I have been scanning a small amount of posts in the last week and I have noticed a very disturbing trend. Problems that people claim happen over and over again, Problems that go unanswered BY ANY Plex staffers at all for weeks. A LOT of people giving up and posting (usually the last post in a Topic) that they are switching to Emby. I propose that if anybody has opened a Topic and seen this same trend, post here. I am not interested in griping as that is not what I am doing here. I am interested in bringing this to the attention of those that it needs to be. I have been a Plex pass user for quite a number of years and I do not want to see Plex fail because of growing pains. I for one have almost no problems with Plex except one recent and I found a post that shows multiple people having the same problem since at least December of last year.
Is there a more organized way to submit problems with Plex? Did I miss something? I understand that the software is very complex. It’s greatest strength is running on so many platforms and the amount of clients, and that is what I imagine makes fixing problems difficult. But I think that having too loose of a system (people just posting in the forums willy nilly) is hurting Plex at this point.
Again, please no gripes, just reply if you have seen or experienced the situations above that I listed.
and he probably would have if he hadn’t been off x-mas shopping and mentally preparing for family visits @strotee: let me re-visit that – give me just a moment
(in order not to hijack this thread)
Trying to bring this to the top for others to see.
Edit!! I can’t believe that with the amount of Topics where people are not being helped or even addressed at all over 12 months that more of you are not interested in bringing this to the attention of the DEVS/ADMIN? If so then it’s not surprising that this happens as often as it does.
I switched to Emby a bit more than a year ago. All the problems you are referring to were already present back then (and even much earlier). Once in a while Elan has (and will in future) posted that they “need to work on their communication” but effectively nothing has ever happened.
Plex customer service is really disappointing. If you complain too much in a thread they will just lock the thread. No wonder why so many users are jumping to Emby now that it is becoming a real alternative. Plex probably do not care because they can’t get more money from users who paid for a lifetime membership. But their mistake is that we are now stopping recommending Plex to our friends.
And that’s why I said no griping, I am only trying to bring attention to the issue in a constructive way. The Forum worked for a while but there are too many new people using plex now. And too many people going unhelped. We the community need to get that changed.
They don’t care about the lack of communication and will never do this. Setting up ticketed support would be several orders of magnitude more expensive than just forcing people to post on the forums. In their defense, it’s difficult to troubleshoot issues with Plex due to the sheer amount of variables involved.
Why would you accuse them of not caring about their customers/users and defend them in the same breath? And your post does nothing to contribute to this conversation. If you have seen this kind of situation where issues go unanswered for months then speak up. Nothing will change otherwise.
I have, repeatedly. I’m pointing out why they (likely) aren’t doing what users would want - ticketed support - because of how much that would cost.
A lifetime licenses is $150. That would pay for under one full day of work from one support agent (assuming they’re US based). If a support rep spends a few hours helping you troubleshoot your network, your OS, your Plex install, your configurations, etc, you’ve already cost Plex more than you paid them. Running a support desk for a product this complex is not cheap.
My other point was that Plex still doesn’t communicate well in most cases and this hasn’t really hurt their bottom line in any way that I can tell.
Just saw that Plex is producing advertising that is being played on popular Youtube channels. If they have the money to advertise for new users then they should really consider creating dedicated support structures to retain the users they currently have.
Regardless of advertising (which is a good point), I do agree that there should be a ticket system, at least that way the techs are aware of a problem vs. scanning a forum and possibly seeing something. Most people, myself included, will reply to a thread that matches their particular problem or question. Rather than creating a new thread.
This in turn limits the amount of “new” threads which I could see techs would be scanning, rather than seeing if posts are updated or replied to so they can address problems.
Case in point, There is currently a bug in the latest version update that will only allow 10min approx to be played of any video file. I ran a search and found an applicable recent thread, I posted a reply, and nothing has been responded to. As soon as I finish this reply I will open a new thread and the chances of it being responded to will increase 10 fold. In other words, there is only so many posts a person can scan without actually going into each one, for that reason alone a ticket system should be implemented.
And yes some one already did, I do agree with what you said but if you read the post I just listed with the 1 reply and response I think you will agree that it “COULD” be proving my point. Doesn’t hurt that I am also listing a legitimate bug issue I am having as well.
They should not close the tread they should move the post to the original thread as many moderators do on other forums. Just closing it is not acceptable since if they have the ability to close things they should have the ability to move them as well.
