yah, if you have something in local it will show first, separated from the Discover items
Yep a unified home-screen watchlist that could show Movies and TV shows together has been a feature request for eight years. Leave it up to the Plex developers to find a way to screw up that simple request with advertising clutter.
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Just stumbled across this thread and I’m a bit confused.
I saw the prompt on a couple of my clients yesterday, mentioning the new streaming service stuff and asking me if I wanted to pin the Discover thing which I didn’t and just carried on as normal.
I presumed that was it, just a client update. Reading this however, is there more to it which I’m not seeing/getting because it needs a server update? Of course I’m now terrified of updating my server in case it adds a load of crap I don’t want, as everyone seems to be describing here.
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From my understanding, there is no update here. This is a backend change Plex has done so you can’t avoid this. And I can’t speak for anyone else, but my issue is that searching within Plex will now include ads from streaming providers in your search results. For example, searching for the movie “Slap Shot” on my server should only show you 1 search result – i.e., the 1977 movie – but now you also get a “More Ways To Watch” section that is simply ads for other similarly named titles that are provided by 3rd party streaming providers.
Here is a screenshot and the red box shows the new “More Ways To Watch” section which is just a fancy way of saying “ads”…
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Ah ok. I virtually never use search anyway.
So if I don’t use search and don’t pin the new Discover thing I shouldn’t get bothered by this really.
I’m getting tired of these new features being crammed down my throat and no options to disable them. I’m about to say screw my users who use plex through a gaming Console and jump ship to Jellyfin.
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I actually ran in to a problem with this today. I was searching for something and the only results I got were for “More Ways To Watch” and not what was in my local Library.
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I fully expect Plex to be getting some sort of payment from these companies else they would allow us to disable them.
At the very least, Plex monthly subscribers and lifetime pass users should be allowed to disable this. But I do agree, if you don’t have any services checked then no results should be returned. This is why I believe these companies are paying Plex something in return.
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Signed up on here just to vote for this. I’ve no interest in the feature, I will literally never use it. I use trakt for tracking all the things I watch as well as my watch list across platforms etc. The fact I’m forced to use it and I’m a Plex Pass (Lifetime) user is a bit ■■■■ tier, to be honest.
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Agree 100%. Gotta be making $$ off it to be advertising other streaming services imo.
Is there anything you notice in common with the local media / metadata / external results that do this, in case there’s anything we have agency over to fix this? So far, for me, that answer has been “no”…
It seems to me that the problem isn’t with the metadata, but rather with the callstack that sources the local + external results and tries to combine them.
After sleeping on it, I personally still feel the same as yesterday: it’s a neat feature and it’s understandable, but the huge problem is the lack of opt-in choice/granularity.
But what’s new today is that I just can’t shake off how wildly uncomfortable it is that they deliberately pushed paid subscribers’ boundaries by making this mandatory under the pretext of “”“beta”"", in order to gauge the level of blowback.
Given what type of gesture that is, it’s completely zeroed out any good faith I could have in Plex anymore.
I’ve had to set a personal deadline for when I’d need to see a full opt-out implemented by (so I don’t become a boiled frog), and it’s such a terrible feeling to know that from hereon out, I will have to do that for everything, while I now spin up the rest of the alternative platforms for testing.
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I don’t want or need this. I don’t even want to click through the ‘welcome’ page to enable it
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Bravo Plex, for pulling the same crap that Google did with Google TV. You’re showing content (i.e. Ads) for services that I don’t subscribe to. You are officially now no better.
What’s the point of even selecting the services in the settings?
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I suppose “please stop pivoting to ad-supported media” is probably not a rational request at this point, but that’s what I’m asking for anyway. I just want to play my stuff.
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Voted, I hope something is done. I just want to enjoy my local library and Plex seems dead set on forcing crappy streaming on to me. I can’t understand the focus of theirs to be mediocre on a broad scale of features rather than be amazing on a few core areas.
The new search is just useless. I used to be able to type a partial word, hit enter, and be browsing my files in seconds. Now it’s all done in a tiny pull down and I’m stuck scrolling. It’s a complete waste of time and it’s crushing to know someone was paid to come up with this nonsense.
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In lieu of disabling it completely, it would be slightly more tolerable and cause less confusion if the “More Ways to Watch” was renamed to “External Sources” or “Watch Outside of Plex”.
All I can say is thank goodness Android clients let you turn off auto updates… My personal Fire Sticks run an older version of the client, so I’m not subject to this on my main TV. I also run an older version of the server, so the local web interface isn’t polluted with it, either.
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Wow, I think this is getting votes faster than the request to dump that horrible UI that preceded Uno a few years ago.
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Agreed; that UI was so bad I had to disable updates until the fix was made much later. The good thing is at least Plex has a history of occasionally listening to their customers. I am hoping they make this disaster right before they further damage their brand.
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Just had to talk two elderly relatives how to unpin the function (beta) from their client apps.
They clicked to accept assuming it was something I, as the server owner, had sent through and then all sorts of weird things turned up in their search for home videos of the grandkids.
So, can we have a toggle switch to turn this off please.
Edit - I have not even looked into the beta function much yet so a case of the blind leading the blind. Was there pre warning about this function coming as I didn’t get any notification about it.
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