Hi,
I noticed that the Plex player, whether on Windows, browser, iOS, Android… in short, all platforms, memorized local playback (miniplayer)
which means that if we do not stop the player and we continue a series on another device, and we return to the first, the reading position is wrong, the current video becomes unseen again, and the player is not up to date with respect to the real position.
in my case, an example:
I start a series in the living room, I go to bed but I want to resume my series before sleeping in the bedroom…, I fall asleep and my computer turns off, the next day I continue my reading in the living room, and I go into the bedroom to continue my series for a few episodes before sleeping, and when I restart plex, it offers me the episode from the day before, and marks it as unseen…
it’s relatively boring…
so my feature request is to have an option to allow the synchronization of readers from the same account
subject already mentioned here but I haven’t seen a feature request :
It seems you mean that when you pause playback of an item on one device and then continue watching on another device, the playback progress on the first device remains at the paused position and doesn’t sync with the other device’s progress.
In this case, setting “Terminate Sessions Paused for Longer Than” in the “Network” settings might be helpful. This option allows you to set how long an item can be paused before it is automatically stopped. When the paused duration exceeds the specified time, the item will stop playing. This way, the device should be able to successfully sync with the playback progress on other devices the next time it is opened.
Thanks, it could be a workaround, but a clean synchronization of the players would be better, especially with an account-linked setting.
because we all have uses that may be different, and some will prefer to be able to maintain the current operation.
My users for example, may want a behavior other than mine…
especially seeing from the description of the parameter, it does not seem to affect the direct flows (but my understanding may be wrong).
and if the parameter you mention works well for me it can annoy my users, who only have one device
I’m not quite sure about the situation you’re describing because Plex already has an auto-sync feature for playback progress. Each device has a “SYNC MY WATCH STATE AND RATINGS” option, which I believe includes watching progress. In my understanding, the scenario you listed occurs because the media was paused without stopping playback, causing the device to display the paused screen upon reopening instead of resuming or restarting playback.
Even if you pause the playback, if you exit the current playback and then re-enter the page for that TV show, it should refresh the media playback status and sync with other devices.
So, in my understanding, your issue seems to be simply due to not exiting the playback. If you have indeed enabled the “SYNC MY WATCH STATE AND RATINGS” option.
Are you expecting paused items to also sync playback progress with other devices?
yes
but to put it simply, when you turn on a video, the playback progress is sent periodically to plex to memorize the progress of a video.
except that the player is saved locally (in plex.ini for windows), which means that even if we continue reading on another device, when we later reopen the player on windows (regardless of the platform), like he saved the position of the miniplayer locally, he forcibly resets the progress to what it was at the time of the pause or the sudden shutdown (windows shutdown).
which forces me for the moment to have to pause the player when starting plex for windows, then to go to the episode which was memorized and to mark it manually as read, then return to “continue watching”, to finally continue my reading to the correct episode.
it’s counter-intuitive and not practical, if I fall asleep I can’t stop the video ^^
the current behavior does not pose a problem when you only have one device, but it does when you look at several devices…
all the settings that I tried none worked because the mini player is not synchronized as it is written locally on each device
ps: sorry the english is not my native language, if don’t clear don’t hesitate to tell me
I used Plex Web to play S01E01, then paused it midway and closed Plex Web.
I used Plex for Mac to mark S01E01 as watched.
When I reopened Plex Web, the bottom of the screen (mini player) indeed showed a continue playing option for S01E01, but it displayed S01E02 as the next episode. After closing S01E01 and refreshing all devices, all devices’ playback progress reverted to the continue playing position of S01E01.
Scenario 2:
I used Plex Web to play S01E01, then paused it midway and closed Plex Web.
I used Plex for Mac to mark S01E01 as watched and then played S01E02 for a while.
When I reopened Plex Web, the bottom of the screen (mini player) indeed showed a continue playing option for S01E01, but it displayed S01E02 as the next episode. After closing S01E01 and refreshing all devices, all devices’ playback progress synced to the latest position of S01E02.
In other words, if you watch an unfinished episode on another device and mark it as watched, only when you continue to play the next episode and generate new playback progress will this new progress overwrite the previous one. This seems to be the current logic.
If you merely mark an unfinished episode as watched without playing the next episode, the playback progress will remain at the last position. Only when you finish watching the unfinished episode or mark it as watched and then continue to play the next episode with new playback progress will this new progress sync across all platforms.
we come back to the fact that the player is not synchronized. another example:
PC A watches s01e01, pauses and closes
PC B puts s01e01 on « readed », and starts s01e02, pauses and closes
PC C, puts s02e02 on « readed », and the whole season 01 (readed) and starts s02e01 .
If you return to PC A s01e01 reappears in the mini player and s01e01 becomes « unreaded »,
if you then go to PC B, the same thing s01e02 appears in the mini player and the episode also becomes unread. in the end I read the whole season, but in the end we end up with all the episodes of season 1 on « readed » with the exception of episodes 1 and 2…
that’s why I’m making this feature request to have a synchronization of the players
I now understand your request. The current situation is that marking an episode as watched does not sync the watch status. Only generating new playback progress will sync the watch progress and status. We hope that the action of marking an episode as watched (or automatically mark as watched when finished watching) will also trigger the synchronization of the watch status. Is that correct?
yes, more or less to keep it simple, you just need to have synchronization of the player and this on the side of the user account itself.
currently the player is never synchronized and its status (video/progress) is saved locally. so at each refresh the status of the local player forces the state of the video to be to local state.
all plex has to do is save the player position on the user preference side, with a time stamp. and on the player side (windows, browser, mobile app) send the position periodically when it is in progress, and if it is paused or stopped, query the server side to determine if an update is necessary…
of course, this call for loading plex on the app or the web must be taken into account so that if a more recent version of the status player exists then it is retrieved and the old status is not sent.
development level it’s nothing complicated to do, it will take a few hours to implement with a parameter to activate or not (if the plex code is not anarchic), I take into account the development time of the parameters and the system on all platforms.
the current behavior is not logical, given that plex is server and synchronization oriented…
I can understand, however, that some users want this current behavior, hence the request for an activation parameter
a quick alternative, would be an option to not resume the player when opening (example on browser use session storage instead of local storage, this must be the same under windows/mac/unix applications, and there must be a equivalent under android/ios
