My Biggest Annoyance

General Discussions Plex Features
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Before we get started, I just want to say that I love Plex. I’ve been a Plex user for several years, and a Plex Plass Lifetime member since early 2016. In that time I’ve seen the dev time start supporting new hardware and as a result I’ve branched out with the streaming devices in my home and I’ve been pleasantly pleased. There’s a few hiccups on occasion, and not everything is exactly to my taste but for the most part I love Plex.

Except for the authentication system.

I use managed users in my home to restrict content not suitable for children to my account or my wife’s. My account is the only true Plex account - everyone else is a managed user.

So, when Plex authentication goes down like this morning Plex is essentially down for the count on devices like my Apple TV. A message saying Plex is down is shown, and even if someone accesses the server directly from their bookmarks on their devices they can’t login as a managed user.

I’m not using Plex Cloud. My server sits in my office, on my network. Why does any authentication attempt have to hit Plex servers every single time? If it’s my account signing in it makes sense, its a Plex account - but my managed users should still exist on my server, in my home.

This has been my biggest grievance with Plex. With authentication issues seeming to pop up a bit more lately this has been rearing its head a little more frequently. I’d love to see an option for managed users to authenticate their PIN/lack of PIN against my server locally, not Plex’s infrastructure.

So my questions are:

  • Is there a technical limitation for why this (local authentication of managed users) cannot occur?
  • Has the Plex team considered this previously?
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I saw this thread on reddit the other day - based on the comments it doesn’t look like I’m alone.

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@jk-mpaa said:

So my questions are:

  • Is there a technical limitation for why this (local authentication of managed users) cannot occur?

It’s a DRM. Hope that helps.
(there is no other technical reason for the implementation Plex had done)

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I didn’t realize Plex could play protected content. IMO, authentication should take place locally, not remotely. Especially for lifetime Plex Pass members, who should only need to authenticate to refresh certificates/tokens. If the Internet goes down, I noticed content disappears from managed users, some players don’t work, which doesn’t going well for my autistic son.

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I believe the DRM he is referring to is the Digital Rights that protect Plex itself.

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I agree. I would love to use this feature, but only if the authentication was local. In my case, the issue is that my plex server is located at my remote home with spotty satellite internet connectivity. Plex Home would be a great feature for my family, if I could use it without having always on access to the internet.