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Maybe I’m doing this wrong. I’m trying to use the Plex app on my Android phone to listen to music while in my car using Android Auto (AA). Because I don’t always have a connection and because I have space on my phone, I’ve downloaded all of my music to the phone.
When in my car I start up AA and run Plex. On the screen I see Music and Podcasts. I tap Music. Now I see a list that says Music (again) and Music Jupiter. Jupiter is my Plex server at home. Why two Musics?
If I tap on the first Music I see My Music! Well duh. How many Musics are there? I tap My Music and I see “No items”. Huh?
Going back I tap on Music Jupiter. Here I see:
Playlists Jupiter
Recently Played Jupiter
Recently Added Jupiter
If I tap any of those I see “No items”. That is if I don’t have a connection. If I have a connection I do see one playlist (I think I’ve only created one) under Playlists and some entries under Recently Played/Added. If I don’t have a connection then I see nothing. Note there is no selection for things like Artists, Albums or Songs. In general what I do most often when in the car and wanting to listen to tunes is to select all of my songs and put it on a shuffle. I can then hit next on my steering wheel if I don’t like the song. Then I can concentrate on driving and treat the music essentially as a DJ’less, ad free radio station.
What am I doing wrong such that I cannot select anything while driving if I don’t have a connection?
What I have figured out is that I can unlock my phone, run the Plex app and go to Downloads and Sync. Under there I see Music - Jupiter and Podcasts. I can then go to Music - Jupiter and all of my downloaded music is available to be played. Note that doing this while driving is distracting and needless to say very unsafe.
Why is my downloaded music separated off into Downloads and Sync? IOW why not make it such that if the user selects Music (Jupiter) that if songs are already downloaded they are shown immediately and then an attempt to call out to the server is done augmenting the available songs? And why isn’t this method the simplest thing in AA to play songs? IOW tap Plex, OK tap Music and then be presented with Genre, Artist, Album, Songs, Playlists. Tap Songs and shuffle. All your downloaded songs will shuffle and perhaps some from the server if you have a connection.
“Music” would be from Tidal. You can only view things you’ve added to “My Tidal”, so if you don’t have a Tidal sub, this won’t do you any good.
That’s correct. It’s trying to access your server so if you don’t have a connection, there is nothing to show.
Things you’ve synced have always been shown this way. That’s how the Plex app works.
There’s a debate about this going on for years. Some users want this so they don’t have to worry about if they are connected to their server or not. Some don’t want this because they want to know explicitly when they are connected to a server. Imagine playing something that was downloaded then it played things that weren’t downloaded and it ate through 5 GB of your mobile data.
Google does not want AA to show large lists like these. They’ve gone and even added limits to how many things can be shown at a time. So it’s just not possible to be able to browse your library like that.
There does seem to be a bug. Your Downloads and Sync library should be shown so you can playback those things that you have synced. I am looking into this.
I don’t subscribe to this “Tidal” thing. I don’t want Tidal. The point is there is an extra step that I need to take to get to my music as well as a confusing and unnecessary (IMHO) division of things that adds no real functionality. I would like to have that extra step and confusion eliminated.
The point here is that IMHO music from my server should be shown here regardless if it has been downloaded and is local and should be shown immediately. There is nothing the user gains by separating out downloaded music and music from the server, especially when trying to operate a 2-ton vehicle!
That may be however I’m suggesting that this is a bad UI and UX design. Again, I get no benefit from the separation - it does nothing useful for somebody who just wanted to play his music.
First of all, I have yet to see a 5 Gig song! We are talking about music here, not Blueray movies. Secondly, I haven’t met a person who cares about whether they are connected to their server back home to get a song when they are outside of Bakersfield trying to listen to the next song they’ve already downloaded locally to their device. The only thing I see people concerned about is possibly incurring data charges and most apps handle this by a setting such as “Only do this when I’m on WiFi”. Personally, I have an unlimited data plan so data charges are not my concern. Whenever two groups of people have differing opinions about the operation of some software a good solution would be to offer a toggle so group A can set behavior A and group B can set behavior B and then both groups will be happy. Do you agree?
I’ve been using AA for a long time. I can assure you AA is AoK with lists of 5 elements. As for possibly hundreds of Artists, Albums, etc., the usual approach that AA apps take is to present alphabetic selection buttons. Thereafter there is a list that you can scroll that is limited to I believe 5 more taps (and after a brief pause you can tap some more). This is workable for most things though if you are really drilling down to a specific song using voice commands is a much better option. Remember, I’m just trying to get to all songs and taping shuffle. So it is definitely possible to browse my library using AA in the manner I described.
I still say that all the user generally cares about is the media in general. In this case that is Music (see my other posts about podcasts which are different in nature). They do not care if that music is coming from Tidal, remotely from their server, or locally on the device. The only reason why they would care (that I can think of) is possible data charges for streaming the music. In my case, an added concern is the lack of a data connection at all, which for me, happens a lot when on the road (I was a Sprint customer and their coverage really sucked. I’m now on Verizon and the coverage is much better but still spotty in places). As such I think that music from all possible input sources should be merged and presented as one unified source and again, local content should be surfaced and made available ASAP with remote content being accessible connection permitting.
Thanks for responding. Let’s continue to discuss this.
BTW do you have any input on the podcast side of things? I would LOVE to have the default FF/REW on AA (and on my Galaxy buds) move FF and REW a configurable amount of seconds IN THE EPISODE without skipping to the next or previous episode. That alone makes Plex podcast playing useless for me.
Sure, but there’s more to it than just show/don’t show content. There are other scenarios to consider. Switching from WiFi/mobile, weak WiFi signal, a home network on a satellite connection, 4G/5G home networks, media deleted from server but not device, media deleted from device but not the server.
Google has no guidelines for long lists. They actually discourages UI intensive approaches like that.
I thought that should work. I’ll have to check. Google may have changed their voice recognition from voice input to Google Home which does not work with music from your server. It might have always been that way and this never worked.
Your synced content should be accessible, but there does appear to be a bug. Here’s an old image I found where it was accessible. Not sure when this got lost.
It might help if it was actually labeled Tidal, don’t cha think? I see Music. It’s enabled. Sure I can disable it but don’t cha think people might be confused thinking they are turning off their entire music library? I have now disabled it.
All of those are issues about whether or not you have connectivity. You are thinking only from a “am I connected or not” mindset. I see it as “Hey I have all my music locally so there’s no problem if I have a connection or not”. So I don’t care if I’m WiFi or mobile, weak WiFi, home or satellite (fail to see how this fits - if I’m home I have home Wifi), 4G/5G? Why is this a concern. 4G can stream without issues for me. 5G is just faster.
The basic issue is simply playing music. If the music is local then I’m golden. If the music is not local then I may or may not have a strong enough connection. Whether it’s 4G/5G, home network, satellite or cell is all the same - do I have a strong enough connection on whatever network I have.
Look at it this way - I use BeyondPod for podcasts. I’d like to eventually use Plex but never mind that right now. BeyondPod allows me to download new episodes of the podcasts I’m subscribed to. So mostly, my podcasts are available on the device. This is great if I’m out hiking far from a cell tower. BeyondPod also allows me to play episodes that have not yet been downloaded to the device for any reason. In that case, it attempts to stream the episode using whatever available connection I have. All podcasts are presented as a single source meaning I don’t have to go here for downloaded episodes and over there for not-yet-downloaded episodes.
If the Plex app presented music in the same way, how would that be bad for the user? Assume there’s an option that says something like “do not stream unless on WiFi”? I’d really like to hear a real use case where this was an issue.
IIRC Google’s own Google Play Music app performed that way! I know other apps perform that way. IOW whether “discouraged” or not - it’s possible. Note I acknowledge Plex may not want to go down a path that Google suddenly disallows however I submit that that is exactly the soup everybody sits in. Even if not actively discouraged. Google kills things all the time! Witness Google Play Music, for example.
Re: Voice actions - I did not say it worked or it didn’t work. I said it would be the best option if you are looking for a single song or maybe a single artist or album, which is something I rarely do. But I rarely even listen to music when driving because of the state of how apps work now. Google Play Music went away, I hate YouTube Music and I refuse to pay to stream music when I have all the music I want on my Plex server and it all fits on my phone anyway. I just want the Plex app to work better.
I know where the Downloads and Sync option is. As you show, it’s on the PHONE and not in AA. Yes, I understand that being missing in AA is a bug (when will that be fixed?) but I still don’t want to have to think “Oh yeah, this is download music. I need to go Downloads and Sync and not to ‘Music’. Silly me!” or rather if and when Downloads & Sync appears in AA then that’s all I’d want and I’d want to remove all other sources of Music from the AA interface. No Tidal (now disabled - thanks), no Music from my friend’s Plex server, and then there’s an Audiobooks library he has, etc. All my music would be in Downloads & Sync and personally, I’d rather see it all in just Music - one folder, where my stuff is, some of which may be local and some of which may be remote. I don’t need playlists and I surely don’t need recently added nor recently played. What I need is all songs or genres, artists, etc. If I do next track and hit a song that is remote and I have no signal I can say, “OK, try the next track then”.
This is only part of what I want. The important part is the default FF/REW. Yes, the Plex app does have 10 seconds forward and reverse on the Plex app on the phone, but not in the AA interface. No the buttons for FF and REW are wired to Next and Prev episode which is the wrong thing for a podcast.
You see my car has buttons conveniently located on the steering wheel exactly for Next and Prev. With BeyondPod these are great as BeyondPod wires the default Next and Prev to FF/REW within the context of the currently playing podcast episode. So when that advertisement comes on (that you’ve heard the last 20 episodes of this podcast) you can skip forward to skip past it. 30 seconds is an ideal setting as ads tend to be 30 seconds or 1 minute or so and BeyondPod does let you configure this. And rewind is good too in case you weren’t paying attention and what to hear what was just said.
Having configurable amounts for FF and REW is a step in the right direction however if FF and REW are not the default action when playing a podcast when I hit Next or Prev on my steering wheel or tap Next or Prev on my Galaxy buds then I am forced to have to get my phone, unlock it, navigate to the Plex app (which, BTW, doesn’t have a widget for Android), locate and push the tiny FF/REW button. Doing this while driving is dangerous and while walking about and listening to a podcast in my Buds, damn inconvenient!
And, as far as that enhancement request - maybe the reason more people are not chiming in is that people, by and large, give up when such a simple task takes 6 years and has yet to be implemented and still isn’t. Remember you have far more users than active participants in this forum. And whatever happened to “It’s a good idea so just implemented it” rather than waiting for some sort of consensus?
Right now, Tidal is the only option, but in the future there could be other possibilities.
But not everybody has all their music synced to their device. And lots of people do care if they are connected to the internet or not. Yes, for you, having the synced content show first would work, but that isn’t true for everyone.
Here is a scenario I am thinking of. Say you have a music collection. There are 2 artist with 10 albums each. You’ve downloaded 1 album for each artist. You start out not having an internet connection so the app defaults and shows you the 2 artist and 1 album from each. You start playing 1 artist. During this time, you regain internet but didn’t notice. You finish the first artist, now go and play the 2nd artist. This starts playing all 10 albums. If you don’t notice, you’ve now gone through a bunch of your mobile data.
Keep in mind that Plex also supports more than just music. The same scenario can happen with video.
Having an option like “only on WiFi” won’t hep either if the user’s internet is a hotspot connection or satellite or some other metered type connection. Also keep in mind that in lots of other countries, home internet connections, even through regular landline based networks are metered and not unlimited.
Yes it does. In portrait, click the ^ arrow while something is playing. In landscape hit the 3 dots overflow menu to the right.
Typically music players do previous/next with hardware buttons. Yes it is better to use skip for podcasts. I’ll have to check if this is changed. Typically, the UI’s allow 1 or the other. The same issue happens with the player on the notification. With music, the default is to show previous/next instead of the skip buttons. Skip for a 2-3 minute song isn’t that useful.
My point was that it would have been 100% clearer if it was labeled Tidal or Tidal Music instead of just Music.
I understand that not everybody has all their music synced to their device. And I know that showing local content first should work. It’s just that it doesn’t work.
Or it shows the 2 artists and 10 albums each with say 9 albums for each artist greyed a little indicating these other albums have not yet been downloaded.
Only if you configured it to allow it to use your mobile data. Otherwise nothing is downloaded.
Again, the concern is about saving money by not consuming precious mobile data/metered type of connection. The user would be free to configure whether or not to stream/download things depending on the network connection they have. If they choose to then it happens. If they choose not to then it doesn’t happen. If I was a user with limited and expensive mobile bandwidth I would configure it to never download on mobile data and just do my downloading on WiFi at home. If I had unlimited data I would configure it to always download and cache locally (and if I had limited space I would want to configure how much space was allocated to new cached songs). I fail to see how this is a problem. Can you clarify?
I’m not sure what you are talking about here. In my car where I run AA the screen is only in landscape mode (that is unless I’m doing trick driving and driving on two wheel! ).
Just went to my car to check. Yes there is (now - wasn’t before I don’t think) the skip buttons but it’s on the screen of AA. My normal mode of operation while in the car is to have Google Maps running 'cause I’m navigating. The music/podcast player is in the background because I normally don’t interact with it, except to skip forward/backward. So if I’m listening to a podcast I would need to take my eyes off the road, go to Plex tap the 3 dot menu then tap the skip forward button a number of times. This is more dangerous than simply taping the forward button on my steering wheel while keeping my eyes on the road. I’m not sure why but the skip backward button is on the far left but the skip forward button is under the 3 dot menu.
Could the following be implemented? Allow the user to configure the buttons that appear in AA playback screen. Default might be:
Could be configured so that <Skip back> and <Skip forward> would be the default actions for wired and Bluetooth connected devices.
Or say leave the button order along but have it do <Prev> and <Next> only for music but <Skip back> and <Skip forward> for podcasts since Plex app already differentiates between them.
See above. I am not only talking about music here but also podcasts. I’m looking for the music selection mechanism to be streamlined and unified as well as looking at specific button actions between both music and podcasts.
You are obviously a MovieFan and not a musician!
Trust me, a musician may often want to rewind just a bit in a song to re-hear that great solo or tricky transition between the 2nd verse and the chorus. Or he may want to say “Check out this great bass solo” and want to skip from the beginning of the song to around 2:30 in. Also, there are a lot of songs that are a lot longer than 2-3 minutes!
You have been very helpful so far MovieFan - thanks.
Might you know how I can fix this… I subscribe to a friend’s Plex server. He got me into this and I now have my own Plex server. So I have his server connected with my Plex. Now he has several audio libraries like Audio Books and Lectures. They show up in my Plex. How can I get rid of them without either disconnected from his server or asking him to unshare those libraries with me. IOW I want to be able to say “Don’t show these”.
You have some good suggestions but keep in mind that Plex is designed to be a streaming app. The ability to download for offline playback is a feature, not the goal. What you’ve proposed could potentially be done but would require a significant amount of time and resources. I’ve made a note of this thread in case Plex ever decides to focus on expanding offline usage.
I don’t think that’s possible. AA doesn’t offer any type of settings. The order of the buttons can be arranged I think. I will ask about seeing if all the buttons can fit on screen. Using the arrow or … menu is not ideal.
For the hardware buttons, that’s tricky. AA doesn’t differentiate between music or podcasts, it just know it’s an audio file. The buttons can be mapped to skip or jump, AFAIK, it cannot be changed dynamically. Does your car allow other button combinations, like double clicking, or long clicking? It may be possible to map other actions.
The same issue happens with the regular apps too, not just in AA. Some people also use Plex for audio books or other long form audio recordings, so these have the same issue.
You can’t permanently, but from most Plex clients, you have the option to not have them pinned to the sidebar. You’ll still see the library when looking at “more”. The only way to totally hide them is to have your friend not share with you.
Re Offline usage: Great. I hope it comes to pass. However, whatever you do could you please implement the ability to set the default wired and Bluetooth to skip forward/backward? This is killing me WRT listening to podcasts in my car and when using my Buds. This should not be that hard as it’s only a config option I would suspect.
What would be lovely is if it worked in conjunction with the Plex web app such that the listened to status and place last listened to were stored such that if I was out walking and listening to say the current episode of This Week in Tech, finished it and got 10 minutes and 38 seconds into another podcast, say Frequenomics, that when I looked at the podcasts page in Plex Web app the current episode of This Week in Tech was marked as listened to and the episode in This Week in Google was marked as listened up to 10 minutes and 38 seconds. This way I could easily pick up listening on my desktop/laptop. Likewise listening progress I did on my desktop/laptop was reflected in the Plex app on the phone.
I thought BeyondPod used to allow you to define which buttons appear in the AA interface. I don’t see that anymore. I’ll see if I can find that…
While AA may not know whether an audio file is music or a podcast the Plex app itself knows because when I select Downloads & Sync it shows me Music and Podcasts. When I tap there you have your answer, right?
While I haven’t programmed Android apps I would think that a skip or jump event is passed from Android to the app as a callback. The function that is called back could check to see if the user had gone down the Music path or the Podcast path and act accordingly, no?
I agree, placing all buttons in a row there may be crammed (though I think you could just use smaller icons if AA allows that).
I’m not sure if the buttons on the steering wheel allow for double-clicking or long clicking. There are two buttons on the left for Prev/Next. There are two buttons on the right for volume up/down. Additionally there is a button on the right side of the wheel for push-to-talk. As the car (2016 Corvette) has it’s own, factory navigation system with voice recognition (which sucks royally) the push-to-talk button activates GM’s voice recognition. But AA has it so that long push-to-talk activates AA and Google’s excellent voice recognition.
I’m not sure how to test if the Next/Prev buttons support double or long clicks as I’d need an application that supports it.
The “Plex client” in this case is AA, remember? When I tap on Music on the AA screen I’m shown these categories. There is no options for Hide and there is no “More” on the AA screen.
BTW, I asked my friend to unsubscribe me from those libraries and he did. They no longer appear in the Plex web app. However, they still appear on the Plex app under AA!
BTW, in using the Plex app more while I’m trying to debug this, I often see things like the following
I start up Plex on AA and I get a spinning thing as if it’s busy. It never stops. I need to open my phone and run the Plex app directly on my phone.
When I run Plex on my phone and tap the upper left menu I see not only Downloads & Sync but also a Music - Jupiter on-device menu item. I don’t recall seeing that before.
After seeing all my music on my device I usually select the shuffle icon because what I’m usually trying to do is simply play some songs at random and let me skip what I don’t want to hear.
When I do select shuffle all songs on the Plex app on the phone one starts playing. If I don’t like it I tap next on my steering wheel (or the AA screen in my car) and it goes to the next song. Great! However, then it breaks. By that I mean tapping next on my steering wheel, or the AA screen, or even the cell phone Plex app it does nothing and what appears on the AA screen is something like “Something went wrong” or “Plex app is not working” (I don’t recall the specific wording). I’m stuck. Other times (I haven’t figured out the exact pattern) it works and I can do next or prev song. Strange.
When I am connected to the Internet and I’m looking on my music from the server I see items like Playlists, Recently Added, Recently Played but that’s about it. Where is the “All songs” selection? I know you said you can’t scroll that much on AA but even if you added Genre, Artists, Albums and Songs you’d only have to scroll this once. If an alphabetic pick was offered then you 2 or 3 more taps which I believe are within the AA limit.
Does anybody here use Plex for music playback either in the car with AA or without AA or just walking around? Do you experience similar issues? Do you have work-arounds? Or does it work just fine for you?
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