“Downloads” is infuriatingly unreliable. It works maybe 1/3 to 1/2 of the time. Sync worked better and I had only a few occasional similar hiccups but overall much more reliable. Downloads cannot be trusted or counted on at all. Needs major fixing to be a replacement for Sync.
General issues:
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When watching an episode, the episode is never marked watched but rather 80% complete or so depending. - This seems to be substantially improved however the watch status is not always cached and sent to server when reconnecting to LAN.
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Syncing consistency sucks - frequently I find myself watching out of order episodes and I can’t control what I am playing or even see what is available/downloaded while it’s having sync issues. Frequently as in basically every show and or season gets screwed up and I end up watching episodes in the next season before watching all the episodes in the current season. - This seems to be improved as well and I am not seeing this issue as much lately.
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Cannot download anything on my LAN (always fails) - I literally have to be on a different network for downloads to work which is insane and terrible - needs to be fixed. I can direct-play locally so I shouldn’t have any issues downloading locally. - I believe this was fixed at least, thanks.
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If something is happening with a download, you can’t edit or view it anymore…
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Doesn’t seem to be any way to manage it outside of the phone nor see true progress. (This seems to be a new regression as I think it used to be possible to manage on the web interface, certainly with Sync)
Emby sync/downloads just works. It works on the LAN, it works on the phone…
Thoroughly disappointed by Plex Downloads and the lack of attention to fixing these issues over the, what… maybe year+ now it’s been live.
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I haven’t been able to get anything to download to any of my Android devices at all. I’ve tried on a different network and using a VPN with no luck. Didn’t have a problem with Sync, but haven’t been able to get a single one to work since the switch to Downloads. I’m probably going to just give up on using Plex for travel / offline viewing.
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Anyone at least know of a way to fix the LAN download issue…? That’s the worst of all.
Essentially switched to Emby Downloads now and it’s so much simpler and more reliable… but I also only have that enabled for LAN access so no remote syncing.
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Anyone at least know of a way to fix the LAN download issue…? That’s the worst of all.
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This is still broken/dysfunctional - worked great with the old sync.
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Still broken. Logs just show this whenever trying:
plex downloads Transcode] [FFMPEG] - Failed to initialise VAAPI connection: -1 (unknown libva error).
Main issue I suppose is that VA-API is not usable on the system because it has a Xeon CPU without that capability. It has a fully functional NVIDIA card however which works fine for hardware acceleration so seems like the downloads system doesn’t know how to use that properly?
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VAAPI is a red herring.
Even with more than suitable space, the android app seems to be complaining about not enough space… Emby does not have this issue.
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Download button doesn’t show up in portrait (android) and also does not show up in the triple dot menu… Literally have to turn phone sideways to use it - insane.
And I have to apparently set to use original quality because transcoding for downloads is broken even though transcoding for playback works fine.
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Agree. Completely broken. Sync used to be my go-to for travel. Now my last two trips it’s just been hopeless. I figured out that my problem was I had to only download at original quality (which sucks because I don’t need to download at high quality at all times). Even then it only works half the time. It’s basically hopelessly broken. I have a huge trip coming up and I have to completely use other streaming services because Plex, which I’ve been using since 2009, is broken.
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Defective ‘Downloads’ feature still does not work when set to transcode - why?
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Sorry to hear, fam. Can’t reproduce any of 1-5 on iOS.
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Even though this thread is tagged Android, I am curious. Are you able to sync iOS using Plex 8.17 while on your home network? It was working fine with 8.16 but appears broken once my iPad updated. It only works for me now if I am not able to connect to the server directly, but go through the plex relay. This sounds like Issue #3 on the list above for Android.
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I am, yes. Using it on my home network right now with 8.17. No issues here.
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That is really strange. Based on a Reddit thread it appears to be broken for many on 8.17. I set up a new server on Windows to test with and rule out my server. 3 decides that are 8.17 ios fail and the 8.16 works unless I am off network and going through the plex relay.
One device was working earlier and my iPad took an update to 8.17 and that broke it.
Thank you for sharing the info.
Ok, so idk if anyone else has noticed this about downloads but here’s what seems to be happening on my phone:
If I tell it to download an audio file (I assume video is the same) it barely works, if it works at all, while I’m on my wifi at home. As soon as my phone switches to mobile data and plex is running it’ll start downloading (even though I have “use mobile data” turned off) and use up all my limited data if I don’t stop it. It also seems that when I play a file from the regular library, it’s not playing the downloaded copy like it’s supposed to but streams it.
Not really related, but why doesn’t the “downloads” section of the app sort albums the same way the regular section does? I spent a lot of time ordering things the way I like them and that all goes out the window exactly when I need it not to.
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Defective ‘Downloads’ feature still does not work when set to transcode - why?
@plex_support @support @plex @anon18523487
OP from [Aug '22], almost a year and literally no support whatsoever.
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+1 seeing the same. been following this thread since the inception.
Why aren’t we hearing anything about this?
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The only way I can get downloads to work on my Android device (Z Fold 4) is to wipe cache and data for Plex, log back in, then schedule all the episodes I want to download. Then they will all download, but a few hours later I can no longer download anything else, even with huge amounts of free space.
This is the worst supported feature of Plex. Sync was much more reliable.
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@Plex @anon18523487 @support @support_please
Support please?
Fix the feature please?
@Plex @anon18523487 @support @support_please
Support please?
Fix the feature please?
