As per title, Plex needs to fix the downloads feature on iOS, as I can never get the app to download anything for reasons outlined below and also because there are major usability problems with the feature.
The Plex team should simulate a slow/unstable Internet connection when developing the download feature. Right now, downloads more often than not fail on such a connection, which is terrible because we often download in these poor connectivity regions to avoid buffering. The downloads feature should download more resiliently, with things like resumable downloads in case the connection fails through chunk-based downloads or what not.
Seriously. Iāve wasted so much of my cellular data cap trying to get Plex to download things. Iāve never managed to get anything downloaded over cellular. Just when the download is about to reach 90%+ it loops back to 0% for no damn reason and starts to download all over again.
Iām sure people who have fast Internet speeds and download right next to their server on LAN donāt ever run into this problem, but then Iād argue they donāt really need to download things in the first place, since they can just stream it. Please fix this problem!
When Iām downloading something, I want detailed statistics of whatās going on. How many megabytes of data downloaded, how much total, how much time has elapsed and how much (estimated) time is left. I donāt want a stupid circle progress bar because these suck at communicating progress. Is the download stuck? I donāt know ā just squint really, really hard at the thing and see if the pixels are moving. With actual numerical values displayed I can determine if the download is actually progressing or not.
Feature parity with sync. I know this was promised, but major features like being able to āsendā downloads to devices is still not available. If Iām going on a trip tomorrow and I want to load up my iPad with content, I should be able to schedule a download through the web interface and have the content automatically synced over to my device overnight, and not have to fidget around on the mobile interface and individually select items to download. This is a really minor gripe but it would improve the usability of downloads.
Similar issues are present over on the Android app as well:
Download instability (just like 1 in iOS). Solution: resumable downloads through things like chunk-based download. Seriously ā failed downloads should not be a thing for big files as it gets incredibly frustrating trying to download the same file over and over again.
No statistics (just like 2 in iOS). Iād like to know if the download is actually progressing or not.
Feature parity with previous sync feature (just like 3 in iOS).
Background downloads on bad OEMs. This is a different issue in nature compared to iOS, because Android actually allows apps to run in the background. However, some OEMs are too aggressive about killing apps. It would be useful if the Plex app could detect a terminated background session and let the user know it was the system/OEM to blame and redirect them to a resource like dontkillmyapp.com so users can figure out how to adjust the background run settings.
Downloads sometimes get stuck at 99% in the notification center. When I go into the actual downloads page it shows the item correctly finished downloading. The problem is, because of the āstuckā download in the notification list none of the pending downloads ever start, unless the Plex app is force-quit and restarted.
Background downloads never work. Now I understand this might not necessarily be Plexās fault, since iOS is quite aggressive at killing apps in the background. But if thatās the case then Plex should make the downloads process more resilient (similar to point 1), like using resumable download mechanisms so that we donāt have to restart the download if the app gets killed. It should also let the user know that the download will not progress if the app is kept in the background. Right now, those things arenāt transparent to the user and it sours the user experience, as the user expects the download to continue on in the background.
Really looking forward to fixes for these problems as downloads on iOS is quite unusable in this state.
Agree with all of thisā¦especially statistics and background downloads. Iāve been caught off-guard on an airplane due to this. I never know what Plex is doing. Setting downloads to original quality (which should mostly download right away) makes zero difference. āDownloadingā¦ā with a spinning circle provides no context and I have zero confidence in the app actually doing what I asked it to.
I believe Iām having and have been having a similar issue. I have an iPhone XS Max and running the latest version of Plex 8.7.1. I download songs and then Plex keeps trying to download the same albums over and over and over again which I believe is part of the reason it keeps crashing within a minute of opening it. This problem has been going on since January and I havenāt heard anything from Plex no matter how many times I post this issue. Extremely frustrated to pay for services not being provided. Why did I pay for Plex Pass? Sadly I doubt Plex will respond to this. Really a shame. Use to be a good company but I now tell anyone that asks me to avoid Plex because of all the bugs and lack of communication.
To add evidence of this software failure, I tried to download two seasons of shows to my wifeās iPad before her trip. On first try it successfully downloaded 3 random episodes of 13 total. I then spent all day changing client settings and DNS configurations, experimenting and retrying, with zero improvement. The lack of real-time feedback on progress did not help. In the end, my wife has no downloaded content to watch - a total failure of functionality.
The Downloads functionality simply does not work.
As others have noted, all other popular streaming services have this figured out. Just use WGET if you have to, but Plex needs to end this game of ignoring the problem and fix it once and for all.
I recently had the same experience as everyone here. Downloading any items would go at a max of 70mbps, but an average of 35mbps. I let Plex run on my iPad with the screen on for 6 hours, and it downloaded 2 episodes of tv, or around 5GB.
I sadly resorted to using Infuse. It downloaded at 550-600mbps without touching any settings.
Same issues here. iPad, Android, original quality, transcoded, doesnāt matter. This feature just plain sucks compared to the old sync. I havenāt had a need to download/sync items for a while and just tried it after maybe six months or more and this is regrettably one of the worst client/server sync experiences Iāve ever seen. Napster downloaded stuff faster over 56k than this download feature does.
522 bytes per transaction? Is that whatās up these days? I can grab a 50GB file off newsgroups at 1gbps over the internet but plex canāt sync it faster than 522 bytes a second?
Completed: [192.168.1.23:60233] 200 GET /status/sessions/background (13 live) TLS GZIP 0ms 522 bytes (pipelined: 235)
Just ran into another bug where downloaded content will not show any subtitles, despite them being embedded in the file. Just streaming them will make the subtitles appear.
@obumbratum_1 Iām pretty sure the app does support background downloads, just incredibly poorly. iOS stops apps from doing things in the background within several seconds if I remember correctly, so if Plex didnāt implement background downloads at all then the downloads should fail if I switch to another app and stay there for a minute or so, but it doesnāt. It only fails after I leave the app for a long time. Maybe the download completes but Plex never processes the download because itās killed in the background so the next time it opens it doesnāt see the previous download?
I have scoured these forums for hints to make Downloads actually work at all on any of my iOS / iPadOS devices but all I ever get is a spinning progress widget followed by āError downloading this itemā, despite having āOriginalā specified for Video, Audio and Download Format options.
Similar frustrations to you, when trying to use Downloads on iOS.
Downloads usually work ok when my iPhone / iPad is connected to the same LAN as the server but over cellular - forget it.
Reliability asideā¦ How Plex thought they could ship this Downloads feature, without supporting background downloads (Plex limitation - not iOS) is beyond me. Just seems setup to fail.
