I have a situation where I need to update (sync) a device that almost never has internet access. I can get PMS to operate OK on my laptop without internet - but that is useless (to me) if my devices either can’t connect to it at all - or - can connect, but, can’t sync… I understand the need to verify access for advanced features, but paying for these advanced features is useless if I can’t make use of them when I need them. There has to be a way to verify Plex Pass access and allow servers and devices to work together even whether is not any internet.
I do understand the need to connect to the internet to get codecs or download thumbnails and such - but I’m talking basic functions that really ought to work. Let my fire tablet connect to PMS and sync a movie across… Let me sync photos back to the server…
A second example if you want one is camping or long road trips without access to internet.
Ok a third - power and or equipment failure… These things should not stop me.
When I go camping or long road trips I just sync content to mine and my kids devices and it works great.
Over time Plex has become highly dependant on internet and some clients actually require internet in order to work at all.
I’ve tested and I can lose internet at my house and as long as devices have been on the internet and logged in they remain able to view all locally stored content.
Kodi is a good alternative that last I knew required less internet but has less features.
I’ve given my Mom (lives 100 Miles away) a Fire Tablet to which I synced a bunch of movies, family pictures and videos, and OTA recordings I made for her. She lives in the boonies and has no internet access. This keeps her in something to watch when her own local OTA offerings come up short.
When She comes here to visit me we have no issue getting her all updated… When I go to visit her we are out of luck… I can get my PMS to work on my laptop - but her Tablet will not connect to it because there is no internet connection - just a local wifi “island” I guess you’d call it.
She can’t sync any of her photos back to to my server, cannot stream, can’t sync new episodes of Matlock to her device…
So having PMS on the laptop is useless - until we get both devices to someplace that has internet - which sometimes may not happen for a month or more.
I use tablets and phones that have external memory so that I can take an SD card and load it up with content and the device will see that content as local content. This removes the need to connect to the internet.
Load up and SD card from your laptop or even ship her one loaded with content and she should be good to go…
Well. Yah. I’ve been there, and do that. The point of my suggestion is to improve a imperfect thing so that it works better, and so a hack/workaround is not needed.
I don’t have any illusions about this ever getting fixed (it is a broken thing) but you never know if you do not ask nicely. So. I’ve asked nicely.
Well… As much as I hate to do it because I really like Plex… I’ve downloaded Kodi to play with and I’ll for sure be switching my Mom’s tablet over to it and just sync stuff over to her tablet manually. Sigh.
