Since the latest update to the Plex iOS app, several critical issues have made it nearly unusable:
Downloads Broken: Nothing new will download — every attempt immediately fails with a “Download Failed” error. This was working before the update.
No Episode Grouping: I have a large library (e.g., 132 episodes of a show), and now all episodes are flattened into a single list with no season or group navigation. This makes it extremely difficult to browse or find anything.
Playback Resets After Pause: If I pause an episode, lock the screen, and return after a few minutes, Plex completely loses my place and restarts the episode from the beginning. This is a major issue for longer content or when multitasking.
Playback Timeline Bug: While watching any episode or movie, the timeline always shows 0:00 — both at the start and end. There’s no time remaining, no end-time reference, and no way to scrub through the episode. This makes navigation during playback practically impossible.
Missing Continue Watching: It took a lot of trial and error to restore the “Continue Watching” row on the home screen. This should not have been hidden or made difficult to recover.
Please fix these issues or provide a way to roll back to the previous version. The current experience is a major downgrade from the functionality the app had just a few days ago — especially for Lifetime Plex Pass users who rely on this app for offline and on-the-go viewing.
I was also disappointed with the new version of downloads since downloading my videos to watch on my iPhone while I’m at work is my main use for Plex. However, I love plex and my reaction was to wait since I’m sure all those features WILL return.
That said - a few days ago, I discovered that many of my files will download, but they will NOT play - The player launches and then gives the spinning circle and will not start. I’ve tried everything (since it WAS working but then mysteriously got this problem) - Restarting the app, the server, even re-loading the app. I also loaded the app onto my iPad and it had the same problem.
The strange thing is - the video will play just fine when streaming, but hangs when trying to play it if downloaded.
My solution - temporarily turn on the DLNA server - download the files using VLC and playing them with VLC - which works great! But this clearly isn’t a desired solution.
PLEX PROGRAMMERS - Please please please get things back to where they were before the “new experience” launched. I truly do NOT want to have to load Jellyfish onto my server - I love plex and am patiently waiting.
I’ve been patently waiting too, but in the mean time I did install Jellyfin and it’s not quite where Plex used to be, but it’s way better than where Plex currently is, so I’m using it full time now. I check back every week or two to see if they’ve gotten their crap together yet, but so far no dice.
Well… First of all - I love Plex and it is my primary server for media and such. I’m still patiently waiting form the Plex Programmers to “fix” the downloads problems.
That said… I have my temporary solution… I went ahead and loaded Jellyfin onto my NAS - and it, combined with Streamyfin are exactly what I want from Plex regarding downloads. Plex could learn a LOT from Streamyfin for downloads. There’s no “downloads” area - you simply go to your libraries and everything NOT downloaded has the little cloud with down arrow you can press to download. Once downloaded, it plays directly from the device instead of streaming. THIS IS HOW DOWNLOADS SHOULD WORK - When you’re offline, keep the same beautiful interface, but show a “downloaded” icon on items that have been downloaded and can be played.
Bottom line - I will keep running Plex, and patiently await it’s return to what it was - but for now, I will ALSO run Jellyfin so that I can have the functionality that Plex SHOULD have.
Come on, Plex - LISTEN DO YOUR USERS. Please return to the number 1 spot for media servers.
Ok - I found an app that restores MOST of the functionality for Plex offline - it’s “Infuse”. The good news is that it’s an awesome client that works with many things INCLUDING PLEX. The bad news is that it isn’t free - but you get a 10 day trial to see if you think it’s worth it.
Infuse is amazing. Plex can’t playback new codec AV1, but with Infuse it works without any problem in direct play. Also Plex has issues with some combos of audio codecs with mkv which are not bug fixed over the last years.
I have a plex pass lifetime since the beginning, but I mostly use Infuse on my appleTV for watching, because of less bugs or problems. The only bad thing about infuse is the subscription, but 10 bucks per year is ok, for daily usage.
And Infuse misses some functionality like preroll videos, background music for tv shows, global watchlist or remote access. But with the really terrible experience App of plex, a lot of users are switching, asking Infuse for implementing these missing features and there where updates in the last two month with some so far Plex-only features and now also Infuse have this features. So there is development towards the user input, which Plex is missing a lot. No input from beta experience was adressed, no reported bugs fixed and also no reply to NOT release this bad alpha App to the App Store with ignored by plex completely…
This is a sad development of plex, which I loved to use over a decade, but if there wouldn’t be Infuse, I already had to switch to another media center tool like jellyfin or emby, because plex don’t work on iOS (iPhone and iPad) at all. I disabled automatic updates on my Apple TV, so plex can’t broke my working App there too with a bad update and I also do not update the plex server apk any longer. Maybe the also broke Infuse support with any update soon and then my complete database would be useless…
I’m having major problems too. Since the update, my movies will play (downloaded or not) for about 5 min and then they skip back 10 seconds and continue playing again.
About 5min after that the movie stops playing and closes. The next screen to pop up tells me I finished watching the movie (which obviously I did not since I am only 10min in).
This cycle continues throughout the movie and makes Plex utterly worthless.
Devs, please fix the problems with the new update. Not only did I spend the money for a lifetime pass, but I spent the money to buy software to convert all my content, the hardware to have my own Plex server, and the time for all the above.
