iOS syncing not updating watched status

[krugster]

Latest versions of server and client…

I am syncing a tv show to my iPad and have set both a episode limit and a watched status of unwatched.

When I watch these episodes offline and then go back online, it seems that the ‘watched’ status is not being reflected back into the sync process.

i.e. I watch a bunch of the episodes, I can see that they are watched/played on the iPad but they do not become watched on the server-side and therefore do not get removed from the iPad even though the sync process shows it is complete.

I’ve also found that forcing the status from played->unplayed->played while online does then sync properly.

Is this a known issue and/or can you help me troubleshoot?

[Anijake]

Watched state not synced after watching offline

Server Version#: 1.15.5.994 Player Version#: 7.14.1.9954 I sync content to my Android device and that works fine. However when I’m traveling and watch my synced content while being offline it never syncs the watched state after it gets back online. That is very annoying as than I need to check what I watched and steer everything as watched manually. This has been this way for me for ever

Almost 3 years and counting (there is a older thread as well)

Watching off line, not syncing

Just installed the new build, just watched a episode offline, got home to sync and not only was the show not removed from my iPad, but it was remarked unwatched. Just to test I also placed iPad in airplane mode, marked the show watched, turned off airplane mode and synced again. It was again marked unwatched.

"watched" status not being synced back to server when watching offline

For more the a year this has been happening, was posted to the beta forum but nothing was ever done. Does anyone else have this problem? I have upgraded phones and iPads, installed and reinstalled the IOS app. Have completely redid my server from scratch with new OS and server install, and still no syncing of watched status. Server version: 1.9.6.4429 OS: MacOS 10.13.1 Clients, w/ versions, if applicable: IOS build 4.20 12070 What you did? Watch a show off line on IOS (iPad or iPhone) What …

Was supposedly fixed in 6.1, but nope… they have no clue on how to fix.

Plex for iOS

Version 6.1 is now available. FIXED: Change default remote audio playback quality on Wi-Fi to original. This can be changed in the Settings > Quality menu. Fixed an issue preventing swipe-to-delete from working on the home hub reorder screen. Fixed an issue that could cause the play state of synced items not to sync back to the server. Having a linked TIDAL account which was expired could have caused 30 second previews to not work. The sync activity spinner was much too big. Deflated it to no…

[Anijake]

and according to them, if you don’t like it, use another app

[darcilicious]

Oh it’s you again! Hope you’re having a great day!

[krugster]

Well, I am having a great user experience overall, just looking to help improve this area for me and others.

What can we do to try to get to the bottom of it?

[Anijake]

Forgot to add this one to the list.

Update description of Mobile Sync

Server Version#: 1.16.5.1554 Player Version#: 6.1 There is a long standing bug that stops the watched status of synced items from being updated if the app is offline when the item is watched. The problem has persisted through multiple app and server versions, including latest iOS app and server release. If Plex is not going to fix this problem, will you please update the page Using Mobile Sync? Currently it says “Your viewing progress will be remembered while viewing content offline and will …

[darcilicious]

@Anijake

Forgot to add this one to the list.

For shame!

[darcilicious]

@krugster

Is this a known issue and/or can you help me troubleshoot?

Some users have this issue and some don’t.

@krugster

What can we do to try to get to the bottom of it?

Logs were posted in this thread, you could add yours there and I will poke at the dev again

Update description of Mobile Sync

Server Version#: 1.16.5.1554 Player Version#: 6.1 There is a long standing bug that stops the watched status of synced items from being updated if the app is offline when the item is watched. The problem has persisted through multiple app and server versions, including latest iOS app and server release. If Plex is not going to fix this problem, will you please update the page Using Mobile Sync? Currently it says “Your viewing progress will be remembered while viewing content offline and will …

[krugster]

Possible new revelation here…

When watching a TV show, I typically exit/close the show before it has reached the absolute end. Sometimes the credits go on for a few minutes…

This is usually handled quite well by Plex in that it marks the episode as watched as long as you’ve watched past some reasonable threshold.

However, I decided to test this out a bit further related to the offline sync problem we’re having and (I think) I’ve discovered that if you don’t watch the episode until the absolute end, it doesn’t get removed from sync, presumably because it isn’t actually getting marked as ‘watched’ even though it should be.

Similarly to exiting, if you manually press the “next episode” button even a few seconds before the end…it doesn’t get removed from sync.

Both of these methods DO usually mark the episode as watched (but in some way not for whether to sync or not). Perhaps it thinks it needs to keep the episode synced in order to save the playback progress? Interesting, if you go back to play the episode again, it does treat it as watched and starts from the beginning.

I’ve done some limited testing on this, and it seems that watching an episode to the very end while offline DOES allow it to be removed from syncing properly as expected.

@darcilicious could you ask the development team to look at it from that angle?

[krugster]

Bump?

[krugster]

@darcilicious? Anyone?