Server: Unraid 6.8.3 (Nvidia)
Plex Server: 1.18.9.2578
Client: Plex for Windows from today
Fresh install of Plex for Windows, start Plex for Windows after installation --> all Libraries not accessible. Stop Plex for Windows, start again --> all Libraries are shown. Aha.
Play a video for a minute, it works, close Plex for Windows with the big red X on the Plex app.
After another minute, while looking into the Plex Web, I see acivity on the dashboard. My video ist still playing. No Plex app is running. Looking in the Task Manager. No Plex app is running.
Start Plex for Windows again: It shows the playing video. Try to stop the video --> no way to stop the video. Kill the running Plex for Windows from the Task Manager. Web Dashboard shows video is still running.
Restart Windows, delete Plex for Windows worked --> Video is no longer playing.
If you don’t stop the video before exiting, then the stop action doesn’t get back to PMS so it doesn’t know it has stopped. It should show as paused. Eventually it should timeout.
Is the video playing or just shows the player in the mini player along the bottom? This is expected if you exited as you did before. The player never sent a stop command so it thinks it was just paused and bring it up in the mini player so you can resume.
This is all expected and happens with lots of client if you just quit playback without a proper stop.
When closing Plex for Windows with red X the movie is still playing somewhere in the background (not paused). It’s playing and occupying resources. The server is still transcoding. The user does not know it.
There is no hint anywhere that Plex (and the movie) is still running. No Plex entry in Task Manager. IMHO this is completely wrong.
My clients are restricted to play one object at a time. This will lead to funny discussions: Can’t play a video. You can’t because you are already playing a video. No. Sure. No. Sure."
Trillions of applications close on red X. I never search for File/Exit. Why do two steps if one is enough?
I’m pretty sure this is wrong with Plex for WIndows. Some options:
Close video when window playing the video closes.
At least pause video when window playing the video closes.
Keep in mind that Plex is a server/client combo. Just because you close the client, doesn’t stop the server. If your PMS was serving up a file, it doesn’t know the client is gone, just that it’s not requesting more data at the moment. There are timeouts in place to stop these. Or in cases where it’s unclear why the stream has stopped, there is this setting to forcefully shut these down.
To clarify, on the server resources are being used since PMS hasn’t stopped. On the client, there should be no resources used, that’s why nothing appears in Task Manager.
Stupid questions: There’s no way to submit a “Stop” event to the server when hitting the close button? And this is because of Plex Client/Server architecture?
Just to clarify: When hitting the red close button and closing
the player window, the server was still reporting playback. The Server dashboard was increasing the playing time every second. So when restarting the Plex for Windows Client a minute later it was still playing the movie and jumped to a position a minute later. Seems that the server was watching the movie while I was away
And this is because of Plex Client/Server architecture? Pretty awesome stuff.
Why does PLEX not open source the windows app. That way users can update this player with all the right functionality and make it work like it should.
Somehow PLEX is not in sync with its users and created a poor application.
