How do I play a specific piece of media remotely through an HTTP request (playMedia command)?

Dev Community Dev/API Corner
1

Hello,

I’m looking for some help with playing a specific piece of media (TV Show episode or Movie) remotely through an HTTP request. I’m currently using the following PHP API: github.com/nickbart/php-plex.

Here is the code I use to initialize the API:

$servers = array(
    'jaszzz' => array(
        'address' => '[SERVER_IP]'
    )
);

$plex = new Plex();
$plex->registerServers($servers);

$server = $plex->getServer('jaszzz');
$client = $plex->getClient('[ROKU_UNIQUE_ID]');

$playback = $client->getPlaybackController();
$application = $client->getApplicationController();

I’m able to successfully call the Pause and Play functions:

$playback->pause();
$playback->play();

The API generates the below URLs:

http://[SERVER_IP]:[SERVER_PORT]/system/players/[ROKU_IP]/playback/pause
http://[SERVER_IP]:[SERVER_PORT]/system/players/[ROKU_IP]/playback/play

Here is the code I’m trying to use to get a movie entity within my server, and start playback at the beginning of the entity:

$section = $server->getLibrary()->getSection('Movies');
$movie = $section->getMovie('[MOVIE_NAME]');

$application->playMedia($movie);

The API generates the below URL:

http://[SERVER_IP]:[SERVER_PORT]/system/players/[ROKU_IP]/application/playMedia?key=/library/metadata/17150&path=http://[SERVER_IP]:[SERVER_PORT]/library/metadata/17150

When I go to this URL manually, I get the following XML response:

<Response code="2000" status="HTTPError: ">
<Traceback>
Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Resources/Plug-ins-9394c87/Framework.bundle/Contents/Resources/Versions/2/Python/Framework/components/runtime.py", line 843, in handle_request result = f(**d) File "/usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Resources/Plug-ins-9394c87/System.bundle/Contents/Code/playerservice.py", line 67, in process_legacy_remote_command result = cmd(**kwargs) File "/usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Resources/Plug-ins-9394c87/Framework.bundle/Contents/Resources/Versions/2/Python/Framework/code/sandbox.py", line 19, in _apply return apply(f, args, kwargs) File "/usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Resources/Plug-ins-9394c87/Framework.bundle/Contents/Resources/Versions/2/Python/Framework/api/playerkit.py", line 395, in f return req.content File "/usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Resources/Plug-ins-9394c87/Framework.bundle/Contents/Resources/Versions/2/Python/Framework/components/networking.py", line 265, in content return self.__str__() File "/usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Resources/Plug-ins-9394c87/Framework.bundle/Contents/Resources/Versions/2/Python/Framework/components/networking.py", line 243, in __str__ self.load() File "/usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Resources/Plug-ins-9394c87/Framework.bundle/Contents/Resources/Versions/2/Python/Framework/components/networking.py", line 181, in load f = self._opener.open(req, timeout=self._timeout) File "/usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Resources/Plug-ins-9394c87/Framework.bundle/Contents/Resources/Platforms/Shared/Libraries/urllib2_new.py", line 444, in open response = meth(req, response) File "/usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Resources/Plug-ins-9394c87/Framework.bundle/Contents/Resources/Platforms/Shared/Libraries/urllib2_new.py", line 557, in http_response 'http', request, response, code, msg, hdrs) File "/usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Resources/Plug-ins-9394c87/Framework.bundle/Contents/Resources/Platforms/Shared/Libraries/urllib2_new.py", line 482, in error return self._call_chain(*args) File "/usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Resources/Plug-ins-9394c87/Framework.bundle/Contents/Resources/Platforms/Shared/Libraries/urllib2_new.py", line 416, in _call_chain result = func(*args) File "/usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Resources/Plug-ins-9394c87/Framework.bundle/Contents/Resources/Platforms/Shared/Libraries/urllib2_new.py", line 565, in http_error_default raise HTTPError(req.get_full_url(), code, msg, hdrs, fp) HTTPError: HTTP Error 400: Bad Request
</Traceback>
</Response>

I read here that “playMedia” is a “playback” command, rather than an “application” command. I swapped out the commands in the API so that application was replaced with playback - generated URL below:

http://[SERVER_IP]:[SERVER_PORT]/system/players/[ROKU_IP]/playback/playMedia?key=/library/metadata/17150&path=http://192.168.0.117:32400/library/metadata/17150

Resulting XML response:

<Response code="2000" status="BadStatusLine: ">
<Traceback>
Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Resources/Plug-ins-9394c87/Framework.bundle/Contents/Resources/Versions/2/Python/Framework/components/runtime.py", line 843, in handle_request result = f(**d) File "/usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Resources/Plug-ins-9394c87/System.bundle/Contents/Code/playerservice.py", line 67, in process_legacy_remote_command result = cmd(**kwargs) File "/usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Resources/Plug-ins-9394c87/Framework.bundle/Contents/Resources/Versions/2/Python/Framework/code/sandbox.py", line 19, in _apply return apply(f, args, kwargs) File "/usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Resources/Plug-ins-9394c87/Framework.bundle/Contents/Resources/Versions/2/Python/Framework/api/playerkit.py", line 395, in f return req.content File "/usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Resources/Plug-ins-9394c87/Framework.bundle/Contents/Resources/Versions/2/Python/Framework/components/networking.py", line 265, in content return self.__str__() File "/usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Resources/Plug-ins-9394c87/Framework.bundle/Contents/Resources/Versions/2/Python/Framework/components/networking.py", line 243, in __str__ self.load() File "/usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Resources/Plug-ins-9394c87/Framework.bundle/Contents/Resources/Versions/2/Python/Framework/components/networking.py", line 181, in load f = self._opener.open(req, timeout=self._timeout) File "/usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Resources/Plug-ins-9394c87/Framework.bundle/Contents/Resources/Platforms/Shared/Libraries/urllib2_new.py", line 438, in open response = self._open(req, data) File "/usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Resources/Plug-ins-9394c87/Framework.bundle/Contents/Resources/Platforms/Shared/Libraries/urllib2_new.py", line 456, in _open '_open', req) File "/usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Resources/Plug-ins-9394c87/Framework.bundle/Contents/Resources/Platforms/Shared/Libraries/urllib2_new.py", line 416, in _call_chain result = func(*args) File "/usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Resources/Plug-ins-9394c87/Framework.bundle/Contents/Resources/Platforms/Shared/Libraries/urllib2_new.py", line 1217, in http_open return self.do_open(httplib.HTTPConnection, req) File "/usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Resources/Plug-ins-9394c87/Framework.bundle/Contents/Resources/Platforms/Shared/Libraries/urllib2_new.py", line 1190, in do_open r = h.getresponse() File "/usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Resources/Plug-ins-9394c87/Framework.bundle/Contents/Resources/Platforms/Shared/Libraries/httplib_new.py", line 1030, in getresponse response.begin() File "/usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Resources/Plug-ins-9394c87/Framework.bundle/Contents/Resources/Platforms/Shared/Libraries/httplib_new.py", line 431, in begin version, status, reason = self._read_status() File "/usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Resources/Plug-ins-9394c87/Framework.bundle/Contents/Resources/Platforms/Shared/Libraries/httplib_new.py", line 419, in _read_status raise BadStatusLine(line) BadStatusLine: HTTP/1.1 0
</Traceback>
</Response>

Roku logs and Plex logs yield no helpful information that I can see. Let me know if you need any other information to help me with this.

Thanks in advance for your help!

2

Is this the correct forum for a question like this?

I am trying to develop a Google Assistant action for controlling Plex, so I figured Third Party Dev was the best place.

3

@Jaszzz said:
Is this the correct forum for a question like this?

I am trying to develop a Google Assistant action for controlling Plex, so I figured Third Party Dev was the best place.

Have you had any luck with this? I am trying to do something similar with a Google Assistant action going through to a python script and finally to Chromecast. I can get the media details screen to come up on my chromecast, but I seem to be missing the command to actually play specific media. Not sure if it’s related.

4

No luck so far…hoping someone else on this forum will respond. I’m hoping Plex didn’t remove the ability to execute the playMedia command.

5

Bump.

Is there a different forum I should post this in?

6

Hey, so I ended up having to abandon my chromecast project and peeked back in here. I noticed that the php api you’re using hasn’t been updated in 4 years. I don’t know if there’s a newer one (I haven’t writen in php in almost that long myself. lol.), but I think that was before plex used “playQueues” and I wonder if that’s why you’re having an issue. The python api spits out an address like:

http://{PLAYER_ID}:{PLAYER_PORT}/player/playback/playMedia?key=/library/metadata/{MEDIA_ID}&offset=0&X-Plex-Client-Identifier={CLIENT_ID}&machineIdentifier={SERVER_ID}&address={SERVER_IP}&port={SERVER_PORT}&protocol=http&path=http://{SERVER_IP}:{SERVER_PORT}/library/metadata/{MEDIA_ID}&X-Plex-Token={AUTH_TOKEN}

Quite a different url from what you’re ending up with.