I don’t know. They have indicated (in the announcements section) that plugins can still be installed directly on the server.
Perhaps it just means that authors will have to alter their plugins to work differently. But that, at least to me, doesn’t sound like the end of plugins, just the end of how they are currently being implemented.
On the server side, we rely on Python for a lot of things, so it’ll likely be a pretty long time before we ripped it out (like order of many months).
On the client side, it’s an ongoing struggle to support both new-school rich media APIs the server and new cloud providers support, and the old school plugins, so we just have to be smart about the work. We might not proactively rip out existing support, but if we’re e.g. writing a new app or refactoring, plugin support might get lost, if that makes sense.
Not at the moment. There are some webhook-based solutions to help with Trakt, e.g. GitHub - XanderStrike/plaxt: Webhooks based Trakt.tv scrobbling for Plex
Given that I (still) can’t read minds, can you be any more specific? 
Do you think it might be possible, despite the fact that you are removing official support that authors could find ways to keep the plugins working…and if so, would your company be opposed to such a thing?
I was hoping you’d choose one and have an update, but if you insist I’ll spell out the ones I’ve been dealing with for you and you can update us on all three 
First, the 8 month old bug of videos quiting shortly after they’re started.
Second, for almost +1 year I’ve had a bug that produces choppy audio playback of certain codecs.
Third, playback of certain surround sound codecs (on fire tv) happens in stereo
(the last two have been written off as fire tv problems - on these forums - but neither of these issues happen in Emby).
All of these are widely talked about on these forums.
I usually use my Rokus for Plex but I also use my Shield TV enough to report that I have never had even one video start playing and then stop playing.
The last two problems mentioned I cannot really comment on much as I use nothing but stereo/Dolby 2.1. But I can say that with what I use I have never had even one problem with my Shield or my Fire TV during playback of any video or audio file.
I mention that only to point out exactly how hard it can be, no matter how widely reported, to find and fix a problem you cannot duplicate.
The good thing is, once plugin support is truly removed, Plex will have more resources to shove at the more illusive problems.
Plugin support is ‘removed’. Plex won’t lift a finger to support it further. It exists, and does not know it is dead yet. Just like a human body can still function for multiple seconds after a heart has quit beating, plugins will work, until they don’t.
No effort is being made to keep them alive, nor is any direct effort being made to rip it out. One day, it will just cease to function.
Roku “beta” rewrite contains no plugin feature - Blog specifically mentions not adding plugins to rewrites in process - meaning to me, my primary entertainment room using Plex is losing plugins sooner than later.
(Oh, and if devs are listening, I hate the background color of the new Roku beta - my old contrast impaired eyes can barely distinguish posters from background on old Roku dark/grey, let alone many colors)
Would be nice to have a second “legacy” build of the Plex cloent available on the Roku Channel Store that’s essentially a frozen, unsupported build that contains the current (old) interface with Plugins/Channels. You can even make it private (code activated) to avoid customer confusion.
Would this not be a good compromise to pacify the holdouts?
Nor had I.
I saw all the complaints, but it never one happened to me…until it did… two weeks ago and fairly often since. There had been no server update, no Plex client update or any Shield updates previously.
The Shield is now a brick as far as Plex usage is concerned, but that’s no big deal to me.
I love your optimism. 
Not really particularly optimistic. I said they will have more resources that they “can” use. I did not say they would use them that way. I really don’t know what Plex will do with the freed up resources. They might just fire people and roll the extra money into bonuses or even refunds for the disgruntled Plex Pass users that are demanding refunds.
I’ll add a couple of mine here as well…
For UI please have a Universal Look & Feel. If you provide photo-art of cast on PlexWeb then it should be there for all clients.
Finally, I just tried the Emby Android App (again) and I think you should too. It has come a long way since I hated it 2 years back. It’s biggest advantage is its ability to fully manage the server, including simple things like providing a restart button. Please don’t mention using PlexWeb, my TV has a browser too.
I believe I have gone off track with my Android grievances so in closing I want to add that “old technology/ancient protocol” as has been touted for plugins is necessarily not always bad when implemented correctly - it allows old hardware to still function as a viable option.
Sorry but I beg to differ. Plugins for 5+ years got no attention from the Plex core team in terms of framework development/maintenance. The official plugins were developed and maintained by Ninjas. Furthermore, if that was the case there wouldn’t be unwanted new features like News & Live TV be introduced before fixing the current bugs. If they were serious about bug there would be a public issue tracker. Period.
Support for plugins - Cast your vote for plugins - #319 by Przemo
Started Sept 2012 - 322 posts
vs
Live TV support in Plex - [Very Popular] Live TV support in Plex (Media Server)
Started Jan 2013 - 197 posts
You are not really understanding what is meant by “Plugin support.” It is NOT the support of the plugins themselves, that is currently pretty meaningless to Plex, it is the code within the Plex servers and apps that supports using plugins.
Plex will no longer be supporting that code so the overall code base will get simpler and not require as many people to develop, test and maintain.
That is something that immediately crossed my mind when the reasons where given for plug-in removal. I think @dane22 mentioned that UAS had something like 500,000 downloads?
Now some plugins are clearly niche. Others imho less so. Trakt.tv being one example.
Regardless of how many use news, podcasts etc… The feature requests for them was extremely minimal. I would hazard a guess a tiny fraction of the numbers that use “some” plugins.
I do. Once you have it developed for a platform eg. Android, it takes minimal effort to maintain it through the new versions of Android because Android does not change its core API with each version - that would be stupid… Same goes for other platforms. The theory that it will free up a bunch of resources does not fit well. On the other hand doing so for News, Podcast, Live TV is new development and requires a lot more. I mean they even went and developed a plugin for Kodi while ignoring their own plugin development.
The idea a of plugin is always to plug a gap, be it SubZero, Trakt, WebTools (btw WT is more than just having UAS) or any other plugin a developer can conceive. If they could introduce new features they could have re-done the plugin framework before they started adding features like New and Podcast which users end up hiding in their Android app.
The problem is server support. The hooks that allow plugins to work are in there and any change in any related code has to be tested with those hooks.
Android has nothing to do with plugin support and if that support is removed from the server then no amount of support in the apps will make those plugins work.
I am not in disagreement with many of your points.
However, regarding the plugins. The bigger and more bloated your software gets, the harder it is to maintain control, oversight and the longer it takes to get change realized.
Bloated software suddenly shows more and more bugs, the testing cycle gets longer and doesn t help as much etc. That is why I am a fan of throwing things away likes plugins. The way it s implemented and the missing clear cut (At one point it just may not work anymore) let s me guess that plugin-code is splattered deep within their Software. That is why some of them may still work for a while. An additional “news”-channel which probably only is within it s own parameter, isn’t as troublesome.
In the end that is what they are doing now. Cleaning their software, making sure after those years it get’s sexy again (Programmer view). That most likely is also the reason we are still missing core Features like “Server messages” and “Share Playlists/Recommend Server Content”, to me both of those sound easy enough to implement. Truthfully it depends on whats there. And as they said, maybe Plugins may come again one day. (Just not in the same way)
So from my side, I ll go get a drink to celebrate.
Nope. Elan has already answered that in his post Plugins removal? - #85 by elan
That’s then just bad programming if you can’t make small testable units. And your argument of bloated software becomes weak when they add News, Podcast, LiveTV. You dont vacuum after bringing in the additional furniture, you do it before when its not cluttered already !
Well I’m not discussing getting Plugins back - that decision has been made, probably set in stone and cemented over. But I do care about Plex and what troubles me is exactly one of the point you make…
…and they go ahead and implement News, Podcast, LiveTV. Stuff a lot of users never even wanted. I’m discussing rationale decision making.
What they are doing right now is refactoring their code and taking out what they think keeps their software back. I think someone of the Dev’s said that they aren’t happy with the way they did implement it those years ago. As for why that is, my guess you already got.
Refactoring is an incredible important step in an ongoing development like Plex. And while we can discuss that they didn’t implement plugins right (let s not though), what they are doing right now is everything but “bad programming”
I myself don’t use any of those mentioned, I am not living in USA , maybe it’s more important over there. While from an existing users perspective it’s probably hard to understand why they implemented this, don t forget the marketing. Plex in the end is a company that has to pay salaries. They can’t just make good software for a few people, they need to speak to as many as possible, to get their much needed support in form of money.
If a Co-Founder and CTO is still answering People’s questions in a forum, I don’t think too many People within this Companie are relaxing on some beach.
This is kind of the reason I was so happy with their current new direction.
They went from “more stuff → more people we speak to” to “better software → happier Users → hopefully more Users within the existing group”. I think that is needed now. for their, as well as our sake.
It may pain some People for their loss of Plugins (I lost some as well), I am certain however it s for the better for all of us.
Just don’t expect everything within a month, if they are doing good work it will take a while.
Drink is a white russian with bison grass vodka, was a nice experiment, never again.
