And I’m still looking for the proper way to update to the latest Plex Media Player version? Does a simple “sudo apt update” and “sudo apt full-upgrade” work, or do I need to issue other commands? Thanks.
Brilliant!
I have spent quite a few hours trying to find a way to do this.
I was about to embark on a potential solution that I stumbled across via google yesterday evening which was way more complex than this solution.
Because this is a lot simpler, I decided to try this first.
Indeed, it does work perfectly, just what I wanted!
Perhaps @stueh could add this to his build instructions?
Many thanks
dmonds
2.58.0 seems to be the latest version as far as I can tell.
What version does your report @lithophone?
dmonds
Sorry, not sure where you’re seeing that version, but mine shows Version 4.29.2 under Settings > Plex Media Player > General on my Pi.
Glad I was able to help you. I’ve only had my Pi for a couple months now, with no previous Linux experience. I like to tinker and I’m good at following directions. Basically everything that I can do blindly in Windows, I have to, very much like yourself, spend hours researching. But it’s a puzzle for me and I enjoy it.
Settings > About
Actual:
Plex Media Player 2.58.0.dev-05368698
Linux 10
I followed the build guide in the OP and the step to install PMP includes…
//github.com/plexinc/plex-media-player
…which shows latest version available is 2.58.0
I also used to use the “embedded” images on my Pi 3b+ from…
https://nightlies.plex.tv/public-test/plexmediaplayer/embedded-testing/
…which only goes to 2.55, however…
https://nightlies.plex.tv/public-test/plexmediaplayer/public-testing/
…contains the MacOS and Windows builds goes to version 2.58
dmonds
I googled this and get hits for LG TV Smart TV versions of PMP.
Not sure how you have connected your Pi, however I connect my Rpi 4 direct into my AV Amp via HDMI…then from there to my TV (which does not have a Plex Media Player app)
dmonds
Mine runs on a headless Pi that I use TeamViewer to remote into. The primary purpose is a Plex audio receiver for my backyard audio setup. As I said before, Version 4.29.2 under Settings > Plex Media Player > General. I followed the same directions, acknowledge the 2.58.0 on github, but can’t seem to figure out where the discrepancy would be. And, again, like yourself, I am not an expert in this by any means. If a more knowledgeable source wanted to chime in, I would certainly appreciate it.
Figured it out. The version numbers are different between Desktop Layout and TV Layout. Not sure why that would be…
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So I followed the OP’s instructions on my fresh install of Twister OS 1.7 (a very nice version of Raspbian for the Pi 4)
It worked and I know next to nothing about what I’m doing… beginner’s luck I guess.
R
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Hi All
I still for the life of me cannot get HDMI-CEC working on this. The PMP on the Pi4 otherwise works great, but I am stuck using a keyboard on my TV which I just don’t want.
I booted up my old Pi3 running Rasplex, and when Plex pops up on that, down the bottom right corner, is a popup box which says “Pulse-Eight CEC Adaptor” and then says “Connected: TV”. My TV remote up/down/left/right/select etc works perfectly, so you can navigate the Rasplex menu with the TV Remove.
But for this installation on the Pi4, it doesnt work.
I have tried to manually install the Pulse-Eight from here: https://github.com/Pulse-Eight/libcec/blob/master/docs/README.raspberrypi.md and that built/installed fine, but I dont know how to now get the PMP to use that for CEC.
My TV is a Song Bravia 40" or something from about 10 years ago, and as I say it works perfectly on Rasplex out of the box. No idea what Pulse-Eight really is, but it seems to be preinstalled on the Rasplex and loads up the HDMI-CEC on startup and just works.
Does anyone have any idea?
It sounds like that despite installing ok, the Pulse-Eight CEC app you installed on your Pi is not paired with your TV remote.
Does your old Pi, running Rasplex perhaps have a dongle in a USB that you could plug into your Pi4?
Otherwise, try googling the CEC app to see if you can find some info on how to pair it with your TV remote.
Hope this helps.
dmonds
Hi dmonds
The Pi doesnt pair with the remote, it just gets the remotes signals from the TV via the HDMI.
There is no USB dongle of any kind, its literally TV plugged into Pi.
Ahhh…I see.
Only thing I can suggest is to create a seperate, dedicated thread on the forums…it may get noticed better that way.
Hi thanks for this I have a question. You mentioned watching HD TV channels - are you using the pi as a server too (utilising the DVR functionality with a tuner)? I can’t seem to get HD channels to tune on Plex when they work fine on Kaffeine.
To those having issues with video stuttering I’ve had the same problem. At first i thought it was the samsung charger i was using only being 2a (no external USB, ethernet rather than wifi etc) as I had this issue with the pi3. Sadly not the case.
I did notice while building that the pi was hotter than I’d have expected but put it down to being sat on my dogs cage with his towels while I was building it.
Seems this is the likely cause.
I enabled SSH and had a remote session while i was playing a 1080p version of a movie, 5 seconds in and it started stuttering. Monitoring the temp with “vcgencmd measure_temp” it was shooting up to 72C (idled at 62 with the official case) at which point the stuttering would start and then the temp would drop to about 68C then it’d play for a second then rinse/repeat.
Obviously it’s thermal throttling the CPU at those temps and causing issues with the video playback (audio would play fine).
I removed the case which took nearly 20C from the idle temp, but was still not enough even under limited load (plex would be at about 20% while playing).
My temporary fix is to keep the case off and then reduce the playback qualities to 4mbp (720p), it entirely defeats the point of upgrading to the 4 to make use of the faster ethernet, but it works for now.
Currently looking to find a better cooling solution (seen a metal heatsink case with dual fans, but the fans seem poor quality and fail early).
While it was cool I also used “dd” to do a test of the write speed of my SD card (its quite old as it’s from a phone i had a fair few years ago) and it was only getting 8.9Mbps, so i’ve also purchased faster card in case it is also having caching issues (8.9mbps write speed kind of explains videos at 12mpbs+ failing too, depending on where and how much it needs to write). Also tested the RAM write speed, just out of curiosity, it managed 189Mbps.
Some further reading does substantiate the temp issue as well, as apparently the pi4 uses the same trick of using the PCB for cooling (in lieu of a heatsink) as the pi3. But the pi4 being significantly faster it is much hotter and seems to be hitting its thermal thresholds even at minimal loads.
Anyway, hope this helps.
Ok, so bit of an update here…
The main cause of my stuttering playback was down to the speed of the SD card I was using. I cloned the card onto a faster v30 card (31MBps when tested, compared to the <9MBps of the old one) and I was able to play everything back at 1080p with no stuttering.
Strangely it is now also 10 degrees cooler while playing, not sure if having to wait for the card all the time was actually causing it to do more processing (adding in waits or something?) and upping the heat.
In terms of heat I’m not sure this is a problem anymore, although I won’t be going back to the official case, it is truly awful!.
In our bedroom the TV is actually on a mini guiness fridge, so as a test I decided to power it on and try putting the Pi inside the fridge. This had a massive impact on temperatures, dropping idle down to 26C and under load (HD Movie) sitting around 62C. Probably not the most economic (or quiet) way of cooling a Pi, but definitely effective!!
Just need to figure out how to get it to go into standby now and i’m done, it currently just keeps playing marking everything as watched 
Does the PMP app used in this build support the sync/download functionality? I’d like to build a small compact player that I can take on trips with limited functionality. That way I can download stuff ahead of time and take it with me and just connect to the hdmi of a tv without worrying about internet.
Fyi I’ve thought about using kodi for this, and I’m sure many of you would recommend that. However, I’d like to maintain the Plex interface, and more importantly have play counts sync back and forth. Which is why I’d like to use some kind of Plex app with download support
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Moved from kodi to plex mostly because my kodi installations would break and settings things up all over again was annoying. These instructions are great, and it’s disappointing there isn’t a plex build for raspberry pi or linux in general. It mightn’t be linux on desktop but a lot of people have raspberry pi’s these days!
PMP 2.58 seems to have a TV and DESKTOP mode. With DESKTOP being 4.29.2.
Curiously, you can see the LIVE TV - GUIDE in the DESKTOP mode. But its says this view is being deprecated.
Anyone get MPEG2 watchable?
I get terrible, terrible tearing.
Plex Media Player 2.58.0
RPi4. Linux raspberrypi 5.4.79-v7l+ #1373 SMP Mon Nov 23 13:27:40 GMT 2020 armv7l
Plex Server 1.21.1.3766
