FYI Downloads were completely rebuilt for the new experience. This should include much better handling around the app not being in focus in the foreground. I made some additional comments around downloads here if you are interested.
I am going to check in with the engineers who built this so I get the terminology correct first, but if they confirm how downloads are working then we might be able to close this thread out as resolved. It will stay open until then.
Literally just googled to see why I have to keep iOS screen active in order to download contents off Plex servers. This post somewhat explained the why. So basically Plex stripped down all usable / working download functionality and replaced with some basic features in order to prep new features released sometime next year. Are we living in Stone Age or something? One step forward, ten steps backward?
Anyway, I tried to prep a few iPad for travel. It’s gonna take forever to get stuff on Plex on iPad. Before just select and what I want and let Plex rips it overnight. By morning comes, everything is ready. Now I have to literally babysit the crap of it for each download. What the bleep. Just want something simple and work; hence, paid the premium over other free services (jellyfin). Anyhow, hope Plex hear enough feedback from its end-users before making it another Sonos-gate style.
One more thing, all my previously downloads got migrated without any artworks and all subtitles were gone. What a blasphemy!!! Does Plex understand how much times and pains that I’d have to re-download all the eps in order to use the subtitles. Really, what the bleep s-show is it!!!
@McWanke I have all my devices locked on the old version and cannot test. Can you confirm that proper background downloads are now implemented per my comment above?
What I am looking for, just to be precise:
Can you confirm these two scenarios work now?
Both of these scenarios are working on my android device as we speak (other apps and locking the screen). Background downloads was one area that we focused on for the new implementation of downloads. I don’t have an iOS device to confirm but the goal was to build a similar experience with support for background processing for both platforms. As I have mentioned previously, this is a ground up rebuild on downloads and we have lots more work both planned and in progress.
@McWanke I can confirm that this now works on the latest versions of PLEX for both iOS 18.5 and 17.7.5
@BigWheel Welll…nuts. The cake is a lie. Although I am able to multi-task (which is new) and also lock my ipad (which is new) AND the server keeps chugging along doing conversions (which is new)…the downloads themselves still timeout after 5-ish minutes, which means the fix isn’t quite there yet. I apparently suck at QA 
.
That said, the downloads to pick right up where they left off…but it still isn’t happening fully in the background, even though I have “Background App Refresh” enabled.
Can you re-open? 
Also: You should mark this Feature Request as complete. 
Thanks for the update here!
If they happen to complete downloading, the other issue is that you can’t play them on iOS unless you enable Airplane mode. It should not matter if there’s an internet connection at all. It’s stored locally, so we should be able to simply go into the Downloads section and click play. I just discovered this after we were unable to watch any download during 2 LONG international flights!!!
Here we are 23 days after @McWanke reply, and it still doesn’t work properly.
What an embarrassment. Common sense should dictate that after getting beat up about downloads over several years, that Plex would assure the new rebuild it worked perfectly 9.9 times out of 10.
@CaptainKen2_1 - I tested before responding that this works for me. I put iPad into airplane mode, disabled wifi, and opened plex. The first thing (only thing) I see is that I’m offline and get an option to go straight to downloads. From there I just click on what I want to play and it plays…
Maybe this was a recent fix? I only just upgraded yesterday after finding out that background downloads now work.
Closed to give back votes
