All I know is that with this update. You’re forcing me to participate in these preview builds because you’re obviously not getting enough valuable feedback to make smart decisions.
These changes, honestly, not sure who would have wanted them or why.
I’d really like to know who drove these ideas/ where they came from.
All of the feedback that has been pouring in over the last 24 hours has just been reaffirming what the beta testers have been saying for almost a year now. This entire rebuild is not ready for release and yet they continue to push it out half baked at best. Beta testers have begged, pleaded, complained, threatened to leave, etc… all Plex says is that this is the new Plex with absolutely no intentions to roll back. It’s a shame really.
Yep, and with a lot of them threatening to leave and go to JF or Emby, once they switch over its going to be very difficult for Plex to get them back.
Plex might not care as they think they’ll still have users using their streaming service, but most users aren’t going to keep the Plex app installed just for that. I can guarantee the majority of users got introduced to Plex through watching hosted content from a server owner. Plex just piggybacked on those users and I’m sure some users watch the Plex hosted content, but those numbers will also drop significantly.
I know they won’t admit it but I truly believe they are slowly killing off the PMS. The push to their streaming has so far been slow but noticeable. Like the frog in boiling water. This has been the most drastic change yet but if you look at their app store listings they are advertising the PMS as almost an afterthought now, not the selling point. An AIO streaming hub is their new push. I think in recent years they have taken on a significant user base of streaming only users that do not care about the PMS as we do and so we are slowly getting phased out. They will tell me I’m wrong but the data doesn’t lie.
Roku is my main way of using Plex, you may lose me completely over this. Going to start looking at other PMS. I know there are a lot out there, I am sure they will take my money as easily as Plex did.
Feedback in one word: Garbage.
Worse in every possible way, literally. Fire your UX team and start over. And stop forcing the online media sources and that bullshit. Literally no one wants it and it makes Plex worse every day.
Been using Plex since it was only on PC. Way back there was a top menu bar. It was fine when using a keyboard. Now we’re using remotes this is the most restrictive, clunky interface you guys ever produced. Very little control over layout. Hard to get to anything. This new version is really bad. Please revert back to old layout.
The UI change makes no sense, has buried playlists, and has made navigation clunkier and user-unfriendly. The device locks up (except to exit the plex app) whenever starting to watch something. Each season of a show now has some kind of blanked “season episode” that crashes the app when selected, even when attempting to scroll past it.
In short, this update is non-functional, and feels as though Plex are trying to drive users off the service. If there was a way to restore the basic UI we had a week ago, that would fix everything.
Just adding another “WHY”??? It adds nothing but makes the product complete junk!!! I guess you trued and 100% failed. You can make it right by putting things back.
It is clear this major UI change was not driven by a user study but rather by… well, God knows what. Clearly the vast majority want options and functionality that is gone or no longer easily accessible and not what Plex is choosing to highlight. The fastest way to alienate your user base is to ignore them and instead tell them what they want and then shove it down their throats.
Plex has a choice right now: they can show us they’re listening and either roll back / offer a “classic view” and functionality, or experience a mass exodus. I have no desire to migrate to something else, nor do I have the time, but which is more painful in the long run? I’m a lifetime Plex Pass user and this is no longer close to what I purchased and it’s currently unusable for my family.
That’s the worst part. Beta testers on the forums have been giving this feedback for almost a year! Plex doesn’t care. They just dig their heels in deeper and tell us to suck it up.
We tried… we really tried! 
Would you all at the Plex HQ please read through these comments and deal with these issues for the sake of the community? I have a Roku Ultra in the living-room. Functionally this app is a bit buggy but usable. And I concur wholeheartedly that the UI experience is not good at all.
If this is your way of attempting to take over the TV media experience, this is not going to work. You need a platform (smart TV or streaming box) and a user-base that you don’t alienate. You don’t have hardware and this is the type of event where you lose user-base.
Bring back elements of the old UI. Media library customization! Do not force your cookie-cutter linear TV channels on menus. Do not continue to roll out this “UI Update” to other apps and web interfaces. Start responding to peoples’ inquiries and bugs. Start doing the ethical things when it comes to your security issues. Some of us are paying customers by the way.
The “new experience” is absolutely terrible. Would it be possible to either get a procedure to roll back, a setting to use the “old experience” (with a commitment not to later remove it), or a refund on my lifetime plex pass?
Roku is my main plex viewing platform, but in it’s current state it’s unusable.
By far the worst thing that has ever been done to Plex. Completely unusable. PLease give me a refund on my lifetime subscription if you don’t allow me to use the playlists i made and re-hide the hidden libraries. You all took a great thing and made it horrible in 1 update. Please give us the option to revert or just change it back to the way that actually worked.
You want feedback for this? It’s utter garbage. Absolutely horrific. Where do I even begin?
The app itself is horrifically unstable. I am unable to play media periodically as the remote simply won’t click on the media. Pressing OK on the remote to select anything makes the noise, but doesn’t register as clicking anything within Plex. Clicking right to select the A-Z on the sidebar will not work. I cannot click the letters any longer. It’s now having issues playing some media that worked absolutely fine before. This is unacceptable. I have paid for Plex Pass for years, I expect a premium experience.
The UI is absolutely horrendous. I am not sure how on earth this passed QA and QC. I am a software engineer, and I truly do not comprehend how this got released. It’s so poorly laid out. I have 6 libraries, and when listed on the sidebar they were all readable and easy to access. Now I am faced with additional clicks because of this ridiculous black floating bar. It sticks out like a sore thumb, and simply adds clicks.
Also, why in the living hell is ‘Live TV’ and other TV apps a feature within Plex? I have a Roku TV. Any Live TV and streaming apps I would use are already built into the TV or can be installed. Why would I install a second version of it within Plex? It’s utterly redundant. If I don’t see a rollback in the next few weeks, I will for sure be cancelling Plex Pass and switching to Jellyfin or Emby. It does not pass with my usability approval, and more importantly it absolutely failed the wife-approval test. You want a successful improvement, it must pass the wife-approval test or it simply won’t get used, ever.
Please, I implore you. Reverse the changes, this will spell the downfall for Plex.
I’ve never had a need to post on this forum until today when the update rolled to my Roku devices. But today, I feel compelled to let you know that this is an awful experience. Absolutely horrible. You not only managed to remove functionality, you also made navigation less intuitive and slower.
Continue watching: I used to click on the show and next episode would play. Not any more, brings me to the show. Unnecessary extra clicks.
Navigating between libraries: select next library, wait for it to load. (Longer than the previous version) then I can get to the next library.
Horizontal library navigation? Not intuitive at all, and you can only see a fraction of your libraries at once now.
Mobile client was ruined first, now Roku. Please everyone, protect your Windows client before they ruin that next:
Open the following file: %LOCALAPPDATA%\Plex\plex.ini in a text editor.
In the [debug] section at the bottom (add it if it doesn’t exist), add the following:
disableUpdater=true
I’ve been putting it off because things were tolerable but this may well have been the kick I needed to go elsewhere. This UI is absolutely horrendous. I’m not even upset that you are forcing us to have things we don’t use on our menu – it’s the dumb layout of sub menus…. I have to highlight “libraries” at the top but for the love of god I can’t click it because then it just bypasses the whole submenu of which library…. if I do that correctly, I then have to select a library which are in an illogical order…. then I’m… nope, still not there….. now I have to go to the side bar (wait, didn’t we just get rid of that in this update) to select browse….. and then wait…. and wait….. because for some reason it takes 3 times as long to load anything with this new update than it did the previous one.
I also ironically used to use Plex for streaming free channels at times when I just wanted background noise but that’s over…. There are now far easier apps on Roku for that function. You’ve made things worse AND you pushed me away from the services you make money on…. good work.
Well, I used to like Plex. Now it’s trash. True “hot garbage” at others have said. @McWanke I had no idea there was a preview of this, but had 99.999% of us seen it before you released, we’d have all said no. Roll back. Keep your user base. Many of us recommend plex to friends, family, coworkers, etc, which assuredly keeps your business growing. Today I am stopping that.
No searching by letter on the right column.
Multiple libraries harder to access using top menu.
More button presses to access what was quicker and better laid out before.
Harder to read fonts/text for libraries.
Useless “season” icon before first episode which further extends the number of hits to play anything. Also freezes the app.
