You should not have to work that hard just to watch your movies.
4 Likes
Completely agree. The new Roku app is complete UX garbage.
Unless I just haven’t found it, which would itself be a colossal failure:
-Can’t reorder libraries
-can’t hide libraries
-can’t add music to main page
-can’t get to playlists
WTAF
3 Likes
Yeah, when the libraries were on the left and you could pin and unpin them you could also reorder them. Now with the top bar they are stuck in whatever order Plex decides they want them in. Some ‘upgrade’ huh? What a joke Plex is. I keep saying it, the people who pushed for these changes and approved this update should be fired.
EDIT:
It appears you can reorder the libraries now in the top navigation bar. They must have changed it, I noticed it a little while ago. Just select whichever library you want to move and press the asterisk button on your remote and it brings up the menu to reorder it.
1 Like
Another bug to report in this app that Plex completely overlooked. There are three different modes, light, dark and high contrast you can set the app for whatever design you want. Well if you select the ‘light’ option and go to the top library navigation bar nothing highlights when you select it.
This is because the white icon showing what you have selected matches the new white color scheme of the bar so it is invisible. The highlight was supposed to change to black in order for it to show up. So as you scroll left and right you can’t tell which library you are on until you press the OK button on the remote.
Not that this is a huge deal of course, because that all white app color scheme is god awful and I have a hard time believing anyone would ever set it to display that on their app. But it’s still another instance of an unacceptable Plex oversight in this ‘upgrade’ of theirs. Clearly this app was not fully tested by the developers before being force upgraded to our Rokus.
1 Like
Yeah they need to get rid of the UI changes on Roku or I’m getting rid of Plex, I use it to stream content off my own NAS I don’t want their hot garbage shoved in my face.
Revert it back to the way it was or I’ll take my business elsewhere.
3 Likes
I stopped using Plex when I installed Emby to see if I would like it. It turns out that I do. I haven’t had any problems with it so far. I’ve only added the TV and movie libraries, though. I also haven’t bought the premium edition, even though it includes some nice features. So, it looks like Plex’s disregard for their customers is forcing me to move to a new platform. Fortunately for me, Emby has made that easy to do.
4 Likes
Two week follow-up:
- Many of the initial bugs have been sorted, though I still experience the app freezing and sometimes becoming completely unresponsive requiring an app restart.
- Removal of “On-Demand” and “Live TV” is done through the Plex web app instead of the Roku app. This is a carry-over, but it still seems silly that it’s not a client option.
- I still hate using the new toolbars. The new layout has increased the number button presses required for navigating libraries.
- The “Show” thumbnail is useless to me and takes up real estate on the show screen.
New complaints:
- When I select a “Recently Released Episode” from the Home screen or the Recommended screen, I can see only that episode. Clicking the “Show” thumbnail triggers watch for that episode instead of taking me to the show. I’m not always on the most recent episode, so I’m forced me to navigate more.
- Subtitles MUST to be set to burn-in. This was a rare occasion before this update.
- The clock disappears on the show screen, which is strange because I can see it pretty much any other time while using the app. Personally, I really appreciate that Plex has a clock because I have terrible time management skills and this actually helps me out.
I still dislike the update, AND I found even more to dislike about it. I miss the previous version and I would rollback if that were an option. I don’t want to switch to another media app, though the idea is gaining consideration with each misdirected click and app freeze.
6 Likes
I am right there with you. I do not want to switch away from Plex, they were the best there was. Now? I’m torn. I absolutely do not have the time right now to migrate everything so for now I have frozen all updates on the apple tv and server to keep myself locked until they either reverse course or I find time early next year to migrate. Come on Plex, like seriously what the hell!?
7 Likes
I agree about the ‘Show’ Tile added before the first episode in every season. It’s completely useless, takes up space on your screen and it’s something I’m never going to click on. Also before that tile was added anytime you clicked a season the cursor was automatically placed on the next Unwatched episode so you didn’t have to navigate towards it.
Now when you click a season it puts the cursor on that stupid new useless ‘Show’ tile instead so you have to move over to the right to find the next Unwatched episode manually. How is any of this an ‘Improvement’ or ‘Upgrade’ Plex? I would love to hear your reasoning!
Also about the clock, it used to be on the page of episodes and on movie pages when you selected one, now it’s gone and can only be seen from higher levels of the app. Also not an improvement! Put it back!
1 Like
Hmm, I just watched a movie with SRT subtitles and it didn’t require burn-in on my Roku Ultra.
Perhaps, some other types do?
SRT and WebVTT are the only two formats of subs the Roku can play natively. Other types would require burn-in due to lack of support. I think what genepewl is saying is they are having to manually set the client to always burn-in to get the subtitles at all. The transcode isn’t being triggered automatically like it should.
Just like the mobile apps, this new UI is really painful to use. I don’t mind change but only if it makes sense and this doesn’t make any sense. Swapping between libraries on the top bar to find something is horrible. It actually makes me angry each time I go to find something.
4 Likes
There was nothing useful in this update. It was change just for change’s sake and that’s stupid.
1 Like
How about an option under Settings.→ Experience.. to choose Menu.. Top or Left…
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I doubt that will happen, too convenient and makes too much sense. Plex likes to force what they think you should have whether it reduces functionality or not.
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This UI is truly horrendous. To make navigating libraries so time consuming and difficult is not the direction that Plex should go. What were they thinking? What is better about this? My 80+ year old parents will not be able to figure out how to get to my movies!!
8 Likes
What the heck were you devs thinking? THIS NEW UI SUCKS!!
MY ELDERLY PARENTS CAN NO LONGER FIND ANYTHING!!!
YOU HAVE BROKEN ACCESSIBILITY!
8 Likes
I have been doing this for quite a while. 10ish years. Right now, my wife and kids simply can’t find the libraries to browse. It’s too cumbersome. I am used to it, but showing them over and over has resulted in them simply waiting until I can do it for them. My mother just chooses to not watch anything on my server any more because she can’t find it. The Library to TV to Browse pathway is counterintuitive to all of them (and to myself, really).
I host for my family. If it doesn’t get easier, I will have to switch.to Jellyfin
It gives them the experience they can use. I REALLY DON’T WANT TO. I FEEL IGNORED AND INCONSEQUENTIAL. Please do something good.
8 Likes
I guess I understand why they did this. As soon as you load the smartphone app it is pretty obvious that’s the driver now, and it is much easier to have a single UI across the board. Problem is that by focusing on the smartphone experience you destroyed the TV experience. Made the Roku app much harder to use. The smartphone has the advantage of a touch screen, so you, the developers, can focus on the layout that maximizes the space. Not the same with a TV where your pointing device is a remote control. I don’t think the solution is telling us, accept it, or else…
The best solution I have found to this so far is connecting the Plex app to my RokuTV and managing Plex from the smartphone.
1 Like
I still have the old version of the app on my iphone and there is absolutely nothing wrong with the mobile experience on the classic app. The update they did earlier this year completely ruined it on Android, I stopped even using it on my tablet.
This whole fiasco finally pushed me over the edge and I set up both Jellyfin and Emby on the same server. I found out neither are as resource efficient as Plex so I had to upgrade the RAM from 4GB to 16GB and now it’s been smooth sailing. Jellyfin is not bad however it’s missing a few critical features, in particular I could not find a way to shuffle play an entire library and I also don’t like how the mobile app splits libraries into multiple pages. Emby while very similar doesn’t suffer from these downsides and it offers Emby Connect which is similar to the cloud authentication and server management Plex has except it is a separate component you don’t have to use. I bought a lifetime pass for Emby figuring it’s worth it just to have a solid app on my tablet that I can use to watch locally downloaded content on flights and such. It’s a LOT of work to migrate my libraries and set up all the metadata but so far the Roku apps are SO much better than the new Plex experience. I’ve started migrating my users over to Emby and but plan to leave Plex up and running for anyone that does still want to use it. I care a lot less now whether they roll back the recent changes and I hope that by the time the same enshitification happens to Emby, Jellyfin will have closed the feature gap.
3 Likes
