I’m a lifetime Plex pass user and I have continuing issues with the sync feature. Every time I sync content to my Android tablet or my Android phone it either doesn’t work at all or it syncs and then it ends up disappearing sometime later right when I need it most.
I’ve been selling the merits of Plex with my family and then I get beat up when synched content either fails outright or spontaneously disappears.
Is anyone aware of this and doing anything about it?
Not that I don’t share in your frustration with certain Plex features (including Sync) not always working as intended, however put yourself in a CS or developer’s shoes. What exactly would you like them to do with the info (or lack there of) you’ve provided above?
If you want your issue to be noticed and/or paid attention to I’d recommend you provide some more detailed information including logs.
Unless you’re just here to rant…
To be fair, the lack of sync reliability is well-documented - in the Android forum there are many tens of threads about it. I cancelled my Plex Lifetime pass after just 6 weeks because it was so bad. I was told that Plex are aware of the issues and working on improving it as a priority.
But you’re right, describing the exact symptoms and issues, rather than a vague “it doesn’t work” is going to help the Plex devs track it down far more quickly.
@“Mark Otway” said:
But you’re right, describing the exact symptoms and issues, rather than a vague “it doesn’t work” is going to help the Plex devs track it down far more quickly.
The first time I reported sync issues in detail was back in 2015. Nothing has changed since then.
Today the only thing I have to say about this is:
I guess to some degree, I am ranting. But, a quick search anywhere on the Internet will tell you this has been a significant problem for a long time. So, yes, I could spend a fair amount of time documenting the exact errors and producing the associated log records to support my claims, but unless I have assurance that somebody is actually listening, why should I invest the effort? When someone actually demonstrates to me that my efforts will be reciprocated, I’ll pony up. And, I find it really hard to believe that the devs are not acutely aware of my particular problem, given that dozens of threads have already been started as someone pointed out…
But what is the actual problem, that your synced content disappears randomly? If so, is the space on your device still used after this happens? Did you uninstall the app, reset the app, or moved the media in question out of your library (even if only for a second)?
@aaronth07 said:
But what is the actual problem, that your synced content disappears randomly? If so, is the space on your device still used after this happens? Did you uninstall the app, reset the app, or moved the media in question out of your library (even if only for a second)?
I have an Android Tablet with a 128gb sdcard dedicated to holding plex content. I don’t usually monitor space usage because there is so much to spare. Sometimes, when I sync a media file I’ll get an error syncing the content. Sometimes, if I transcode to shrink the content, it works better, but sometimes it works better if I don’t transcode at all. It varies.
if I try to sync an entire series of shows in a folder it tends to fail more often than if I sync individual shows. If I mess with it long enough I can get it to sync most of the time.
Later, when the tablet is disconnected or otherwise unable to get to the server that was the source of the content, the content will sometimes be there in other times it will be completely missing. I recall seeing the error message: there is an an error with this item, followed by a yellow circle with an exclamation point. Oddly, if I toggle the Wi-Fi connection on and off that message will go away and it shows an empty list of video files as if nothing had ever been synced.
I did nothing to uninstall the app or anything that would disturb the media.
My wife has a a different tablet that also has similar problems, if not worse than my tablet, so I don’t think it’s a function of the tablet itself. In her case she synced a bunch of TV shows and a bunch of MP3s and then she gets on the airplane and none of it’s there after it appeared to be there when she was connected to our home network and looking at the local media view. We also noted that when she deleted one locally synced file, it deleted everything. This happened more than once.
The bottom line is that the behavior is very flaky and somewhat difficult to document short of making screenshots that are assiciated with log records to demonstrate what’s happening.
Just lately a lot of other threads that I’m active on are degrading into this same basic conversation regarding user engagement. There was some disagreement about how widespread the discontent was, and who was really most affected by this perceived lack of interest (the “paying customers” or casual users).
So I threw together this quick survey, and I’ve been posting it in issue threads that I’ve contributed to.
A Plex user’s informal Plex User Satisfaction Survey
It’s not long, (nor scientific or complete), but it asks the questions that I think would help me determine if participating in the Plex User forum for issue resolution is worth the effort. It will show you the current results once you have finished answering the questions.
@javerwey said:
Just lately a lot of other threads that I’m active on are degrading into this same basic conversation regarding user engagement. There was some disagreement about how widespread the discontent was, and who was really most affected by this perceived lack of interest (the “paying customers” or casual users).So I threw together this quick survey, and I’ve been posting it in issue threads that I’ve contributed to.
A Plex user’s informal Plex User Satisfaction Survey
It’s not long, (nor scientific or complete), but it asks the questions that I think would help me determine if participating in the Plex User forum for issue resolution is worth the effort. It will show you the current results once you have finished answering the questions.
Nice work, though you should add a gapless playback option to the “Which features are you having trouble with” section since users have been asking for that feature for years but it still hasn’t been implemented.
Sync is a constant pain - missing artwork, items not playing, music disappearing etc - I have create threads, posted logs and still experiencing the issues 2 years on! Oddly I have better luck with my old android tablet running 6.0.1 than my phone which is on 8.0.1 - in fact most of the issues started at Android 7.0.0, for me anyway!
I have been told by plex that they know there are issues as they’re working on a whole new sync solution but its going to take sometime; however in the meantime they keep rolling out new feature like the VR thing and no one with a 50" screen and 7.1 sound is ever going to consider using.
FYI: Survey Results Page…
