex that’s the problem. And if they can’t make their software work on a supposed supported platform, they should just give me my money back. There are alternatives, such as NextPVR and Jellyfin, that work fabulously on all my hardware.
I still believe that the main issue is that programming resources have been primarily devoted to other things (mostly new products) for the last couple of years and that Live TV/DVR has gotten the shaft because of it.
For 3 years, Plex has allowed timeshifting for sports to completely suck, on all clients. Like many, I record extra time when recording live sports. But when the end time for the program in the EPG is reached, the playback UI is removed. There is no way to start playback until recording is completely finished – like I had to with VCR tapes. Plex has said that this is just not a priority item to fix and to me, that says all there needs to be said about their commitment to Live TV/DVR.
The alternative to switching to Roku is to pay $5/month, $54/year, or $119 lifetime for Emby (for which live/DVR is not free) - which works perfectly with Android (Fire, etc.) and has none of the issues on this and related posts. I made the switch, first for 1 month and within 2 weeks paid for lifetime. I cannot describe what a relief it is to have things just work, play from start, etc. I am now reading these forums occasionally as a lifetime Plex Pass member out of curiosity and as a reminder what a good move I made.
I had a problem installing on my NAS, and - get this - within 90 minutes the chief Emby developer had posted the solution in response to my post on their forum (on a Sunday!). Felt like I was in a different galaxy.
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Oh yeah Luke and his team over there are crazy good. Ebr is an Android coding God 
! I have both, but just wish Plex would get their act together. I’ve gone back and forth over the years.
I’m actually trying emby now - while the play from start works and countless other things that blow up on Plex, the DVR is not pain free. Different issues than Plex but not a clear winner so far. I’m very frustrated by Plex but it looks like Channels is the only true DVR ($$$ though).
Just to add on to another user with this issue. Like everyone has mentioned this is a huge issue with sports and trying to start the game late and be able to fast forward through commercials. Error happens on all my Android devices.
What kind of issues? I can only think of one legit problem I had with Emby over the last 1.5 years. It was already covered in their forums and their staff was still very quick to respond when I had a couple of questions.
