How To: Notifying Users of New TV Episodes + Movies

Dev Community Dev/API Corner
1

(Updated - 5/5/2015)

 

IFTTT.com has discontinued their Facebook Groups channel so this no longer works. I'm looking for another solution. If anyone has one, please let us know.

 

 

 

(Updated for Trakt.tv 2.0 - 3/6/2015)

 

Hey guys,

 

Thought I would post this since this is something I've been wanting from Plex for a while.

 

Here's a How To guide that will help you alert your users when new Movies or TV Shows are added to your Collection.

 

There are several ways to do this (http://www.plexnotify.com/ + PushaLot) but this tutorial not only has the alert to users, but also publishes the meta data along with Posters/Images for the new content.

 

This How To will use the following:

 

Steps:

  1. Install trakt Un-Official Plugin to your Plex Media Server (PMS)
  2. Sign Up for a Trakt.tv Account
    • You have to purchase VIP account access to get access to RSS feeds of your content
  3. Setup the trakt Un-Official Plugin on your PMS
    • Here are the settings that I use
    • ![post-1723-0-94966500-1417423589.png|229x500](upload://oQxlf4tOP7DZJCGhFvomawcJ0fD.png)
  4. Get your RSS feed from Trak.tv
    • There are several RSS feeds available to VIP members, but the one we'll use for this tutorial is the "Recently Collected" RSS feed.
    • Go to  your user in the top right and click on "Collection"
    • For VIP members you'll find the RSS feed by clicking on the RSS icon
    • ![post-1723-0-78986200-1425673536.png|507x500](upload://uZm3MvfenPBT9AlePlYE9XDhI8Q.png)
  5. Setup a Private or Public Facebook Group (or whatever you want to be your final delivery)
    • should be self explanatory
  6. Setup an IFTTT recipe with the following settings
    1. If THIS -> choose "Feed" (RSS)
    2. Choose a Trigger -> "New Feed Item"
    3. Paste your RSS Feed from Trakt.tv
    4. Choose a Trigger (I chose Facebook Group and authorized IFTTT to access a private group of just me and my plex users)
      • I chose "Post a Link" with the following settings
      • ![post-1723-0-55995000-1425674404.jpg|183x500](upload://yB77Y6rLOTqpATYwWrCztMN37S.jpg)

         

    5. Use the following Elements (check the Trakt.tv API for others)
      • EntryURL (link to the Movie or TV Episode)
      • EntryImageURL (Link to the Poster or Episode Image)
      • EntryTitle (Name of the Movie or TV Show - Episode Name)
      • EntryContent (Synopsis of the Movie or TV Episode)
    6. Save the Recipe and keep it private (you don't want to share your API key with everyone)
       
  7. Turn on the Recipe & Sync Trakt using the Un-Official Plugin
    1. Just a heads up, the trigger will only happen when there is NEW content added so if you want to test if this is working you need to add new content that hasn't previously been synced to Trakt.tv OR delete an item from your Trakt.tv collection online and re-sync from the unofficial app

 

Here's an example of the end result!

 

![post-1723-0-94544800-1417424925.png|237x500](upload://jpdTDm2gZNl3NpW150F2EKg6izd.png)

 

 

Enjoy!

2

Really have no use for this but this is excellent work. I can see a ton of people needing and using this.

3

Just tried this and it works pretty well! trakt.tv can be a tiny bit flaky sometimes so there's the possibility that some new additions will be missed, but otherwise this is a great way of letting my Plex users know when stuff is being added without spammy emails from Plex Notify or them having to login to Plex. All of them are on facebook and can disable / enable group notifications as they like.

I've created a separate group for those users who are only interested in the movies, you just change the API RSS feed address a little. There's definitely more potential automation to be done here!

Thanks!

4

Agree, the hardest part was getting to an RSS feed of my content. Now that I have that, I have a ton of things going on through IFTTT.


-Weekly Newsletter

-push notifications using pushalot

-social updates based on what I’m watching on Plex

Etc.



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5

This is VERY cool.  Thank you for your hard work.......errrr or rather sharing your technical skills! :)

6

pretty cool but if this is not limited to Plex Pass holders then why post in a Plex Pass only forum? I can move it if you would like.

7

Ah, didn’t realize I had. I just always depend my time here. Feel free to move it. Thanks!



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8

How are you doing a weekly newsletter? Is that another IFTTT recipe or something else?

9

Yes, it’s another IFTTT Recipe



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10

Either IFTTT sucks or trakt has problems but i keep getting:

Trigger Initialization Timeout2 minutes ago
An error with Feed prevented your Recipe from working. After five consecutive errors your Recipe will reset.
 
Update: After 15 retries it works :P
11

Yeah I think that trakt.tv can sometimes get a little under pressure, especially the API. But ifttt usually gets it in the end. My feed on facebook has been working great all week, albeit sometimes with a little delay when trakt.tv is going slow.

12

Im was hoping plexwatch could support facebook groups directly some day, or another way to post automatically to facebook groups. This here is a good solution but not perfect (by using both trakttv and ifttt as the middle man).

13

What is it missing? What could make it better?



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14

brilliant thanks for this!!

15

as an alternative/addition to this, plexReport does a weekly new content email to all users/shared users. just an fyi if you were not aware of it.

16

as an alternative/addition to this, plexReport does a weekly new content email to all users/shared users. just an fyi if you were not aware of it.

To bad that Plexreport sends out emails instead of pushover or to fb/twitter, and needs Ruby.

17

Well, trakt.tv have updated their site and API and the RSS feed URL no longer works.

Anyone know what the new API feed URL should look like?

Also, slightly worrying is that trakt now mentions viewing RSS feeds for any user in their "VIP features" list, so I'm wondering if the RSS feed we've been using is now a paid feature.

18

Well, trakt.tv have updated their site and API and the RSS feed URL no longer works.

Anyone know what the new API feed URL should look like?

Also, slightly worrying is that trakt now mentions viewing RSS feeds for any user in their "VIP features" list, so I'm wondering if the RSS feed we've been using is now a paid feature.

I would also like to know if there's a way to get this working again with the new trakt.tv site.

19

I've posted the question in the Trakt.tv VIP forum.

20

It also appears that the sync functionality of the Trakt Plex Plugin isn't working either, but the dev is working on it and will have it updated soon.

https://forums.plex.tv/topic/102818-rel-trakt/?p=806890