How to get "keyboard and remote control input" to show up / enable on the Plex Server PC??

General Discussions
1

I have gotten Plex up and running on 4 PCs around the house, and a couple of Ipads and iphones. I have one last mystery to solve…

On every PC in the house (running WIndows 10), when I enter Plex and go into settings, there is an option up Interface to “keyboard and remote control input”. When I enable this, I am able to use some old Media Center remotes with Plex. Working great.

However, in my theater room, I am unable to get this functionality. The PC in this room is also the server. I have both Plex Server and a Plex Windows client loaded on it. I assume I should normally watch TV/movies from the client?

The problem is the options menu is completely different for both the theater room PC, both for Plex server and client. I can NOT find any option for “keyboard and remote control input”… and as a result, it is very difficult for me to control Plex using a remote control in the theater room. This PC is running Windows 7.

any ideas or suggestions???

thanks!

2

There are 4 different Plex clients available on Windows.
Perhaps you installed a different one on your HTPC than on the rest of your devices.

  • PMP
  • OpenPHT
  • Plex for Windows (this is not the same as PMP) from the Windows App Store
  • The Plex4Kodi Plugin
3

thanks Otto

I am using the PMP downloaded from Plex. Since this PC is running Windows 7, I am pretty sure I can’t use the Plex for Windows version…

I am definitely not using OpenPHT or the Kodi plug in…

great question though… Now that you know I am using PMP… Any thoughts on how to enable a remote control (e.g. windows remote) for this??

thank you!

4

@bgraff said:
I am using the PMP downloaded from Plex. Since this PC is running Windows 7, I am pretty sure I can’t use the Plex for Windows version…

Then you might have activated the different view mode.
There are 2:
one is the fullscreen, ‘tv’ mode with a design aimed at operation with a remote control.
The other is the windowed, ‘desktop’ view mode, which looks exactly like Plex Web.
You can switch the view mode on the main page.

Or by toggling the ‘fullscreen’ checkbox in the preferences.

Any thoughts on how to enable a remote control (e.g. windows remote) for this??

With ‘Windows remote’ you are referring to a Windows Media Center remote control, right?
Problem with these is, there are several different standards for them. To which one yours belongs is not easy to determine.
PMP does have basic support for some remote controls built in.

Take a look at the example inputmap keyboard.json, located under
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\PlexMediaPlayer\inputmaps\examples

Copy the keyboard.json file to one folder level higher
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\PlexMediaPlayer\inputmaps
Then you can start editing it.

Compare the commands listed in there to what appears in your PMP logfile when you press a button on your remote.
More detail in here: https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/216459997-Create-your-own-inputmap