I bought the Plex Pass last night to download movies from my friend’s shared library but I’m not seeing any download icons using Plex for Linux. I confirmed he has ‘Allow Downloads’ enabled for me on his media server. I even downloaded the android app and can’t download from there either. Any ideas what the issue could be?
What do you see if you click the 3 little dots in the corner of a movie on his server?
If you click the poster you should also see a little down arrow you can click
He does not have a Plex Pass. The documentation I’ve looked at says only the person downloading needs the Plex Pass?
I don’t think so. I believe the person supplying the downloaded content is the one who needs to have the Plex pass. If he had the Plex pass and you didn’t it would work.
I’m not directly looking at the documentation right now but that’s the way I remember it.
This says the user doing the downloads needs the plex pass
The way that reads it sounds like you are correct.
What is puzzling me is i have two servers. One with a Plex Pass and one without.
I can download from the server with a Plex pass to the server with no Plex pass.
Yeah I’m not sure what’s going on but that’s good to know. Perhaps I will try that
Check here in the morning. A Plex employee will probably have stopped in by then to give you some better directions.
Seems the change to Plex-pass being required client-side, not server-side, is a new thing related to ditching mobile Sync. By the wording, it sounds like they didn’t ENFORCE that the client needed it before now. They must’ve updated that ** Downloads for Windows, macOS, Linux Desktop** link yesterday.
Either way, it sounds like the client needing it to download is the intended behavior, which is not what you see here.
And here you are @justinsch1 
Much better than Reddit, since I then can do a lookup in our system
You do indeed have a Plex Pass, but your friend that shares a server with a name that starts with Av....... does not
Please take a look here:
So your friend needs a Plex Pass
What? That makes no sense. Even the article you linked mentions that the server owner does not need to have a Plex Pass in order for any client to be able to download media.
Anyone who buys a Plex Pass with the expectation of doing downloads while this documentation is still online should be granted that feature
You linked an article that says “Yes, though which account needs the subscription can vary, depending on the situation and when the user and server owner Plex accounts were created”
That is not a helpful answer.
That confusing matrix needs to be translated into English just like every other question and answer on that page so people know what they’re getting for their money
You guys are correct. If you have a Plex Pass, the server owner does not need one.
Sorry. Basically, you need a Plex Pass to use Downloads. However, we still allow Downloads under the previous behavior of the server admin having a Plex Pass and the user not having a Plex Pass if both accounts existed before the cut-off date.
@justinsch1 You should be able to use Downloads since you have a Plex Pass. Please provide me the android logs so I can check what is going on.
I would like to chime in and say that I am also experiencing this issue, and trying to find a way to solve it. In fact, I believe this new policy went into effect early, because I happened to be trying with a friend of mine to get him to be able to download my media on 7/30 and ran into him not being able to see a download link. I even purchased a Plex Pass for my own account because all of the documentation I found at the time said that if the server owner’s account has a Plex Pass then any other users they had added to Home would be able to download… not so, apparently. I feel cheated.
I do not want to have to ask all of my friends and family to purchase subscriptions just to download my files, that seems insane. I will find another software solution if it becomes that expensive… hell I’ll just host a naked web server. The workaround seems to be that Managed Users under a Plex Home can still download if the account has a Plex Pass, but even though I have created a PIN for my main profile it does not ask me for it upon initial sign in… therefore, any Managed Users I create now seem to automatically have access to my profile even though it has a PIN, and that is untenable.
This seems on the surface to be a horrible change in policy to me. I hope somebody can explain it in a way that makes the software practical to use again.
@justinsch1 Got your log. For some reason the app thinks your friend’s server is local and so it is trying to use the local IP address to get information from it instead of using the public IP. This of course will fail, which is why it can’t tell that you are allowed to download. Do you know if your friend uses a reverse proxy?
Interesting. I am able to stream the movie files from his server so why would downloading not work?
Can you stream something and get me the log again so I can compare the requests?
