On-deck has selective memory

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
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That is true. And that is what Plex is tracking. The difference, and what appears to be happening in your case, is if you skip an episode and watch a different episode than the one that was due next. Plex will continue to remember this “next” episode so you can resume the series where you left off. Skipping ahead in the show doesn’t change what episode should have been next. This is the intent of “On Deck”.

What you are looking for is the “next” episode from the last one watched. Unfortunately, this is not a feature. You can make a feature request and see if there are others that feel this would be useful.

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We aren’t skipping ahead or jumping around on episodes on purpose. We generally watch everything in order, but there are certain scenarios where we might decide to or might need to interrupt that chain:

  1. We decide to begin watching the show at a season other than season 1. We came from Netflix & DVDs with The Office and Friends, so I’m pretty sure we did not start at S01E01 on either because we weren’t at that point in Netflix or on the discs.
  2. We want to go back and re-watch an episode or 2 that one of us missed.
  3. We want to go back and re-watch an episode or 2 that both of us missed (e.g., left TV on without watching)
  4. Plex screws up the order of episodes or repeats an episode back-to-back, so we need to manually navigate to the correct episode that we’re supposed to be on in the library (happens regularly with The Office and Friends).
  5. We do not have a complete collection of a certain show (e.g. Overhaulin’, Chopped), so we can’t follow exactly in chronological order. I would have to imagine that this would only be a problem if Plex were comparing the stated season/episode from the file to some third-party or in-house database of seasons and chapters for that particular show. At which point it would produce an error when it cannot locate the episodes we do not have. But we haven’t actually had any problems with resuming episodes in the correct spot with Overhaulin’ or Chopped.
  6. Adding on to #5, I sometimes add new episodes to a library (episodes that may be from older seasons). That automatically throws everything out of order with this apparent checklist Plex uses.
  7. I sometimes play random shows/movies while troubleshooting Plex issues. I may be looking to play a certain title that isn’t “on-deck”, or I may simply be in a particular library already and click on a random episode. (Note: These issues with Plex jumping around are not directly attributed to this troubleshooting I do sometimes)

There are probably dozens of other reasons why someone might watch episodes out of order, but none are unusual behaviors for a home media server user. It doesn’t sound like Plex is tracking the “last-watched” or “next” episode at all. If it were, we’d never have any problems, even if we did jump around on seasons/episodes. Plex would simply look at the last-watched episode and resume at that point. Done. It should never consider which episodes are watched vs. unwatched. That makes no sense. Its not a checklist/To-Do list; its a home media server. I’m not saying your wrong here. I’m just saying its really REALLY stupid if Plex goes off some arbitrary playlist instead of simply keeping track of the last file that was loaded.

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Your usage is fine, but the intent of OnDeck was 2 fold. 1 - allow resuming a partially watched episode and to track the next unwatched episode in chronological order, so an episode is not skipped. For most shows, watching things in chronological order is the preferred method. There are exceptions like cooking shows, news, and Overhaulin.

What you need is a different feature. Something to track the next episode based just on the episode number regardless of watched status. This is just not something Plex does at this time.

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Understood. But Plex needs to stop marketing this as a true “resume” feature, because it isn’t at all. Its very misleading. And it is apparently causing playback problems, which is all the more reason to at least change the description to something more accurate.

I would submit a feature request, but I’m sure the feature is not going to be added if it hasn’t been already. This has to be one of the top complaints Plex receives. I just think its crazy that Plex cannot do this simple task that virtually every other platform does without a second thought.

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I’ve never seen Plex advertise this. Do you have a specific link to something? I’ve seen Plex say things like “resume where you left off”, but that’s mostly to imply finishing a move or episode you started, not tracking what is next.

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That is what I’m saying. “Resume where you left off” implies that Plex will resume where you last left off…which it apparently does not actually do.

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I guess it’s a difference of interpretation. To me “left off” is where in the series, not my files. If there is an unwatched episode, that to me is where I “left off”. That way I can finish anything I missed.

For example, you watch episode 10 of a show. You then go back to episode 5 to look up a reference to something that was said in 10. What should play next, 6 or 11?

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It should play 6, just like any other service on the market today does. If you jump episodes, you lose the old spot. That’s standard practice, which is why I’m so confused that Plex seems to be the only company that doesn’t follow this rule.

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Ok then, I guess Plex is different. I personally think 11 should be next so I agree with Plex’s method.

Again, Plex’s intent is to make sure you don’t miss an episode, not just go to the next item. This also allows you to watch specials that may have that occur mid or between seasons automatically. I’m personally hoping that this can also be leveraged in the future to allow for cross-overs between shows.

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I completely understand the concept youre describing, and I also believe you that Plex operates in this manner. All I’m saying is that it isn’t the industry norm; its very unusual. I don’t know what you’re talking about with specials. I’m strictly referring to the media server part of Plex, not the streaming service that comes with Plex pass. I don’t even use that. And obviously there no surprise specials with content you own yourself.

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By specials @anon18523487 is referring to when you have a TV series that airs a special that should be watched between say s02e05 and s02e06 but it’s classified as a special. I know there is a pretty popular show that has this “issue” but I can’t remember what it is. Has nothing to do with anything remotely related to having a Plex Pass, not even sure what you are referring to.

Regarding MovieFan’s example, I just tested on Amazon Prime (I watch very little on other services, mostly off my server) with a series I finished but the last episode (s01e08) was not marked as complete. When I first clicked resume, it started off at s01e08. So I backed out and acted like I watched s01e04 (basically ffwed to the end and then backed out before the next episode started). When I clicked resume, it then started s01e05 and this pattern continued when I “finished” episode 5.

However, I’d argue that 1) just because something is industry standard doesn’t necessarily make it the correct way, just the accepted way it works. 2) What I did was not actually like On Deck because Amazon Prime doesn’t offer anything resembling that feature from what I can see. When I did my test, I had to go to the actual series and the resume was at the series level. The On Deck feature isn’t really meant to do what you are referring to:

On Deck : On Deck shows you television content that you’re watching. If you have a whole season of content and finish episode 3, On Deck will then have episode 4 waiting for you. If you stop watching in the middle of an episode, it will be available for you to pick up right where you left off.

That was taken from here: https://support.plex.tv/articles/200484203-interface-overview/

On Deck, like MovieFan said, is really meant for when you are watching something that you “haven’t watched” before on Plex so that you are able to continue with the next chronological episode.

Running my test on Amazon Prime, I honestly don’t know if I agree with that approach (I am pretty sure at this point I don’t like it). If I watched almost a whole season and then I went back to an earlier episode to verify something or because I wanted to see a particular scene from that episode, I wouldn’t want to be resuming from after that earlier episode because of that. I would still want to resume from where I was near the end of the season.

I agree with MovieFan as well about making a feature request for this functionality. There isn’t any reason that On Deck can continue to work how it does but Plex implement a resume feature that works more like the industry standard as you say. And if possible, if it makes sense it could be implemented to be configurable so that it could act as you prefer by starting from the next episode chronologically after the last episode that was played or as I prefer where it would play (as in MovieFan’s example) episode 11 and not episode 6 (there could be some logic issues in that which is why I say if it’s possible).

Either way, this is how it works at this time and continuing to complain about it here will not do anything. To have any possibility of a change, you would need to make a feature request and hope that it gets enough votes and that the Plex team deems it worthy/feasible to implement (they don’t give a timeline or tell what features are being worked on).

-Shark2k

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Coming in to beat a dead horse isn’t exactly bringing anything to the table either, @shark2k. Aside from explaining more about those “specials”, there’s nothing that you said that wasn’t already said by @anon18523487.

The fact of the matter is that what Plex is doing here is most definitely not industry standard, as you even showed with your Amazon Prime testing. Whether or not it gets a fancy banner saying “On Deck” or its own section on a homepage is completely irrelevant. A feature is a feature; implementation is a different story. As you showed with Prime, the normal behavior for resuming content is to resume the last file used. Doesn’t matter if you’re on Prime, Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, etc. that is the way it works 100% of the time. Plex wants to resume content at the last place Plex (playlists) left off. I’ve never heard of another service behaving in this manner in my life. I challenge you to find another one.

Based on the verbiage in the Plex article you quoted, there’s no reason to think that Plex wouldn’t behave like Prime or any of the other services. There’s nothing in that paragraph and nothing that I’ve ever seen elsewhere to date which would give me or anyone else the impression that Plex is trying to follow a chronological list of unwatched episodes. It’s probably written somewhere, in some article, but its most certainly not front and center where the majority of users would see it. I’ve been using Plex for 7-9 months and Ive read numerous articles and watched countless YouTube videos, and I’m just now finding out about this. My whole point is that Plex isn’t being forthcoming about their intent here, and it has apparently caused me and I’m sure many others months of frustration (I use that word lightly given the nature of the problem). And if what you both are saying is true, then I’m just going to be annoyed the entire time using Plex because I’m not able to resume where I left off half the time. There’s no other way to resume where you left off besides going to “on-deck”. It took us long enough just to get used to the concept that hitting “play” in the library doesn’t take you to your last spot and instead restarts you at S01E01.

You can have your opinion on whether or not this feature is useful, and I’ll have mine. You may love it, but I find it to only be a nuisance. I cannot stand the Home page in Plex, and its frustrating to be forced to use it just to have any sort of reasonably hassle-free experience. I’m also not trying to say any way is “correct”, nor am I saying the current feature should be removed. I’m merely pointing out that it is highly unusual, perhaps an industry first, for Plex to configure resuming content in this manner. And as such, any reasonable person would assume Plex would behave like Prime or Netflix.

Implementing the “conventional” method of resuming content is not difficult from a technical perspective, which leads me to believe Plex may have done this intentionally. What reason they might have for that is beyond me. But I would put any amount of money on the fact that this question gets asked to them a lot, and they have yet to implement the feature after years of development. As a matter of fact, they seem to be backtracking in my estimation. They’ve cut out a number of useful features, such as being able to change your metadata directory. Now you must go through Windows registry for that. Such a common configuration among Plex users, and they made it unnecessarily complicated…

Regarding the “specials” thing…I’ve never in my life heard of what youre describing. I’ve been on this planet for 36 years probably watching TV at least 30 of the years, and I have never seen a special interjected between episodes in any show Ive ever watched. I believe you that it happens, but its not something that I’m familiar with at all, so I really don’t think its something I need to worry about. I was assuming @anon18523487 was talking about some kind of specials available in the Plex streaming service (Plex Pass is required to use Plex streaming). I never watch Plex streaming, so I don’t know anything about it. I just know there’s no way a “special” was going to magically popup on my HDD in my media server. I get it now, but it still seems exceptionally rare. And I can tell you for certain that none of the shows I watch have any such features like that.

When I got home, I marked everything as “read” in the TV Shows library. For the record, neither Friends nor The Office had any unwatched shows listed in the corner of the cover art. They might have been the only shows that were completely watched as a matter of fact. To be sure, I marked Friends and The Office as “unwatched”, then market them as “watched” right after. I then force closed the Plex app on the firestick, cleared app cache, and hard-restarted the firestick by pulling the power cable. Obviously theres nothing “on-deck” for either of those 2 shows now, so after watching Friends a little tonight I’ll see where it resumes tomorrow night. If it resumes on season 4 or 10, I might lose my sh it.

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As a follow-up, Friends is now remembering the location we left off at. We haven’t really been watching the office lately, so I can’t comment on that one. But we did begin watching Always Sunny, and Plex refused to load that show to On-Deck until yesterday. It was probably the 7th or 8th time of us watching the show before it finally showed up On-Deck.

And in unrelated news, the hours and hours I spent renaming my entire Plex library using plex’s “preferred” nomenclature was a complete waste of my time. The ’ (YYYY)’ doesn’t even work correctly probably 15% of the time. A bunch of my movies still have the (YYYY) part in the title, which Plex should have removed. Then several others still have the old filename as the title. And of course Plex failed to put almost all movies series in order by release date like its supposed to. And to top it off, Plex overwrote probably 50-75% of the metadata I had set in my library. Even after all this, when I tried to change some movies covers back, they only lasted a couple days before Plex erased them again. That lock function doesn’t do anything in Plex. Plex is so poorly coded, I’m getting so frustrated with it.

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The match is still screwed up, it still ignores my metadata. But I’m at least at a point where I’m fine with the data it’s pulled online for the most part.

The “on deck” garbage is so unbelievably ■■■■■■ now though. Basically every single show we watch either shows the wrong resume point or doesn’t even show up at all. It’s seriously so messed up. It’s completely useless. I’ve marked all as read and marked unread and fixed match and anything else you can think of I’ve done it. Plex is just a ■■■■■■ program. It’s nothing but problems, and the support staff are too incompetent to fix it.

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YES!! I’ve been having so many issues with “on deck” too recently… it randomly marks certain episodes as watched, it puts new season premieres in the fourth page, etc

It’s a mess, basically useless. I’ve had to remove the trakt plugin and now I manually mark watched stuff on there to make sure I’m not missing any episodes

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Things have only gotten worse for me. Our shows keep jumping all over the place. Ive marked/unmarked all as Read, cleared cache, cleaned bundles and emptied trash, even replaced the firestick with a nvidia shield pro. Nothing has worked. It’s all a waste of time and money. This is plex’s fault, but their support only wants to blame other factors instead of just admitting they’re the problem.

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