Way back in 2018 we announced the retirement of some features which included support for plug-ins for integrating third-party audio/video channels. We also noted that this wouldn’t affect scanners and agents which rely on some of the same plug-ins infrastructure, but as this framework is built on-top of a now unsupported version of Python, we are announcing today that we’ll be removing support for plug-ins entirely going forward.
This process will begin with only Android-based Plex Media Server releases, which will primarily be affecting users running servers on the Nvidia Shield devices. We have decided to take a phased approach as it will give us an opportunity to find any edge cases in this process while affecting the fewest number of users. Removing the Python-based plug-ins from these low-powered devices will also likely result in a more stable experience with less overhead.
This first phase will be released with the Plex Media Server version 1.41.0 which is slated to be released to beta around the end of August 2024, with a public release a few weeks later.
How do I know if this will affect me?
This update is only rolling out to Plex Media Server on Nvidia Shield devices (all models) for now and you are only affected if you are actively using any of the following library agents:
- Plex Movie (Legacy) (Movies)
- The Movie Database (Movies and TV Shows)
- TheTVDB (TV Shows)
- Last.fm (Music)
- Any unofficial third-party plug-ins, including custom agents and scanners
If you are using one of the official legacy agents listed above for any of your libraries you will need to upgrade these libraries to one of the modern metadata agents. You can visit the Plex Web interface and go into Settings → [Manage] Libraries to inspect which libraries can be upgraded and take action from there. These will be indicated with red text as shown below.
You can choose to do this at any time, however once Plex Media Server on these devices is updated to version 1.41.0, libraries using these agents will no longer be able to scan in new content but you will still be able to upgrade them.
Any unofficial third-party plug-ins will no longer function after this update. If you have special requirements that cannot be met we recommend that you first reach out to us on our forums to see if your specific requirements can be met in some other way. If there is no alternative for your case and you have to continue using these plug-ins you will need to install Plex Media Server on a device which still supports plug-ins.
When will this affect other platforms?
We do not have an exact date for when we will be removing plug-ins from other platforms at the moment. You can continue using any legacy agents unaffected but it is advisable to upgrade any legacy Plex agents to use the modern metadata agents as these legacy agents are no longer maintained or supported which may result in disruptions with metadata retrieval.
What about third-party metadata agents and scanners?
We are working on a solution to continue supporting third-party metadata agents but have nothing further to share at this time. We will be in touch with the development community when we’re ready to share what comes next, but rest assured that we are committed to not remove Python-based plugins from the main operating systems supported by PMS without first providing a viable alternative to developers and users.
While there are currently no plans to support third-party scanners once the plug-ins are removed, we will be open to making our built-in scanners more extensible if the need arises.
