Unstable is the word. Occasionally they convert and download within a few minutes, as I would expect.
But most of the time, even on a local network, they take many hours, while seeming doing little on the server, and often fail even if they claim to get to 99%.
Please fix this so that downloads are at least as reliable and fast as normal streaming.
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Iāve given up on downloads again, itās a steaming pile of mess and always has been (all the way from original sync capabilities). This is a more than solved problem, and having to use Infuse just to have reliable downloads makes me question the core development talent at Plex with iOS (and also apparently Android).
My parents have now given up trying to download any content over their 25Mbps broadband connection (Iām on a 1Gbps service).
Iāve given up downloading any content over my Wifi 6 network, when sitting next to the access point using my iPad Pro M1 2021. As I often find when I board the aircraft for my next flight, that hardly any of my content syncād.
Playback of content is the only Plex feature that I need or want, either streaming or download. You can take the other features and bin them for all I care, this should be the CLEAR priority.
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This feature has been an ongoing issue for years. It used to be called āSyncā and it never worked then!!! WTF is wrong with Plex coders that they cannot fix this after complaints for at least 4 YEARS!!! Get your fr&^&*king sh$t TOGETHER!!!
I have a lifetime pass so I am stuck, but if I was a monthly new user, I would be canceling.
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Iād love to be the one to suggest a bit of calm about this, but I just canāt, the total lack of regard for the core use case of Plex for me is totally baffling. This is the MOST important feature to many of us, it is the ONLY reason that I got a lifetime pass.
Sync and Download have never ever worked reliably for me, to the point where I pay for Infuse to make up for this deficiency (it has itās own problems, but at least it will download without letting me down).
PLEX PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS WONDERFUL, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE fix downloads on iOS.
Maybe donāt work on any other new features that Iām guessing almost no one uses and just be good at what you are at your core, then reach further. This is product management and customer focus 101.
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Yep, same ol, same ol. I can see the Plex IT staff has been on top of this issue, working tirelessly to remedy this years old problem. Maybe another 4 years and they might just figure it out. What a brain trust they employ.
NOT!!
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Downloads are simply a joke. Sync was kinda unreliable, but still way more usable than downloads.
Now I donāt even think about it, if I have to download, I go to Infuse. Plex Downloads are just not worth the headache
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Just to add my voice in here too. This never works well for me (if at all). I donāt see why not either. All of the suggestions made with in the OP should be a high priority if theyāre not already.
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Downloads is a joke, never works in the background, IOSā¦
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Just adding a ā+1ā in 2023 for this.
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New year and no change!. The download function should be removed until it actually works. It lulls new buyers into purchasing an app with a feature that simply doesnāt work.
Iām unfortunately a lifetime purchaser but if I was on monthly subscription I would cancel and request my money back for false advertisingā¦
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Iād like to add that sometimes media is not fully downloaded but it is shown like it is. You notice it when you are already watching the media and it stops abruptly.
Adding insult to the injury, when you connect to cellular to finish watching the item it grabs the downloaded version so it stops again and the subtitles wonāt show up (I plan to open a new thread with this issue once I grab the proof)
Both things had happened to me in iOS and Android.
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I am going to add to this - downloads just doesnt work and it seems whatever PLEX innovates it cant seem to solve the simplest of tasks - iPlayer, Netflix, Amazon etc all support downloads for subscribers - including background downloads. Even with my QNAP running Plex server on a 1Gb wired network, it still doesnt download a 3Gb file in over 1hr - I have a Ubiquiti wifi network, business grade NAS with high speed NVME caching and a Mac Book pro - result - it reminds me of the old 14400 dial-up days - please work with us and fix it as its a massive part of cutting the wires and we use more portable devices these days than anything else - free us of tethering to the servers ā¦
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This was called out again in a good video here: The open source alternative to my sponsor - Jellyfin vs Plex - YouTube
Itās crazy this hasnāt been fixed.
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+1
This is a real problem.
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I just got pointed to this thread. We are aware of issues with Downloads. There are already some known issues we are working on fixing and some that have already been fixed. Please reproduce the issue and then provide me the client and server logs so I can check if what you are experiencing is an already known bug we are working on or something different.
I rather spend my time starting testing with Jellyfin insteadā¦. It has been annoying since way too long, this download function and since there are hundreds of users complaining online my guess is there is a real issue which plex can easily reproduce themselves. Just try to download using cell network to your ios phone and in my case its reproduced.
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Could you look into one other thing? it REALLY irks me that I cant download more then 24 hours of playlist at a time on plex amp, I would really appreciate it if you could look into all of that.
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Thatās by design, not a bug.
may i ask why thats by design? and i get its not a bug, it just really annoys me the fact i cant shove all my music on my device
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We have tested that and it works in our testing. Does it fail or just really slow? There is a known bug where using the iOS app on cellular for streaming a transcoded video was limiting the bandwidth. I havenāt seen this personally, but itās possible this may be affecting a transcoded Download.
