I was an early adopter and have had Plex installed since it was in beta. I like the concept but there have been things done to it throughout the years that have made it unusable in certain situations. Other features have been remove and the interface has become more convoluted. It would be nice if Plex could examine what it has become and see if it can go back to including what I would consider original “core functionality”.
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The ability to use Plex without an internet connection while on the same local network as the server has become a jump-through-hoops-and-pray process. The original Plex server allowed you to play your own media on your own network anytime you wanted without hassle. I understand that the https security with the certificates is likely the cause for this, but is there not a way to add a on/off toggle option in the settings that will automatically enable the proper settings needed to be able to watch locally without an internet connection? UPnP exists for routers, you have control over Plex settings, firewall exclusions can be set, why can this not all be rolled into a toggle for ease of use, especially for those less savvy with technology that may have issues setting up their firewall or port forwarding.
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The download feature was an amazing inclusion when it was released. When the feature first came out it worked great. I could choose a season of a show to download so I had plenty to watch on trips. Then as things started to progress, the download feature became more an more buggy, failing randomly on a download just to complete it successfully the next but then fail on another. It got to the point I stopped using the feature all together, which is disappointing because it was a very useful feature when it worked.
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The Plugins feature was removed, which was extremely disappointing as there were many fan-made plugins out there that added a lot of extended functionality to Plex. I am not sure if this was for legal reasons but it would seem that Plex could not be held legally liable for an app made by a 3rd party developer the same way YouTube is not liable for the content its creators post. The functionality lost by the removal of Plugins alone set Plex back a good distance in my opinion. It should have been used, if nothing else, to see what features Plex can/should be incorporating into the base program.
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Why is it that everyone seems to feel the need to hide main features under layers of menus and options. I have 3 different Plex servers I run from different locations. How am I supposed to see which of the 3 “TV Shows” libraries is which? All the new interface displays is “TV Shows goosar19”, “TV Shows goosar19”, “TV Shows goosar19”. The same goes for “Movies” or any of the other library types I have multiple of. The new user interface is a step backwards in my opinion. It used to display all of the information I needed in a neat column on the left that could be collapsed into an even smaller column if you chose to do so. So what was the problem with having things so easily accessible on the left hand side of the screen, where you now have to hide them under a menu at the top of the screen that leaves out critical information? In addition, I was able to hide “Live TV” “On Demand” and “Discover”, features that I do not use and do not want cluttering my home screen. I had them turned off for a reason and now they are shoved in my face at the top of the screen.
When will Plex go back to being concerned about how I am able to watch MY media from MY devices. If I wanted to watch free ad-supported content, there are many sites out there that already do that. I purchased Plex because I wanted to watch MY media on MY terms, not have to deal with someone else’s choices. Plex started out that way. I know Jellyfin exists, and sadly at this time they have remained more Plex-like than Plex, but the fact of the matter is I do like what Plex was, and do enjoy some of the features that have been added, but I am not sure how much longer I will be able to continue with Plex if they continue to deviate from their original vision and cave in to forcing their users into ad-supported content, AFTER they have already given you a significant sum of money for a Plex Pass, in my case, the Lifetime flavor.
Fireside Note: Thank you for this post. Many of these items have been addressed in different Answers. Please check out:
- offline and local auth answer
- download answers here and here
- plugins answer
