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Do you guys have any idea how bad it looks as a new user to have mods fighting against users? Plex started as a fork of XBMC, which was open source. The reason for its existence is to allow people to play their own media. That’s why I’m here, that’s why everyone else is here. Concentrate on that, do it well, and for the love of god stop the toxicity.
Who was I fighting with? I was simply stating a fact. Misinformation helps nobody.
we all know it was forked from xbmc.
Which has nothing to do with the fact that PLEX was never open source.
That was in the days before the Plex server existed.
And the last remnants were removed when Plex Home Theater was EOL’d.
im in the process of aborting Plex. with pmp sucking donkey balls and channels/plugins getting the axe and now Plexs own version of filmrise/tubi/popcornflix forced on me…its gotta go. Emby with Kodi as a front end is the golden ticket.
I think part of the complaint is this: If I want to share MY plex server with someone, and I get them to sign up and I share MY server with them, even adding them as a “Plex Home” user, there is currently no way to control their user experience to prevent online content from showing up. Sure, there are scenarios where it makes sense to take that out of the server administrator’s control. But currently, there is no option to keep it under the server administrator’s control.
I cannot share my server without online content being injected into the experience. THAT is the problem.
Yes, there is, if they’re a managed user. Settings → Online Media Sources. Set it to “Disabled for Managed Users.” Then anyone who is part of your Plex home (i.e. a managed user) won’t have access to it.
Folks with whom you just share libraries will still have to do this on their own, however.
Actually, if they create a plex account and then get added to plex home, they don’t count as a managed user for these settings. I have my server settings set the online content to disabled for managed users, but the accounts that I’ve added to my “Plex Home” still have podcasts, tidal, etc.
If I “Create a managed user” like I did for my kids, then it’s controlled by the Online Media Sources settings you described. But to use that kind of account, I have to sign into the device with my credentials. My kids don’t have their own Plex account, just a “managed user” under my account. But if someone creates a plex account and then I add them to my “home” then my “Online Media” settings on the server don’t treat that user as a “Managed User”
Yeah, which is what @pshanew is saying. If you want to control the users they have to be managed home users. You’re not using Managed Users right now. You’re taking independent Plex accounts and then inviting them to access that server. That’s why you can’t remove the Movies & TV library on it.
He specifically said “anyone who is part of your Plex home (i.e. a managed user) won’t have access to it.” That isn’t true. You can “Share” libraries, or you can add the user to your “Home.” I’m not just sharing a library with them. I have them added to my “Plex Home” but those users still have access to the online sources, even though I “disabled” it for managed users.
Edit:
In short the only way I can share my plex server with someone is either to let them have my credentials (so they can sign in as a true “managed user”) or to let them sign up with their own account, in which case I cannot control their experience. I cannot share my server without letting plex inject online content.
Under the users and sharing settings, there are “Friends” and there is “Plex Home.” Within plex home there is the option to create a managed user, or invite a home user."
Yes, and that’s how it’s going to be. Because a Plex account on a client is not limited to a single server, and the Plex commercial partnership content is not dependent on a Plex server to begin with. It would not be feasible (or really appropriate) to give you the ability to control the Ad-supported content on other people’s Plex accounts.
Like I said, I understand it makes sense in some scenarios to take it out of the server administrators hands. That’s fine. What I am saying is this:
There is no way for me to share my server without allowing plex to inject online content.
I realize there are other scenarios some people want to accomplish, and so doing things that accommodate those use cases is fine. But for the scenario I want to accomplish, THERE IS NO OPTION! The option of sharing my server where users only see my content, that option was taken away. That is the problem.
I think this goes deeper than just this issue. I think the best solution I could imagine for my purposes, would be to allow the plex server to manage user accounts, authentication and all. That way I could sign people up to my plex server and I control the experience, rather than Plex Inc. controlling the accounts and the experience. But that’s a whole different can of worms.
Ah, that would be my mistake for conflating home users with managed users (managed user is a home user, but a home user isn’t necessarily a managed user). Sorry for the confusion.
The problem is you’re treating these other Plex accounts as thought they are users you are supposed to be able to administer, and they aren’t. The only users you actually get to control in that way are the Managed Users on your Plex server, which are really just sub-profiles of your own Plex account.
I had a very long conversation with someone on Reddit who has the same position you have, and it continued to come back to two points.
For many of us, the only reason these users are “Plex’s” users instead of our users, is because Plex doesn’t let you sign up “your users” unless you’re willing to give them your password. Plex has created this forced option: either trust them with your password and make them a “managed user” that needs your admin password to sign in, or else get them to sign up as “Plex’s” users and give up control. I realize it isn’t currently structured to manage such users from the server. That’s precisely my point. I (and users like me) want to be able to share my server my way, and we can’t. That’s all there is to it. I would have set them up as “my users” when I shared “my server” but that isn’t an option.
If Plex wanted to let me control the experience, they could allow that. But they don’t want to allow me to control it. For a long time that was tolerable because, while I couldn’t control the user experience, at least Plex wasn’t botching it too badly. The complaints we’re seeing in this thread are likely actually complaints about this structure. Now, I disagree with the experience they’re creating, so I’m complaining that (a) I don’t have control over that experience, and (b) the ones that do control the experience are taking it a direction I don’t like.
Either keep the user experience the way we like it, or give us an option to control it. But right now, a lot of people are unhappy with the Online Media experience but are unable to take back control. I’m probably barking up the wrong tree and this will probably never happen. But I wanted to make sure the problem might actually be recognized and understood before I gave up hope for a solution.
Maybe Plex is not for you then? You’re complaining their product does not meet your needs, ignoring whether they had any interest in such a setup to begin with. Plex users have always been Plex’s. The difference here is you have a server on your account and these other users do not. The ability to share with other users was always more a case of “content loaning” than it was “server/user relationship”.
I’m not sure which clients you are dealing with, but most smart TV and streaming devices authorize via code entered on the Plex website. You can just have your user read you the code (like, over the phone) and you enter it on the site on your side, or on your smartphone if you are at their location. You don’t have to give them your Plex account username and password. One issue with that is many clients will auto-login to your user profile when you do that, not go to the user-selection screen.
A Plex client can be associated with any number of servers from other parties. How would you rectify a situation where some server admins want Ad-supported content hidden and some want it enabled?
Like I said, my ideal scenario would be that the users accessing my server would be “my” users. I don’t know whether “they” had any interest in my use case scenario, but I’m pretty sure accessing content on the server is a much more fundamental feature than online media. If anything, injecting online media seems more likely to be the afterthought than the other way around.
To your question, maybe they could allow the server admin to control it for people in their “Plex Home.” Users can access multiple servers, but can only join one “Plex Home”.
The real point is, there are ways to handle this. Perhaps making online sources purely opt-in instead of opt-out would have been enough. Or perhaps a one-time pop-up for each user “Do you want 3rd party ad-supported content to be visible or not?” I came up with those in just a few minutes. I’m sure people getting paid to develop the software could come up with more if they wanted to.
I’m pretty sure mobile devices require an actual password. Same for computer clients. I think it’s mostly TV apps that use a code system for signing in. And yes, the first sign in defaults to the admin account. And if they ever upgrade their Roku, buy a new TV, get a new phone, etc. you have to do it again. It’s not really their account at that point. Again, not a great experience for the user. But yes, it’s doable in a pinch.
Yes, it is an afterthought. Clearly Plex Media Server was made for users hosting their own content and accessing it within their own home to begin with. Being able to remotely access it was a secondary function added later, and being able to grant other users the rights to also view a server’s content was even more tertiary, as giving other people the ability to view content falls into a rather dark-grey legal area.
Plex’s new Movies & TV service is essentially just a Plex-Inc-run Plex Media Server with third-party content they are auto-sharing with all their users, that they are also auto-pinning to the sidebar for greater exposure.
That’s not a bad idea. But you’re also asking for a fundamental change in the way Plex Media Server operates.
Yeah, that’s… exactly what I said. 
Usually when I hear about these “I need to control another user” scenarios it involves elderly or at least very not-technically-inclined parents, and they aren’t using a computer or mobile device. Overwhelmingly they are coming from the “TV Age” so to speak, and they are using the Plex server with a Roku or Fire Stick their family set up for them. Other oft-repeated questions:
As far as PC usage goes, you can get the code-based auth method on Plex Media Player if you have it in TV mode when you set it up. I tried on the Android client but you can’t change to the TV layout without being signed in first and then once you are you can’t navigate without a keyboard.
