Multiple Users Profiles (on a single Plex Account) haven't access to the libraries shared with them

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Hi everyone,

It has been a while, now, since I noticed a strange behaviour regarding multiple users profiles on a single plex account (the one with email and a password).

The issue concerns the inability of said users profiles to access the servers, and the libraries, that were shared with the account they’re onto. Strangely enough, the main user profile of the account is perfectly capable of accessing the intended servers/libraries, but the “secondary” users on the very same account are cut out of everything.

Do you know some explanation for this unusual phenomenon?

Thank you in advance for your answers!

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I believe it is by design. There has been a feature suggestion and discussion here:

Chris

1 Like
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Hello, thank you for sharing that!

I read through it and, after all this time, I simply can’t believe that such a thing isn’t on Plex yet!

Paradoxically, denying us this feature lessens the control we have on our media and with who we can share it, it’s just insane!

I sincerely hope this will change as fast as possibile!

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If I’m understanding you correctly, you have a library shared with you which you then wish to also give your managed user(s) access to? This is not permitted by design and wouldn’t be a good idea to have. If this feature were implemented it would give the server owner no control over how many people are accessing their server and could result in the server not working for anyone.

The server owner would give say five people access to their server which the server and their bandwidth would cater for. Those five people could then allow five further managed users access to the server resulting in possibly 25 people simultaneously accessing the server and the server owner would have no idea of this and wonder why, when they have shared with only five people, there are currently 25 people streaming and would also not be able to remove them from the server as they never gave them access in the first place.

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Hello Teutonicfury, and thank you for joining in this discussion!

Actually, I’m the server admin/owner, and I respectfully disagree with your opinion on this subject.

I understand what you’re arguing about very well, but this isn’t a valid reason to prohibit the sharing of a PMS with more than 1 user per account; the obvious solution to this is to give the server admin the ultimate say on which profiles on a certain account can or cannot access to his content.

For example, if an account I shared my server with has 5 users, then I, the admin, should be able to choose which of those 5 profiles can watch stuff on my server, maybe through the Grant Library Access mechanism, in which I search for the user profile names I actually want to share my content with, just a bit twitsed so that I can assume 100% certainly the user profile I’m adding to my server is indeed a managed user from the account I already shared to, maybe through a badge next to the name or something like that.

In essence, I want to be able to share my server with multiple people on a single account for multiple reasons, such as inviting just 1 account and not like 15 different ones, or even for allowing the main user profile of that account to decide for the others ( such as a parent with his kids) by requesting me, the server admin, to add or remove libraries or actions like that.

Waiting for your response!

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There is no such thing. Each user has their own account. Managed users/accounts are not a “profile”, they are an account. A special type of limited account, but still an account.

And I suggest you discuss this in the existing feature request linked above.

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Hello BigWheel, thank you for your intervention.

I will abide by your suggestion of continuing this conversation in the other, well known 8-year lasting discussion for sure, but let me ask you (and everyone reading this) some other questions:

Why are those managed accounts so limited? If the features I’m asking for aren’t a reality because of security reasons, why don’t just give the power of choice to the server admins as I previously wrote?

Bear in mind that I personally love Plex, it allowed me to make the ones I care happy, thus I esteem you employees deeply for your 10+ year long work; but it’s just too strange for me that a key feature like having control over multiple users in an account is missing, especially in a software which puts you in control of your media.

Waiting your (probably last) response.

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You say “just” as if it is a “simple” thing. There are lots of things to consider and a million other feature request, most of which are not “simple”. Some of which we are working on. If it was a hard “no” then we would have just closed the suggestion ages ago.

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So you are saying that you’re currently working on it right? Not all hopes are lost then.

I genuinely hope this feature will see the light of sun sooner or later, take your time.

I’m no expert in coding and alike so I can’t understand by my only means if what I’m asking for is too complicated to implement in Plex. I’m sorry if my writings here showed arrogance, it wasn’t my intention to criticize your work and your efforts to make Plex better.

In conclusion, hope this will be a reality in the not too far future.

Cheers

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I only meant we are currently working on some of the requested features in https://forums.plex.tv/c/feature-suggestions/8

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Now you’ve added a little more context to it, I can see your point. I would, however, have to say, what you want is possible by just creating accounts for the home users. If the server admin has full overview/control over managed users attached to a home and would have to authorise access for them its not really any different to just sending them an invite which can be done now.

It seems like you just want a quicker option for something that is already possible. So send one person an invite, in having done that, the server admin would then see the managed users attached to that account and could also grant them server access.

In the grand scheme of things, doing it like that as opposed to sending multiple invites is going to save a few minutes of “work” at most for the server admin. I can see how it would simplify things for the server admin but given the minimal amount of work involved in sending individual invites, I can also understand why the Plex devs aren’t going to spend time on this as a priority.

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I fully understand this take on the issue, mostly because it’s a good point indeed.

The things I’m arguing on relate on slightly specific use cases of Plex, such as non-tech savvy people (younger kids, the elderly etc…) who just can’t meddle in with different emails, passwords and so on, or maybe the PMS admin wanting to delegate to a close friend/relative the right to introduce others to the server (as they live in the same household/are trusted people).

Just as an example, I have my cousin ( who is pretty much tech-savvy) as a friend on Plex; he has a Plex account with email and password, and I invited this account in order for him to be able to fully access my PMS.
Now, he lives with my aunt, my grandma and my other cousin (non tech-savvy), and let’s say every of them wants their little space on Plex without passing through the relative complexity of creating an account and get invited by me.
I perfectly know that my cousin and my aunt, grandma and other cousin are in the same household, so when I granted access to my cousin I was perfectly aware that my content would have been at their disposal.

At this point my cousin, let’s say, creates a second user on his account for my aunt for her to watch a series he’s not interested in and doesn’t want on his Plex homepage.

Wouldn’t be awesome if, for instance, this new user had an option, or a button, to request me, the admin, the permissions to watch my content/see my libraries?
I would know that user is a part of my cousin’s account, who I trust, and I could decide if granting this new user the requested permissions or not, maybe after directly contacting my cousin in order to know if this is happening with his consent or not.

I know this message is way too long to illustrate a simple point, but I hope I deepened your knowledge on my target use cases for the features I’m asking for.

Waiting your response(s) as usual.

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