I have Plex Server running on my Mac, and it works great. I watch movies using my Samsung Smart TV with the Plex app downloaded from the Apps area on the TV.
I also have a Raspberry Pi, and I playing with Raspbian with Gnome and I could not get Plex to work with any web browser (I tried three different ones).
So I started googling around to see how I can watch movies from my Pi and I ran across Rasplex, so I installed it onto a USB thumb drive but have not been able to get it to boot which has something to do with the command.txt file and Ive tried all of the recommended settings with /dev/sda1 etc.etc. without success.
So I’m beginning to get a little frustrated here …
What is the PRESCRIBED METHOD of using a Raspberry Pi 3 as a CLIENT VIEWER ONLY for watching movies from a Plex server?
When you say not work will it not load the plex.tv page your library or a file? rasplex does do exactly what you want but it should have worked using a web browser so a little more info would be helpful.
Well, when I use a web browser in Gnome under Raspbian, and I hit the local Plex server using the local IP address:32400 I immediately get kicked back with one browser saying something like “server stopped loading data” or something to that effect, but in the other two cases, I am kicked back within a fraction of a second with some kind of message indicating that the server refused to respond.
I did manage to get RasPlex to boot.
I simply downloaded the file: RasPlex-1.8.0.148-573b6d73-RPi2.arm.img.gz
Then using Etcher, I wrote it out to the thumb drive (I’m using MacOS) then I immediately edited cmdline.txt to look like this: boot=/dev/sda1 disk=/dev/sda2 quiet and it booted.
HOWEVER, The initial boot took more than 20 minutes including a reboot, and when it finally came up and attached to my Plex Server, I am seeing a weird problem with the client.
When I’m just using the arrow keys on my keyboard and I am browsing around the client - not browsing media, but just around in the preferences and settings etc. the software seems to FREEZE for a good solid 45 seconds and then it releases control back to me where I can continue poking around for about 10 seconds then it freezes again for about 45 seconds and this pattern of feezing then releasing is a constant pattern and it is not dependent on me actually making a selection … all I need to do is move the arrows around … its like the pattern of freeze / release is happening independent of anything that I’m doing.
Try using the actual packaged installer instead of the github package as its possible it modifies some settings also you need to turn on precaching. The links are here https://www.rasplex.com/get-started/rasplex-installers.html and here in reference to precaching https://www.rasplex.com/docs/faq.html if you need anything else I’ll be up for a few more hours. also which pi 3 are you trying to run this on?
It appears to as im on a pc it uses a modified version of win32diskimager. I myself prefer to use etcher but ive typically noticed with my pi flashs that its best to use the recommended installer for whatever distro youre using as its fixed random issues ive had in the past. try the recommended route first then we can troubleshoot from there as all documentation i can find is written using the packaged installer. There are “legacy” install instructions. these are them for flashing on osx taken straight from their site
gunzip image_name.img.gz
diskutil list # find out what device you want to flash to, /dev/diskX
diskutil unmount /dev/diskX
dd if=image_name.img of=/dev/rdiskX bs=1M #The “rdisk” will make it flash much faster
I wouldn’t waste too much energy on Rasplex. The project itself is dead and it is only a matter of time until the whole thing might stop working completely, when Plex makes fundamental changes in the backend.
What I would REALLY like, is something I can just launch from with an already working install of Respbian. Seems like the concept of just running a client within a running operating system … just makes sense … why all this run around of having to have a special and separate boot drive just to watch some movies? I realize that one could view the Pi as something that would most logically be used for a dedicated task, but certainly it is far more capable than that.
Yeah but that still doesn’t let me do what I wanted to do … anyways, I downloaded PMP - thank you for that link. I etched it to a thumb drive, changed cmdline.txt and it fired right up and I was running and browsing my server within just a few minutes.
The client is responsive with the obvious hardware limitations in the Pi slowing some of it down, but delays are less than seconds when they happen.
What I don’t see, is any kind of support for bluetooth headphones - at least not any that they included in the front end of the app… perhaps there are some settings down under the hood I can tweak to enable bluetooth audio capability???
Not sure about Bluetooth support, sorry. If you just want something for your raspbian setup, you could use the Linux PMP community builds: Plex Media Player packages for Linux
To PMP in general one has to say that it will only receive bug fixes here and there but no new features if I am correct, since it was generally replaced by the Plex for Windows app (no love for Linux obviously).
Thanks, I’ll check it out… I don’t really have much love for Linux either, but I developed an appreciation for it after being devoted to Windows since 3.1 back in the 90’s. I got my first Mac in mid-2000’s then when they went Intel/OSX it was a slam dunk. Best of both worlds. I’m a Network Engineer by trade.
I haven’t tried it, but I understand this add-on also works in LibreELEC, which would create an easy way to get a complete and ready to go image for a Pi, then add P4K. I looked into this because I want the 3D-MVC capabilities, but despise Kodi as my player. I just haven’t had time to mess with it yet.
That kinda defeats the purpose of this thread. Because LE is not a full OS (“Just enough Linux to run Kodi”).
So you rather want Raspbian and the fitting Kodi package if you want to do other things beside Kodi on the RasPi.
What is the PRESCRIBED METHOD of using a Raspberry Pi 3 as a CLIENT VIEWER ONLY for watching movies from a Plex server?
I interpreted that as he PRIMARILY wants a single-purpose Plex player based on the Rpi3. The ability to run it within Raspbian was a secondary desire, but I may have misinterpreted this.
Karaoke " I want the 3D-MVC capabilities, but despise Kodi as my player."
You know … is it just me? Or is Kodi really … rather … all over the place and almost impossible to nail down as a simple and concise media center? I messed with it for about a month last year, and I just couldn’t really quite get to the point where I felt like I had grip on everything … you know?
No, you got it exactly right. I simply failed to mention what got me started down this rabbit hole in the first place … all too often I embark on what I think will be a simple walk next door and before I realize it, I’m hitchhiking 50 miles from where I started … but such is the nature of modern computing.
I otta be comfortable with the command line … my first computer was a Commodore 64 when I was only 12. Then on to DOS, Windows etc. etc. I’m so ingrained, I write java apps … for FUN … how sick is that?
