Community members who are trying to help, generally gravitate and hang out in the forum sections in which they are most knowledgeable. The best way to get the appropriate help is to find the most closely related section for the issue you are having. For instance, if you’re having trouble installing Plex Media Server on a Windows computer, then the “Windows” forum in the Plex Media Server area would be the most appropriate place to post.
If you don’t know the most appropriate forum for your issue or topic, there are “General” sections you can post in. Be aware that they may be moved to a more appropriate section by a moderator or Ninja. (You can always find discussions and questions you’ve posted by looking in your forum profile and also configure your notifications.
General Help and How To
Please take a look at our Support Site before posting in a forum. The site provides documentation, guides, answers to frequent questions, and more; there’s a good chance that it already has the answers you seek. If you did not understand an article or got stuck on a step, please include the article URL and step that wasn’t clear when you post in our forums so that we can improve things for the next user.
Be specific about your issue or question when posting, especially if doing so in a general area. For instance, you’ll want to mention which app you’re using (Android, Plex Media Player, Roku, etc.) or where you’re running your Plex Media Server (iMac, Windows laptop, Synology NAS, etc.) if you’re running into a problem.
When another community member requests additional information to troubleshoot the issue, promptly providing those details will assist with resolving things as quickly as possible. If you need help with getting that extra information just ask.
Example:
- Good Detail: My file “/Media/Dr Who Season One Episode Four.iso” does not appear when I add it to my folder where I put all my movies.
- Insufficient Detail: My show file is not getting added.
How and Where to Report an Issue
We work hard to provide the best experience possible, but there will always be some issues that slip through. To help give you that “best experience possible”, we want to resolve these issues that do come up as quickly as possible and we appreciate the invaluable role that our users play in this. By helping gather the appropriate information and getting it to the correct people, all of you help make Plex a better product.
When you encounter something you believe to not be working correctly, please first search the forums to see if someone else has reported the same thing. Often, someone will have already posted about it, so you can add your own details as a reply. If you don’t see any existing reports, then you can make your own. Be sure to find the appropriate forum for the report. For example, if you experience something with the iOS app but not the Android app, the issue is most likely isolated to iOS (and so the iOS app forum would be appropriate). If you discover the same issue is happening in multiple Plex apps, the bug could instead be a Plex Media Server issue.
Of course, keep in mind that some issues you experience may, in fact, not be “bugs”. For instance, buffering playback could be caused by a slow or congested network connection or by an underpowered server. Just because it is happening to you does not mean it is happening to everyone. Computers and home networks are not identical; we each have unique setups with different equipment and software, which could all potentially affect things.
1. Choose where to post
For the best outcome, you should choose the most appropriate place to post and hit the New Topic button in that category. On the main forum page, there are multiple main categories listed, many of which have a few subcategories. For example:
- An issue about Plex Media Server not launching on Windows would be appropriate in
Plex Media Server > Desktops & Laptops. If it were instead about the server on a Synology NAS, thenPlex Media Server > NAS & Deviceswould be more appropriate. - A playback issue on iOS would be appropriate under
Plex Players > Mobile Deviceswhereas that type of issue on a Roku would fit underPlex Players > Streaming Devices. - Something about our free “Movies & Shows” streaming service would fit under
Online Media Sources.
2. Tag the post appropriately
When you create the forum topic, be sure to add appropriate tags. That’s what helps make sure that it gets appropriate visibility. For instance, if the issue only occurs on your Roku device, then include the roku tag. If it’s a problem with Plex Media Server and you’re running on Windows, then server-windows is appropriate.
You can add more than one tag to a topic and it’s often appropriate and beneficial to do so. (You should, of course, refrain from “spamming” an excessive number of tags.) You can find more information about tagging in our Tagging your Topics guide.
3. Provide relevant information to help investigate/troubleshoot
- The specific app and/or server version being used and device it is being used on
- The steps to reproduce (screenshots can help illustrate exactly what you see/experience, where appropriate)
- Provide “actual” and “expected” behavior
- Attach log files, when possible (see info on gathering log files) (In most cases, it’s useful to have logs from both the player app and the Plex Media Server, grabbed from both after reproducing an issue a single time)
Example:
(Location: Posted in the Plex Players > Mobile Devices category with the android-mobile tag applied.)
Title: Crash in Android app when browsing by folder
Description:
As soon as I updated Plex Media Server last night, my Android app began crashing when I browsed a library by folder.
Server version: 1.22.3.4392 on macOS 10.14.6 (previously on 1.22.2.4282)
App Version: Mobile Android 8.16.0
Device: Galaxy S20 Ultra
Steps to reproduce:
- Opened Android app on phone
- Navigated to Movie library
- Selected
Librarypivot to browse the library - Opened the filter menu for the library
- Filtered by
genre = Documentary
Expected:
Library should display only content with a genre of “Documentary”.
Actual:
The app crashes back to the system home screen. 
Logs: [link to uploaded mobile Android logs zip] Here are app logs, grabbed right after launching the app after the above crash.
