Started to use Playlists and I would love the ability to resume a playlist rather than start at the beginning each time.
I am not using Smart Playlists but just straightforward manually created playlists
I would like the ability to pause and resume - so when I start the playlist I would like to choose from Start or Resume
It would be remembered for the server allowing me to resume on any device a playlist I used on a different device earlier
I can see that there would be complications if I use the playlist on different devices simultaneously and this aspect would need some thought on how to implement - perhaps the current position needs to have device ID associated with it and when resuming one chooses a device playlist position to resume from - it should be doable
and not linked to the file itself... i.e. if i play a playlist of big bang theory episodes, it'll show the playlist perhaps in the on deck, but not the episode of big bang theory i was up to, and not the next unwatched episode of big bang theory... currently it shows the episode where i stopped at in the on deck and drives me mad lol...
then i mark the episode as watched again to get it off the on deck (probably adding to my view count even though i technically didn't watch it yet, i just stopped it playing when it started so ended up there) and it jump to season 8 episode 1 on deck cause i haven't started watching season 8 yet lol...
Would love this myself! Maybe even the playlist appears in OnDeck, have a few Anime Playlists I go through every now and again and this would be awesome for those. Saves me remembering which episode I got up to last.
I create playlists for a TV series and hit play to start it. Then when I come back to he playlist later, I just hit play again and it will pick up where I left off and continue running throuhg the playlist.
Also, put this into the TV Shows section. So at the first page of a TV series you hit the play button and it will take you to where you left off and continuos play. It says “Play Unwatched”, but doesn’t work. It goes back to the first episode every time I try it. Even though I have watched it the entire way through.
Sooo, I know this is in the “On Deck” area, but personally, I am not the biggest fan of the “On Deck” setup. It gives very limited information. It just shows an episode and doesn’t really tell me what playlist it is part of. I just want to be able to got to my custom playlist (or TV series) and hit the “continue” button to pick up where I left off. Just take the “On Deck” feature and place it within Playlists and TV Shows.
I feel like Plex is trying to be unique and is just making things difficult for themselves(and everyone else). Just keep it simple… KISS!!!
I don’t think that this is the same feature as I requested here, but as per the mod, I was directed to this request.
“I often arrive home, stop music playing on Plex on my Android phone, then enter the house. I’d like to be able to pick up where I left off when I’m using Kodi in the lounge room or Plex Web on my desktop.”
I’m not saving it as a playlist, rather just using the play queue. It should be remembered and easily transferrable between devices.
I imported my iTunes playlist into plex and listen to them on the bike. When I then watch a series on the train, the position of the playlist is lost and i’m left to scroll down a 1500-song playlist.
Hereby requesting a feature to remember the position in the playlist
I have a Buffyverse playlist I created for my wife, 250+ items, about 7 days worth of viewing. Obviously she cannot marathon the entire thing a week straight without sleeping, so the ability to resume a playlist would be great. Even if it just remember which Episode was last completed and started from the beginning of that episode (in a case where she stops mid-episode) would be useful…
Missed this FR and had posted my own. Thankfully the mod sent me here to give it a like.
I would like to see Playlists treated as their own container, similar to how a TV Show would operate with its seasons and episodes inside. When an item within the Library, whether it be a Movie or TV Show, is launched from within the playlist, a tag with the playlist ID could be added to the request for playing the file. If the item is stopped in the middle of the item, it retains the playlist ID tag, so when launching Plex again either later or from another device, you are continuing the item from within the playlist. As an item is watched, you continue through the playlist. Once you stop watching and start Plex back up, there should be an On Deck item for the playlist items, but NOT their original container. I have seen posts related to this issue as well.
Usecase example:
I would like to create a playlist for the Marvel Cinematic Universe which includes both Movies and episodes from the shows as well. If I close Plex while watching an item and then come back to “Continue Watching,” I am no longer watching that item from within the playlist. I am watching that item as a standalone and once finished, I have to go through the process of browsing to the playlist again and find where I left off. In the case of having a mix of Movies and TV shows, the amount of items in the playlist could be rather long and tedious to browse through each time Plex is re-opened.
If the playback of the item, TV Show episodes in particular, is kept within the playlist container with the associated playlist ID, this should also avoid issues of causing the Show that the episode was played from within the playlist as showing up in the On Deck list unnecessarily.
Now that everyone is in quarantine I imagine a lot of people, myself included, are finally tackling some of those very long TV shows we have been pushing off. I’ve got lists for Stargate, One Piece, Battlestar Galactica, all of which are complicated and very specific. Some episodes are flashbacks, you have to make sure you watch the movies and specials in the right places. Playlists are supposed to solve this exact issue, but they’re a colossal pain to use right now. They need to remember where I was, and show up in ‘On Deck’ as ‘Playlist: Stargate Viewing Order, on SG1 S5E6’ and let me resume playlist viewing. I shouldn’t have to scroll through 11 days of content to get back to where I left off, assuming I remember at all.
I’m sick and tired of essentially only being able to start a playlist from the beginning. Even if I remember where in the playlist I was, and scroll down to that episode, it plays that episode, not from that point in the episode, and then plays any subsequent episodes with the usual lengthy countdown before each episode. What is so complex about starting a playlist from an arbitrary episode?
On a related theme, since I have a tendency to watch the same playlists again and again and again (the current stressful situation makes watching “comfort TV” over and over appealing), and where I stop watching a playlist on any given day (and the fact that it won’t let me pick up where I left off) means that when I do start it from the beginning, in a lot of cases it remembers that I was partway through a given episode, and I end up getting episodes starting at random locations. If you can’t give us resumable playlists, how about having the button to start a playlist reset the play position for all of the items in that playlist.
I like Plex, it’s reliable, and I pay the annual fee even though I don’t use the server sharing features because I want the software to improve, but Plex has been so unresponsive on improving its terrible playlists that I’d switch to something else in an instant if it offered the features I miss.
I have used Plex for about six years now and have patiently waited for playlist functionality to improve. The ability to remember where you left off is key to the success of any streaming platform. When Disney+ launched, this feature was lacking and it was quickly corrected due to widespread criticism. People use Plex to be able to take control of their media and to make it more convenient to access that media. Failing to implement a resume feature for playlists indicates to me that the company has lost sight of why people chose their product in the first place. They have been busily adding more content, like Tidal. Adding external content just makes Plex more like other streaming services. That is a losing game for Plex. The market is already over-saturated with more and better content than Plex can realistically compete with.
I have actively been trying out alternative media systems due to Plex’s poor playlist support. It isn’t just the resume functionality:
Other users can’t see playlists
Can’t clone playlists
Auto playlists don’t have an “or” capability (e.g. title is “SG-1” or “SG:Atlantis”
Can’t resume
Can’t continue playlist on another device (related to resume)
I have several collections that mix multiple TV series and movies and I don’t always want to view them in alphabetical order.
Babylon 5
Stargate
Star Trek
Star Wars
MCU (I have a movie-only playlist and one that includes the TV shows)
Arrowverse
Almost every time that I have been annoyed by Plex not doing what I need it to, the cause has been poor playlist support. Resuming a playlist does not seem like a very complicated feature to implement (I have Master’s in Computer Science). The Plex team is simply not prioritizing playlist support over other features. We have to hound them about this until they realize that it is important. I want a system that helps me experience my media collection. I don’t need another Tubi or Crackle.
Please, can we get this feature soon? Indeed I’m now starting on StarGate too, after a collegae showed me the trailers. And this has a very specific order to watch the movies and episodes. I was going to create a playlist of this, but just in time remembered, this isn’t going to show on deck…
Please implement a ‘resume’ feature for playlists. At least just that. Make it super simple - if I go to the playlist and click ‘play’ it will resume where I left off. It doesn’t need to ask if I want to start over or resume (that would be nice, but not if it prevents implementing a simple ‘resume’ feature). If I want to start the playlist over I can click ‘play’ on the first item in the playlist (which will reset where I ‘resume’ from next time to make it simple). It doesn’t need to be added to the dashboard. Find the simplest implementation and DO IT!
Please prioritize this. There are a number of threads requesting the same thing, and it’s really frustrating that this isn’t added.
