Often, when I try to run the Plex app in Windows, it launches the setup for Plex rather than running the application. If I cancel out of setup and RUN THE SAME SHORTCUT again, the application opens.
The odd part is that I cannot tell what triggers it to run setup rather than running the app. It seems like it may be time based. Once I close the Plex app and wait a few minutes, if I then try to open it again, it will launch setup rather than the application.
Test System:
Windows 10 Pro 1903 with the latest Aug 2019 Windows updates
Plex Server is also installed on this same system.
Intel Core i7-4790K CPU
32GB RAM
Mix of NVMe, SATA SSD, and SATA HDs
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti Graphics
Mine did that twice and I think it was seeing it had an update, but got confused about what to do about it… I let it update twice and the issue went away.
Should it resurface - I’ll do as Otto suggests.
Note:
That sequence of events was pretty scary, to be honest, because to the layman it appeared for all the world Plex was about to install itself. No mention of Plex for Windows Player. I closed my eyes and stepped into the ravine… twice… hit the invisible log both times.
Tried the suggestion of clearing out C:\Users\AppData\Local\Plex.
Initially it seemed to cause a major problem for me. When I tried to open the Plex Server UI from the task bar, nothing would happen. Also, when I tried to launch the Plex desktop app it would ask me to sign in but when I would click on the big Sign In button, absolutely nothing would happen.
I had backed up the contents of the folder noted above before deleting the contents, so I restored them and rebooted. Even then, I could not run Server or the desktop app.
I went to http://127.0.0.1:32400/web/index.html and after that both Server and the app worked fine but now I’m back to my original problem of Plex setup starting again.
I’m going to retry the procedure and see what happens.
So far, the Plex desktop app is opening up just fine as well without launching setup, but it will be a little while before I know if this really fixed it. I should know that for sure by this evening. I’ll post an update this evening.
Well, while the suggestion was appreciated, it did not work.
What’s interesting is that when I try to launch the Plex desktop app and setup starts, Windows asks if I want to allow the program to make changes to my system. If I dismiss this, then Plex starts.
That was it - it was indeed an update trying to install. I didn’t recognize that this was what was happening because I’m used to the way that the Plex Media Player and Plex Server would install updates. Rather than just kicking off an installer immediately upon launching with no visible indication that the actual app is running, those give you a notification that an update is available and give you an opportunity to install the update.
