Hello All,
So I have a question, I have managed users who want to use the plex app on there mobile. However the only way I can find a suitable solution is to either give them my account credentials or add the user as a friend and invite them to my plex server using there plex account. doing this allows them access via the app. the issue with this is when at home they cannot use their managed account.
has anyone experienced anything similar?
Thanks in advance
It works exactly as you describe it.
Either give away your credentials or they have to be invited with their own plex user. Both works. With a separate user, they can either be added as a friend or to your home. The latter is probably what you are looking for.
Edit: If they need to stay managed users, you have to use your credentials. If they are family (for what managed users are intended to be used), this shouldn’t be a problem. You just link once to your account and they are good to go.
Why not?
the reason they cant is due to them using a plex user account as I’d prefer not to share credentials. so when at home they currently would have to log out and sign back in with the individuals plex account.
As long as they are members of your Plex Home, you can sign-in e.g. your commonly used living room TV to your account and then ‘Switch user’ to any user account that is in your Plex Home.
You prevent the kids from switching back into your account by assigning a PIN to your account.
If they have their own plex.tv account, but are still members of your Plex Home, they can use their own plex creds to sign-in new plex clients. You can then perform ‘Switch User’ on these devices as well.
Makes total sense, however it is abit of a nightmare the managed users cannot be granted access to the plex app without giving away my credentials. I know this is intended for the family but I’m not too happy sharing credentials with anyone.
You don’t need to share anything. Just grab their device, link it to your account and protect any account they should not use with a PIN. They will only be able to use their managed account without knowing your credentials. If you don’t want that, it is time to make them a separate account I believe 
Fair enough, I’m just a strong believer of not sharing credentials with anyone, and in theory that 4 digit pin is the only thing stopping someone from jumping on my plex server and messing with settings/permissions.
its fine though, if this is the only way to go about it then fair enough 
Thanks
I understand your concerns, but in the app they cannot mess with anything, only play their content. You don’t have to sign into the web client or save your password (apart from the app).
actually the app, as the admin user, can add/remove other users to the server.
along with delete content (if enabled in the server settings).
I understand that the main usage for managed users is for local family devices, to create ‘netflix’ style profiles for different users within a physical location.
for users outside the physical home, it is better to have them create their own plex account, then you can invite their plex account to your home.
one thing that would make everything more secure, is to require the home admin user to have a pin, and require that pin any time a device is first logged in with the admin email account.
that way, even if someone manages to know the admin email/password, they still must have the pin in order to activate the admin profile.
Thanks for clearing things up, didn’t pay attention to that. Still, with their user account none of that is accessible, right?
with their own user account (not using the admin email), no.
if someone logs into a new device/app with the admin email/pass, then currently they go straight to the admin profile (bypassing any pin).
so assuming a managed home user (that is based upon the admin email), the first time the device is logged in, it is in admin user profile. From there you (or whoever is logging in with the admin email/pass) would need to immediately switch users, otherwise they would stay in the admin profile.
Yes, I have encountered the same and it is quite a significant flaw. Not only causes this confusion as non-tech family members are logging in and then start downloading stuff, which forces them to reinstall the app in when they finally find out how to change to their user (as their sync is now locked to the admin account).
It does not make sense that this is the standard behavior to me. When you set a PIN, it should always be required to provide this at every login (unless automatic login is checked, for which you need the pin to do so).
Of course, you should only share the PMS with people you trust, but Murphy’s law suggests that there will be a point in time that a family member will remove one of my Libraries by accident…
I would highly encourage the dev team to take this as a high priority (security flaw class)!
could not agree more.
This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.
