Is there a tracker for current/reported bugs and features that are being worked on?
Answer:
Thank you for asking this question! Having a public tracker or other method that showcases what we’re working on, both bugs and features, is something that we are looking into. As I mentioned in another answer, the feedback loop of communication from us to the community is something that we are committed to working on and improving. That includes improved handling of the current bug reports that come in and the features that have already been suggested and requested.
Can plex open up options on the client app to play media using external players so that we can utilize dedicated hardware players like Zidoo and Dune HD?
Answer:
We have done this in the past and saw very low usage. However, this question did kick off quite a bit of discussion and it generally looks like this might be possible so the team will continue to evaluate and investigate how we might be able to get this into the android apps.
On my Android phone, I have download quality on WiFi set to original. But when i download videos, often it transcodes anyway. The odd thing is that I can direct play these files that are being transcoded. How can I fix this, or is this just a bug?
Answer:
Please check out this post for more information around our download plans. In addition to that, we will be taking a look at the text and context around what is displayed when selecting a download quality. It isn’t technically a bug that it is transcoding something set to Original, but it isn’t a great experience as we have given the team lots of feedback that this “Original Quality” label has created a lot of confusion. It is definitely something that the team hopes to address in upcoming work around downloads.
Last year, it was stated that you wanted to “double down” on the Server side and with the removal of 3rd party agents on the Shield, that there will be an alternative to the python-based metadata agents.
What is the state or progression on that? Will there be a grace period of some time to give developers the ability to bridge the two systems so that we are not caught off-guard because there was no announcement of the final removal on other server platforms as well?
Answer:
The first part of this answer was already addressed here, so please start there to cover the state and upcoming plans.
To add to that - it will not be a hard cutover right as it is released. We recognize that an overlap period is warranted here and we want to give developers time to work on switching things over before we fully remove the mentioned python support.
There was an additional question here that I can address:
So the question still is: What is the future of 3rd party agents? Is the goal to let developers create their own applications that need to run separately from Plex or is the Plan to have them in some way integrated in the Plex infrastructure, like they were before?
Years ago we had plugins as part of the PMS system. While those added some amazing functionality, they also created some challenges that led to the decision to stop that approach. Today, a lot of server owners already run companion and third party processes alongside their PMS instance. This is our intended way forward here. With platforms like Docker that allow for a consistent experience for apps to run on their own and in conjunction with the PMS API this creates a big opportunity for some amazing new functionality and we are excited to see what the community can build here.
Is this something that can be fixed this year? Maybe generating a new seed each time shuffle is selected? Better random algorithms? Anything would be helpful.
Answer:
Thanks for calling this one out. You know the things in your brain that you aren’t really aware of consciously but might or might not know of it? This one fits into that kind of scenario. It is definitely known now. It will be looked into, but until that happens I won’t know if we can or will choose to make any changes here. But we do appreciate the callout.
can you please add an easy backup solution for db?
Answer:
Reinstalls are tough and I am sorry that you had so many challenges here. From a backup standpoint, we do have backup fucntionality in PMS currently. I suggest you start with our support article: Backing Up Plex Media Server Data. Additionally, we have the settings for automatic backups set to be enabled by default to try and help more people have some level of safety, but it is always a good idea to review backup settings and think through a plan before you actually need one. This includes figuring out a way to backup the backup to another location so that if the entire disk or system goes down you will still have a backup to use as a starting point. Another function we offer that can help a little bit is the feature to Sync Watch State and Ratings which will preserve more of your data in the case of a catastrophic failure as it will be automatically pushed to your new PMS once it is setup if you have this feature enabled.
Are you able to give any insights into the crossover of PMS users to FAST users? Do you see a lot of Fast users making the jump to PMS? Are PMS users, and Lifetime Plex Pass users, utilizing FAST at all?
Answer:
This is a great question!! I dug into this one a little bit this evening. This also happens to be near and dear to my heart - I have created Pro Week videos the past two years trying to highlight Live TV as my personal opinion is that free live linear channels are something that I think anyone can be interested in and can add value to any streaming media experience whether you also access a PMS or not. While it might not be great for targeted watching (which is a large percentage of usage and my rough terminology for watching something specific at the specific time and date that you want to watch), there are many people like me who like background noise and linear channels (aka FAST) are great for that.
So, after digging in a bit here, do Plex PMS users also watch our FAST channels? Turns out that roughly 25% of our daily FAST users are considered to be a PMS user (note a PMS user here simply means that that user has access to a PMS library). That is actually a pretty big number of accounts here. I don’t have the historical context to dig in and see if FAST users are making the jump to be PMS users or vice-versa. However, even though a lot of PMS users do like to turn off Plex sources for their account, it does look like quite a few others are also watching some FAST most days. Pretty cool, and thanks for the question here!
We need roadmap for new plex experience app on other supports (android tv, consoles, TV app)
Answer:
Apologies for taking so long to get to this, but we have been working behind the scenes to make things happen here. Unfortunately I do not have specific details to share in this post. That is the bad news. However, there is good news here:
This is coming soon. I am aware of the potential irony of this statement after some of the other questions in this AMA. Apologies if my moment of attempted levity here towards the end of the Fireside AMA isn’t that funny, it has been a long (but amazing) week! What I mean here is that there are plans on releasing comms for the new experience on additional platforms in October and so keep an eye out for this messaging!
Watching the bug-fix updates roll out got me wondering about what goes on behind the scenes, which brings me to my main question: Could you shed some light on your process for prioritizing bug fixes?
Answer:
I don’t have a ton of info to provide here directly related to this question. We do believe in teams having independence and some autonomy in how they work. Generally, teams will have a triage process for incoming and new issues, a prioritized project list for active and ongoing work, and a backlog where issues are grouped and sorted.
As for the specific EAC3 7.1 issue that you referenced, I did check on that and can confirm that there is a ticket for that one, it is showing as assigned but not started yet. As I don’t work directly with the owning team I don’t have the context to provide a sense on where it falls in terms of current prioritizations.
Is there any plan to improve the metadata management ?
Answer:
No current plans to mention here, but we do appreciate the feedback. I am definitely passing along the feedback around the single tag in search item to the team to review.
YouTube Library: In order to avoid the insane number of YouTube ads I see, I have started downloading YouTube videos for offline viewing automatically. The problem is, they don’t really fit into Movies or TV Shows. Are there plans to expand into this type of content?
Answer:
We do support an Other Videos library type where you can put media like this but will need to provide your own metadata. My guess is that the real question here is: does Plex ever plan on supporting additional metadata providers for things like youtube videos? The answer is no, but we have released the PMS API documentation and you are welcome to build you own if you are so inclined!
Question:
Cast profiles: So there seems to be two different systems going on when it comes to the profile pages of cast members. … Are there any plans to sync these two worlds together or have a settings option to let one choose which they’d rather see?
Answer:
This is an area that we have worked to improve in the new experience. Before this, what would would see would be scoped to either the full media universe context (discovery tab) or scoped specifically to a PMS (only movies in my library). In the new experience we tried to bring these together into a more universal experience.
Would it be possible in future updates to change actor pictures and have a forum for correcting issues in the filmography section?
Answer:
On the actor pictures - interesting question. Not sure I can remember this ever being brought up for discussion anywhere yet. The closest I can think of is a discussion around whether we have the metadata/images to show an image of the actor/actress closer in time to what they looked like in the title, as opposed to a single image used across the entire list of titles. I don’t think that we had enough info to do that. If the question is more around replacing artist images like we allow for movie posters and show images then the answer is no - we haven’t discussed that one for sure and I don’t know if it is something we might build functionality for in the future.
As for the correcting issues question - we do have a Metadata forum area that would be a good spot to post any issues in metadata or images. We do try hard to keep these accurate and appreciate when anyone helps out in keeping things accurate.
Does plex have any plans to support more alternative ordering for example from TMDB Episode Groups?
Answer:
While we don’t have any alternative ordering work ongoing, I would urge you to check out the alternative ordering work that was done last year to see if it helps out what you are trying to achieve. You can find information on this feature here. Thanks for joining us at the Fireside!
