Server Version#: 1.43.2.10687-720010687 (Synology)
Player Version#: 2026.12.0 (971050218) (Amazon FireTV Cube)
I have used Plex successfully for at least 5 years. Prior to yesterday, I had not experienced issues.
After a forced update to a new player yesterday, the vast majority of my videos will no longer play. The files are being accessed but the player remains in a paused/frozen state. This remains an issue even after rebooting my firetv cube.
With no way to play files, this update has effectively turned my plex server into a virtual brick.
Update: for no apparent reason, the videos began playing without intervention or adjustment. Then, the next day, videos stopped working again.
PS. I’d like to chime in and say how much I dislike the new Plex player. It doesn’t feel like adjustments requested by users.
The left menu worked perfectly. Now, several clicks are required for the same task.
Previously, an audio Playlist could be started and navigated away from while it contined to play. Now, the Playlist stops.
Previously, Sweet Fades worked as advertised. For those that didn’t? It was easily turned off. Now, Sweet Fades are just MIA.
The back button no longer works as expected.
Cannot exit from several screens from within the player. The only option is to press the Home button on the remote and then stop the plex player and clear the cache. A lot of effort simply because the back button no longer works as expected.
Can no longer find an option to exit the player. Another place where the back button is missed.
“Scan library files” cannot be accessed.
No longer an option to view lyrics when playing music.
… and more.
Plex corporate seems to have spent effort in breaking something that wasn’t broken.
I am certain that I could expand on this list, but what would be the point? Plex has already let me know that support is not provided. Just drop a line in the forum which might be reviewed and might be compiled into future releases. Based on this latest “upgrade”, I’m not holding my breath waiting on good things.
What I did do is installed EMBY server on my Synology NAS and the EMBY player on all of my devices. Install and setup was easy. Now, I’ll test it out in the coming days.
I have the exact same issue. Everything was working fine for years and suddenly I can’t play videos. I did however work out that if you go into the playback settings after loading a video and then select a lower quality stream then it works. So it seems there is a problem with direct play but transcoding works OK.
Well a transcoded steam is lowest-common-denominator level media. If the player couldn’t handle that it wouldn’t work for their FAST service, and you can bet they tested that before they shipped it.
Was looking forward to this update. Havent received it yet. It apparently is way worse off than my Roku app. I like the UI and navigation doesn’t bother me, but the bugs, lag and just not playing is not acceptable. Hopefully its all hands on deck to fix this at Plex, but I doubt it. A year and a half of this is getting old fast.
As mentioned (above), I’ve used PLEX successfully for years. However, these latest updates have caused me to loose confidence in PLEX corporate. It is obvious that no testing was done before the changes were rolled out. I found gross deficiencies within 5 minutes of using the update. There is just no excuse that can be offered for such oversight.
My EMBY server finished scanning my content and I’ve familiarized myself with the player. In summary: the EMBY player worked right out of the gate.
Others might seek a different solution to their PLEX problem such as Jellyfin, Kodi, etc. I chose EMBY because it offers an easy install on a Synology NAS. EMBY offers solutions for other servers as well. So, it could be a choice for you also.
It is truly amazing that PLEX corporate, with more than 200 employees and greater than $63 million in revenue last year, can fail so miserably. On that point, I could write commentary for the next few hours but I’ll sign off with just one …
There’s no rebounding from this. PLEX has lost this user and they’ve given me no reason to look back. Their competition is only one-click away and it cost me nothing. I spent more time writing in this thread than I did installing a working alternative.
If you haven’t received it yet, you might want to reserve judgement until you do. Based on your other comments in other threads, you seem happy with the Roku implementation. It may be that you’ll be completely happy with the Fire TV one. (There were many, many, many negative comments about the new experience on Roku when it rolled out, which continue to this day.)
