From my experience in other areas, when communication stops like this, it is usually because someone made a “tough decision to cut something” and others then suddenly realize “we didn’t think of THIS, what should we do…” and then everyone starts running in circles, and no one has the time to communicate.
But I agree…
Plex radio is NOT an alternative to the Plex Mix
If they are cutting the Plex Mix altogether, they should tell us about it. (We will find out in the end anyway, so it is really nothing they can keep hidden indefinitely)
If they are trying to replace the “old” Plex Mix with a “new” Plex Mix - they should also tell us about it - us knowing it will come back will buy them a month’s worth of extra patience on our end.
Some information about what actually happened here will also buy some additional patience… If I understood correctly, Gracenote is replaced with Musicbrainz… and we all know that replacing one such service with another will be a challenge - and the more we know, the more patient we will be
I have started looking for Plex replacements. I use Plex for music. If they are not taking me seriously as a user… If they would rather cater to the movie people out there… then Plex is not the solution for me.
At best there are just a bunch of users who think there’s a bug in Plex. At worst the product was materially changed after paying for it. Either way this was handled poorly.
Hopefully support staff will get around to searching the site for “Plex Mix” and making a note that it’s not working/retired/etc. The article below was the first place I landed when searching for help.
Also here: https://www.plex.tv/your-media/music/
Enjoy premium features, like personalized radio stations, automatic mixes based on mood or song, lyrics, the best album art, and more
I thought I’d add that the Plex CTO commented on an /r/Plex thread 13 days ago in regards to premium music libraries.
we’re super close. it’s a definite upgrade. weeks, not months.
Communication has been sub-par since the features were dropped in July, not sure why a one-off comment on Reddit is the only update we’ve really gotten.
I’ve spent the last month looking around my app for it until just finding this. Why this drastic change was not heavily communicated is beyond me. Plex knows how many people us it as I’m SURE they’re tracking all the usage details.
That is just it. (And I am really missing the Plex mix, so this is probably just another expression of my grief)
They didn’t communicate it because they didn’t want any focus on losing this functionality.
So…
They use “Plex Mix” heavily in their marketing. (“Plex magic”). And the marketing WORKS.
Then they assume we ("the people who USE the “Plex magic”) will not say anything when they remove this functionality.
And (it seems) - when we DO notice and start asking questions, they keep quiet, hiding in a corner, hoping it will all blow over by itself.
The only hope I have left right now, is that they will suddenly spring a surprise on us, “see, now it is working again, you had nothing to worry about, THIS is why we didn’t say anything. We were NEVER worried at all.”
Guessing you’re a fellow Aussie based on the Not. Happy. Jan! reference. We understand the frustration, but are working on some major upgrades to our music offering, which should improve a lot of things! We’ll have it out as soon as it’s ready
@DaveBinM An upgrade means to add capability to something that exists… I’m sure everyone who’s been complaining here the last couple months is happy to hear literally anything from a Plex Employee, maybe you can elaborate on why it was decided to get rid of our favourite go-to feature before its replacement was ready!!!
Yes, we’ve heard that @darcilicious, but generally, you have a solution prepared before you cancel that relationship, so that one of your primary features (as promoted by you guys, not just me) doesn’t have to go through months of down time in the lurch. Why did Plex cancel that relationship, and with it a host of features, without having these big upgrades ready to go live? And why is this not being communicated to the many PAYING clients who are asking for answers?
I’m feeling like the little kid in the back seat of the car during the family vacation. All I can think or say is, “Are we there yet?”
I guess I thought the temporaryprolonged unavailable Plex Mix feature would be a week or two at the most. I’ve had to start making playlists and/or applying a rating to individual tracks so that the “Radio” feature works in an almost acceptable manner. I have always used Plex Mix to auto-generate a playlist, and until about a month ago, had never rated a single track or album in my library nor even considered a playlist for music.
I truly hope the major upgrades we’re promised will be worth the frustration we have now.
I can’t say exactly when the new music things will be ready, because I’m not 100% sure, however, we are working to get the new music things available as soon as they’re ready.
It’s the complete lack of communication which completely destroys credibility…
How long has plex mix been gone and only NOW we finally hear the reason behind it. A little communication goes a LONG way.
not only that, but having the ‘new music things’ actually working PRIOR to axing Plex Mix would have been great.
But alas, seems like recently the status quo is to just get rid of features people actually use / want (I’m looking at you plugins) with empty promises of 'the next iteration of _____" will be GREAT…when it’s ready to be released…if ever…
not only that, but it must be a plex thing to hide behind emojis after saying, “We will release it when it’s ready! ”
This was communicated quite a while back, on June 29, and mentioned in this thread a few days later: Plex Mix Not Working - #8 by OttoKerner. No one is “hiding” behind emojis, I just think they help improve communication and intent.
In that linked post, where does it say that “…the original relied on a service Plex no longer has access to (Gracenote).”
And glad to see that 2 months later, there is still not a working replacement.
IMO, emoji’s just make the author seem smug, hiding behind a facade instead of just saying " we done screwed up, we didn’t plan accordingly, took away a service that countless people used, don’t have a working replacement, and won’t have one for the foreseeable future.
Sorry, not sorry"
p.s. it was a bad move to take away plugins from the app versions, not state it in the changelog, and prevent downgrading.
My prior point still stands…we’re over 2 months out without a replacement for something that was actively removed. This was either piss poor planning, or piss poor execution. My guess is both.
We’ll have to agree to disagree on emoji use. No one is hiding behind anything here, and we’re telling you as much as we can. We announced in September 2018 that plugins were going away (https://www.plex.tv/blog/subtitles-and-sunsets-big-improvements-little-housekeeping/), so it shouldn’t be a surprise they’re gradually being removed from apps. The ability to downgrade depends on your platform. You can keep old versions of Plex Media Server, Plex Media Player for as long as you want, Android has the ability to side load apps, and both Android and iOS can turn off automatic updates. We certainly understand that users are frustrated by the delay, but we’re working to get it out the door as soon as possible. I’d also advise you to review our Community Guidelines, before your next post.
I’m sure everyone who’s been complaining here the last couple months is happy to hear literally anything from a Plex Employee, maybe you can elaborate on why it was decided to get rid of our favourite go-to feature before its replacement was ready!!!
