Multiple non-functional entries in the Media section of notifications on Android. Duplicate entries of the same show/ep. Entries only with the Play button that does absolutely nothing. Clicking the notification (of a specific episode/movie) only opens Plex with the error “Playback failed for the selected item”). No way to clear them out other than toggle the option to hide old sessions in Android settings. Seekbar has been visible but completely defunct since the release of Android 10.
Can we have a nice thing, Plex? Thanks!
Server Version#: 1.20.1.3252
Player Version#: 8.6.0.20351
I’m most often casting to my TV, not trying to play in the background. The main issue here is that these notifications stay there forever - with duplicates (until reboot) and they do absolutely nothing, not even let me go to the specified show/movie/episode on click. Seekbar is broken too, never shows the actual playback position
P.S. It’s also not the lock screen, it’s just the notification area. I was at the home screen when recording this
Ah you’re on Android 11. From your comment in your initial post, I thought you were running 10. Considering 11 just came out recently, the devs haven’t updated the app for it yet. Give them some time.
Yup 11 sorry thought it’s visible in the video since 11 has a new distinct notifications look.
I’m just trying to bring this to Plex’ team attention. The media seekbar was introduced as an OS feature in Android 10 (that’s a year ago) and it’s still just as non-functional as it was on day one. Kinda doubt this will get any love but these multiplied notifications must get fixed
I’m not aware of any reported issues with that for Android 10. I’m on a Samsung S9 running 10 and don’t have issues. If you have a 10 device and have specific steps to reproduce the issue, I can look into it.
As far as 11, the team does not code for new OS’s while they are still in beta. It usually take a few months to get things updated.
After getting irritated at such an obvious bug being missed I’ve now (while trying to write steps) realized how little I use local playback on Android lol. Indeed the seekbar seems to work absolutely fine for music and video being played on device itself. Since I mostly use the Android to Cast I wrongly assumed it must behave the same for all types of playback. Anyway, here are the steps:
Go to a video
Cast to a Chromecast using the in-app icon and start the video
Check notifications - there will be one from Plex with a seekbar, but it will not show current position/time/video length and clicking play/pause won’t have any effect (or the position will be simply wrong and leftover from a previous file)
Try casting a music file next - seekbar should work now
Disable cast and play the same video as in step 2 - open notifications area again, the seekbar will be fully functional now and play/pause will work
Cast notifications seem to also break over time, I in the above example I left it paused (while casting) for 3 minutes between steps 4 and 5 and I the notification stopped working completely, I could not pause neither resume
Completely understandable but figured noting this particular quirk down in a thread will be useful to the team
EDIT: Defunct notifications also occur while just streaming music from the server. Since I was told they should work fine for non-video content I spent more time playing music. After some time of switching away from Plex the notification will stay behind but will be completely non-functional, not able to play music and anything. Zombie like the casting one. When clicked they will go to main Plex app view and seems that after Plex re-loads everything they will “refresh” and work again
