Not the first who took the opportunity to vent in an over-the-top manner and surely not the last.
1 Like
Reading back through the posts here since I shared what was happening internally,
I am a bit dismayed.
I busted hump to get a lot of things moving.
I took the heat from this forum.
I went and tested everything I have here to see how it’s really working.
I went back and pushed on things that were still broken after being “fixed”.
That having been said,
I have a request:
If you are venting frustration at the premature release of the feature,
Please say you’re venting at the top of your post.
It will make it a lot easier for me to discern problems from shared frustration (which is TOTALLY understandable)
If threatening to leave Plex over the feature because it’s not finished – Just leave.
Making a show over your departure serves NO purpose because your mind is probably already made up.
It saves everyone the time and trouble of reading the idle threats
9 Likes
An ETA from Plex would go a LONG way to settling everyone down. Even a rough ETA would help, like by next [date] we hope to have IOS client done, by [date] we anticipate having Roku client completed. We won’t hold you to precise target dates and milestones, but if it looks like the dates will change significantly, please let us know.
Also, I, for one, would like to know where the Plex team feels like their processes failed. It may be too early for the company to already have had a post-mortem / after action review, but many of us just want to know it won’t happen again because next time you will [fill in the blank].
From an outsiders point of view, your beta testing model failed. Big Time. As far as I can tell, there was no feedback solicited from users outside your company prior to this release. These kind of things should have shown up before the massive release.
Also, the communication from your company has been, shall we say, a little lacking, not forthcoming, [insert euphemism here]. I realize you are in fire mode right now, but I hope that you’ll be addressing some core problems when things have settled down some.
I appreciate that you are “busting your hump” and being an advocate for us. I’m sorry that you felt the heat as I’m sure there were many people at Plex involved with the decisions that led to this. On the other hand, I’m grateful to the community here that put the heat on, as I feel Plex would not be responding so quickly without it.
If Plex would please just keep us informed, a lot of the anger and frustration would subside.
5 Likes
I appreciate your dedication and hard work. You won’t be able to please some folks no matter what you do.
2 Likes
If I were to summarize what I’ve read here, I would say this feature should work something like this:
- Master on/off switch for the Discover feature.
If someone turns the feature on, then a choice of the following:
- Only show discovered content from subscribed online service
OR
-
Show discovered from all services, prioritized by which ones are subscribed.
-
Make sure recommended content complies with parental protections
AND a good suggestion from someone else in another thread:
- Store subscribed credentials in order to log in and provide recommendations in line with whatever parental guidance is set up on those accounts.
I know it’s a tall order, but I don’t think the feature is without merit, just not fully vetted before going out to everyone.
3 Likes
You know how I filter out posts that don’t accomplish anything? I look for the “Team Member box” and I know we wont get any actual info.
Thankfully, most of the time when we ask for help with an issue, we don’t get ANY responses from any of you…at least for about a year or so, so its easy to filter those messages out.
Give us an on/off switch in server settings and nearly everyone of us will shut up about it. Stop dancing around this.
1 Like
-
Give me a few minutes please. I will get an ETA as close as I can.
-
The post-mortem is already happening. (that’s how much noise I made)
-
There are a few other Linux support folks in the forum here but I am the primary and therefore have the biggest
on my back 
-
I will GLADLY, as I always have and always will, take the heat AND WORK WITH everyone to get problems resolved ASAP.
-
I will not be inclined to help anyone who persists in whining and being otherwise denigrating before we even have the definitive actions in place and corrections can be evaluated,
6 Likes
It really isn’t. They haven’t blatantly disrespected customers. They introduced a function which users may or may not find useful. Personally I quite like being able to locate where I can watch things that aren’t on my server already.
Yes, they messed up the introduction of it, but have admitted that and committed to fixing it.
1 Like
If you read back, You’ll see that’s exactly what I went back to Engineering (Plex.tv and GUI teams) to give us.
I AM ON YOUR SIDE AND YOUR ADVOCATE.
(I have to cope with this problem myself)
5 Likes
Prefaced with Vent
A beta (some would say alpha) function introduced to every user with known issues with almost no warning (unless you were on Reddit and the like).
Pull it, fix the issues, relaunch it. Alternatively, as the first post in this thread with almost 700 votes, just provide an on/off switch.
Edit - see above. LOL
This juggernaut isn’t stopping .
Plex raises $50M growth round to fuel ad-supported streaming, expansions | TechCrunch
Ok, I apologize, I did not see that.
ALL:
I have answers for you.
IF I understand it all correctly:
-
The decision was made to provide the feature
-
As it was sketched out, a tentative schedule was created
-
Somewhere that tentative date became a fixed deployment date
-
Development was harder than expected (which is very common)
-
With obligatory date at hand, the feature was enabled. (you all already had the code but it was hidden behind a feature flag)
-
The testing, which had been occurring throughout, wasn’t complete prior to launch date.
-
The diversity of every found all the glaring problems almost instantly.
-
The team looked at the feedback/reports was coming back and jumped into action (which is before I got involved)
-
Now that I’m involved, I’m serving to take forum interaction load so they can work uninterrupted.
Problem breakdown:
- Metadata contamination and handling thereof
-
There exists, as you all have seen with your own media, metadata which has no tagging / rating on it. The actual values, as has now been learned can be blank or null.
-
There also exists “MA” (mature audience) tagged metadata which is incorrectly tagged and should be much higher.
How did this data get into the otherwise pure databases ?
Somewhere within the Plex userbase, someone has this “inappropriate for children / NSFW” media and added it to their server. (It’s their server – their choice)
When they added it to their Plex server
- The title got sent upstream to obtain the match
- Upstream didn’t have the data needed so it went out to search.
- It found the data and ingested it.
- The data was then sent to the user to populate the user’s library section (normal operation).
This is where things went sideways.
- The data didn’t have all the necessary tags.
(There’s no way to discern in an automaton if it’s the right tag value). - It was allowed to go into the database
Now for the collision of Discover and this metadata.
-
Discover expects tags / ratings
-
Searching expects tags / ratings
-
The degenerate case of tag matching (when a tag is NULL/empty) occurred when the search keyword encountered data with a null tag. (instant match).
-
You type two words ( I won’t type them here) to search and get back XXX material – BECAUSE it had no rating / tag.
Where are the errors here:
-
The user-facing side didn’t check for the completely degenerate case. It shouldn’t have to worry if the upstream database is always pure. It WILL have to worry about that if you have your own metadata for non-published media (not in the internet databases).
-
The Plex databases had ingested the untagged metadata from performing searches for users.
What’s happening:
Metadata
-
All the metadata is being cleaned out
-
The metadata retrieval & ingestion will now check before ingesting.
User Interface
-
The controls everyone wants was already in progress.
-
Based on feedback, the design is being enhanced.
What can we expect?
-
Discover will stay. It will not be disabled/pulled back (business/contractual obligations)
-
We will get the control. I do not know what form it will be (there are no mock-up graphics yet)
-
The metadata database and how Plex’s side works is getting smarter & “tighter” .
(a lot of the worst offenders have already been removed) -
The metadata search functions (which is what you see) have already been ‘tightened’ about what results they return for searches.
-
I don’t have a date for GUI change deployment. I will share as soon as I can / have test changes in my hand.
This is what I have after 36 hours involvement.
EDIT: OPT-IN / OPT-OUT will be part of the GUI changes which I will share when I see / have something in hand.
22 Likes
Fine. Thanks for the clarifications and getting down to the bottom of this.
At least we have some solid info now and it’s up to us individually to decide where to go from here.
Thank you.
Am I missing something? Where is the Opt-out/in switch?
Please correct me if I am missing it.
1 Like
I’m still a little confused though as some of the inappropriate material is from Plex’s own VOD.
The external source material issue was caused by a user or users local content feeding back to Plex ?
Edit - maybe it was my content. All those hundreds if not thousands of family videos of the kids I host …
All Plex servers content is used as the index lol
1 Like
Thanks Chuck, but can you clarify how that works with the “Discover will stay. It will not be disabled/pulled back” statement?
If fine with the feature continuing to exist, and if we have an Opt-Out, I’m good.
1 Like
I can’t speak for the dev team. They are figuring it all out right now.
When I know – you will know
Discover – As a service by Plex – is what stays.
Whether you choose to use it or not – That’s what’s coming.
2 Likes
As a subscriber this is the first thing to motivate me to comment, after enjoying the software and service for years.
This is, honestly, sad. It’s a business and all, I get it, but what a kick in the teeth to long term users. Jesus. Will take a serious look at alternative platforms for the first time in many, many years.
1 Like
