I just purchased Plex Pass Lifetime. Sorry if this has been asked, but I could not find an answer. I have two servers, mine and my wife’s. We use my wife’s most of the time, so I assigned her as a user, but her server does not show as a Plex Pass user. When I try to sync her server I get a message that she needs the Plex Pass to do that. I understood that the Plex Pass was basically for the ‘home’ and assigned users would have all the Plex Pass features. Am I missing something? Thanks!
The Plex Pass is mostly for the server.
If a server shall make use of it, the server needs to get signed in to the plex.tv account which has bought the Plex Pass.
Your wife’s server is most likely still signed into her own plex.tv account (which has not a Plex pass.)
Settings - Server - General
Yeo, otto is correct, you need to take ownership of that server , “claim” it.
Then add her as a user.
Thanks. Can I log into her machine with my login and access her files? It seems like it still wants to access the files on my server.
you don’t need to login to the computer with your username.
Just open her plex server and in the Server Settings under general you can logout.
It will say that the server is unclaimed.
Sign-in with your Plex user.
@jmeehan11 said:
Sign-in with your Plex user.
If you do that, though, your wife
a) won’t be able to do any ‘administrative’ tasks on it while she is logged in with her own plex account
b) needs to get a share to even be able to watch stuff on it
Basically you with your plex account must take ownership of both servers.
Which will take away her powers to even update libraries or change/correct metadata.
A workaround for that may be this:
Invite your wife’s account into your Plex Home.
This will enable ‘Fast User Switching’
Then either ‘don’t put a PIN on your account’ or ‘tell your wife your PIN’.
That way she can ‘become’ you in the Web App (with ‘switch user’) if any administrative tasks need to be done.
Thanks. Will I be able to access files on both of my computers (hers and mine)? I don’t know why, but this seems confusing to me, and I am somewhat technical!
I’m real curious. Why two servers? Could you not consolidate them into one server to make life a little easier?
@Scubadadsr said:
Thanks. Will I be able to access files on both of my computers (hers and mine)? I don’t know why, but this seems confusing to me, and I am somewhat technical!
Do you mean whether you will be able to watch/listen from both Plex servers?
(Because the pure file access is cared for by Window’s network folder sharing)
The answer is yes.
Each official Plex client has a ‘server selector’ where you can switch servers.
Let me tell you what I’ve done, and want to do and maybe this will make sense to someone (cause it doesn’t to me 
).
At this point we really only use this to play our photos and music on our living room TV. My wife has a folder of photos we view (over 6,000) as well as a playlist of music from iTunes. We were using the 3rd Gen Apple TV, but it does a very poor job of shuffling, etc., so I started to research other options and I found Plex and started exploring it.
We each have iMacs, both newer models, and I set mine up first to ‘play’ with it. Once I realized that this would likely do what we wanted I signed her up on her machine, so now we have two servers (I guess!), each with a different user. I then decided that I would purchase the Plex Pass, because I like to pay for what I use when possible. I know it takes a lot of work to create these and keep them going.
I purchased the Plex Pass on my iMac, thinking that it covered her as well. I didn’t realize that it was by the server and we both have a server!
So, in a nutshell, that is where I am. I am OK if I just have my account on her machine and use that. I tried deleting her account and logging in with my account on her machine, but that didn’t seem to work. I don’t think I am looking at this whole thing correctly, which is why I am confused. I tried to find something detailed to show me exactly how this works, but so far I haven’t found it. I’m sure someone can put it into simple terms for me, and I thank you in advance for that!!
@Scubadadsr said:
I purchased the Plex Pass on my iMac, thinking that it covered her as well. I didn’t realize that it was by the server and we both have a server!
It is not by the server. It is by the plex.tv user account, into which you ‘sign in’ your servers and clients.
You can have several servers signed into the same plex.tv user account.
If you don’t do video, you can do without separate user accounts for now.
Later, you may ponder about creating a separate managed user, so the watched/znwatched history is separate for each of you.
So, in a nutshell, that is where I am. I am OK if I just have my account on her machine and use that. I tried deleting her account and logging in with my account on her machine, but that didn’t seem to work. I don’t think I am looking at this whole thing correctly, which is why I am confused. I tried to find something detailed to show me exactly how this works, but so far I haven’t found it. I’m sure someone can put it into simple terms for me, and I thank you in advance for that!!
Keep in mind that there are 2 components: the server and the client. (the default Plex client is what you load into your web browser.)
Both the server and the client must be signed into the same user account.
I recommend you to shut down the Plex server on the computer, which is already signed into the “right” plex account.
Then, on the other machine do first sign out the server from the old plex account
Settings - Server - General
Then ‘sign out’ the Plex Web client as well
Now ‘sign in’ the web client into the “right” plex.tv account (the one with the Plex Pass)
Once you do that, you will get a notice that there is an ‘unclaimed’ plex server.
Claim it.
That should be it.
You can now start the Plex server on the other machine again.
After a few moments you should be able to switch between servers on either machine.
While @OttoKerner is correct, and he has solved your “issue” - I’m on @cayars side with is this really an issue? Can’t you, outside the realm of Plex, create a share between the two computers of the data in question?
Since this makes things still a tad bit difficult, since you need to have both turned on - my suggestion would be to get a cheap NAS that you attach to your router. Put all of your and your wifes files on that, share it with your and your wifes computer. Your computer holds the Plex installation, but your wife also shares the same data folder. Whenever she saves a file (which will seem as if it was local) on her computer - it will magically appear on ‘your’ Plex (and on your Plex client in the living room).
Or consider a DAS solution such as https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817707367 which you could attach directly to one of the computers via USB3 or eSATA and eliminate the network connection.
You of course don’t need to purchase anything and could turn on sharing on one of the computers and mount it on the other that is running Plex and either combine Movies and TV Shows or keep independent library’s. You could each still add your own content to “your” computer but have one Plex server streaming the content which should make administration easier and cheaper if you go for a Plex Pass for all the additional features.
This would make using it on your TV probably a lot easier as well since you wouldn’t have to switch servers back and forth in the GUI.
Thanks to all. I think I’ve got it now! I can share the data in any number of ways, so I will see which works best and set it up. Again, I appreciate all of the great advice!
Can someone explain to me how the data gets from my server to the TV I am watching? I have everything set up and I am connected now, so that is working. However, PLEX is extremely slow on my TV. I am setting up the music to play first and then backing out to set up the photos. Each time I hit back it can take several minutes. There have been a couple of times I thought it was just totally hung up and then it started again. If I stop PLEX and start Apple TV, Apple TV works fine.
Thanks!
I’d suggest you try and establish where the fault lies / stems from. The server, the network inbetween, or the client. Connect everything with CAT6 cable through Gbit enabled router/switch. If it already is, try a different cable / switch. Thus you exclude all possibilties that it might be related to network performance issues. Then you can try and perhaps set your wife’s laptop (or such) at the location of the Apple TV and see if it performs the same under other clients, such as PMP or OpenPHT. If it does perform equally bad, regardless of client and network in between - the issue probably lies within the server. Then we can try and gather logs from it and establish exactly why. Perhaps it might be database related etc.
Thanks Peter. What I am trying to establish is does the data go directly across the home network, from the server to the TV PLEX app, or does it go through some cloud server somewhere and then back to the TV. Will it work without being on an external network? Does it have to be on the same internal network as the server? I can troubleshoot, to a point :), if I know how it is working.
Thanks
Ah. Sorry. Your server talks to the cloud and Plex there, but it is not sending your media data there (and back). It checks to validate your Plex pass subscription and such. Running Plex in offline mode is possible, but requires some work to be done.
So, in short, if you have a ‘normal’ internal network setup - the media data goes straight from your server to the Apple TV.
Thanks, I will start there !
OK, here is where I am. I have several networks in my house (extenders). I have both the server and the TV on the same network. The TV shows the network is active with a good signal. PLEX is running on the server, in a Firefox browser. When I bring up PLEX on the TV (Visio) I get the PLEX logo and it stays there for a minute or so, then I get a message saying that the network is not available. I have changed the networks on both server and TV to another network and still get the same message. This has worked in the past! All of my other devices, iPhones, iMacs, MacBook, iPads, etc. are all working fine on every network. Any ideas?
