mother in law showed me a screenshot of her tv on her ipad today. with all the things we have been saying circled and with arrows. asking why make it bad when it worked fine. can i fix it. i said no and may be looking to alternative software. her biggest complaint other than the menu was that it takes 30-60 seconds to load any library now. and over 2 minutes to load the home page beyond the continue watching. thats not a hardware problem thats a software problem that shouldnt have passed.
7 Likes
Yes time to dump Plex I just found that they magically add shows you are missing in a series. No indicator that itâs going to be streamed. I run plex on a portable server that only had a 25GB monthly limit I canât randomly start stream things over that connection. This is the plex watershed moment they are toast! They are worried about review and expenses pretty soon it wonât mater!
5 Likes
Having to reorder is a pain in the finger as this new UIâs focus is make the user do more clicks⊠and I have 30 libraries, this across the top format is complete stupidity. Also, to always be forced to âRecommendedâ is idiotic, whoâs doing the recommending? I donât like it one bit, just show me my library and Iâll do the recommending myself, thank you.
3 Likes
At least they do have a setting under one of the gear icons that lets you tell it to default to the âbrowseâ view instead of the stupid ârecommendedâ one, but itâs a setting that applies to all libraries so you canât have different libraries open in different views.
2 Likes
Also this Browse setting does not appear to survive when they roll out new versions of the app. I have had to change this setting, âExperience->Default Library View->Browseâ several times. Hopefully, it might be fixed now but Iâll have to wait until another version rolls out.
5 Likes
Just checked out Jellyfin. I think I am switching.
4 Likes
Obviously your choice about how many libraries you have. But why?
I had to make my voice heard somewhere. This UI is a ridiculous downgrade. I canât find one change I would call an improvement and numerous things I either dislike our completely hate. My overall complaint is why is there so much less information on screen? Iâm a power user and I have issues knowing how to navigate it, let alone my family who isnât. We see numerous popular apps switching to side tabs/navigation and hereâs Plex going backwards. Is it so hard to just give us a choice? It is bad enough that Iâm currently on ebay looking for a used shield to replace my existing Roku and I suspect that wonât be a safe haven for long. Itâs truly a shame youâre choosing to ignore your user base like this.
10 Likes
In general Iâm not one to whine about changes & updates, but the test for all of these updates should be to have your elderly mother/grandmother run the update.
If youâre ready to lose your mind after 15 minutes then donât release it - you havenât simplified or improved your product, youâve destroyed it.
This update is all pain, no gain. Total waste of your resources and ours. Roll it back please or give us an option in setting to turn it off!
9 Likes
Media is like tools, you donât throw all your tools into one box, then have to hunt for the one you want in that one box, same with media. I know what to expect with each library and I donât have to search for what I want, itâs where I put it.
That was the beauty of PLEX, âMy Serverâ the way âIâ want it⊠but not this disjointed ROKU PLEX UI, itâs the way âTheyâ want it⊠which is what PLEX said they wouldnât doâŠ
4 Likes
Plex said they wouldnât but investors call the shots now it seems.
4 Likes
When did they say this?
They havenât said it outright and they never will but you can easily find information on their seed rounds and this entire debacle stinks of investor injection. I have worked at software startups for over 20 years and Iâve seen it too many times. Just the fact that theyâre completely refusing to roll back says it all. So far the only thing they did roll back was removing photos and music from the main app which is something investors wouldnât really care about.
They want a fast return, usually in 2-5 years. Plex has been slowly pushing the ad supported content more and more as they get more seed rounds and suddenly they have accelerated this new experience, so much so that itâs extremely bug riddled. I would bet a lot on the fact that theyâre being pushed by investors to have this new ad supported content at the forefront completely rolled out by the end of the year.
5 Likes
Which is it? Did Plex say what Ctrlx01 said they did (as you asserted previously)? Or did they not say as youâre asserting now?
1 Like
It is both. McWanke has said in previous posts that they (the employees) value customization and personal media, as well as user feedback. But then he turns around and says they arenât going to roll back because they âarenât going in that direction.â That signals to me that while the employees may feel the same as us, they are being forced to make these changes. This is pure speculation but Iâm not the only one who sees it.
8 Likes
Thereâs nothing about the new apps which permanently makes personal media any less front and centre than the older apps. And now you only have to disable discover or streaming stuff once and itâll be that way across all the apps.
And is there really any less customisation in the new apps? You were stuck with Plexâs layout in the previous app, just because everyone was more used to it didnât make it more customisable.
2 Likes
Thatâs a fair point. I think the biggest difference in old vs new experience isnât less/more customization, itâs ease of customization and lack of documentation to do so. Users shouldnât have to come to forums and ask how to use a UI. If they do, youâve already failed.
I donât agree though that they arenât deprioritizing personal media. The new experience defaults to discover and their ad supported streaming content. It has since the apps dropped on mobile. Whether intentional or not it has had the very obvious effect of making users assume their media has been pushed aside in favor of ad revenue. Couple this with the fact that there are roughly 50% more clicks to get to your media and you have a bad user experience, not a better one.
Plex has a laundry list of feature requests and bug fixes going back years but they intentionally chose to prioritize a UI overhaul and implementing ad supported streaming content that nobody asked for. At this point I donât think the majority of users who have been affected by this new experience would ever trust Plex again unless they actually take the overwhelming feedback and do a full about face.
7 Likes
This may be an unpopular opinion⊠I got my value out of my Lifetime Plex Pass years ago. âIFâ it meant a super pleasant Plex experience, Iâd probably pay a nominal monthly fee for it.
I know, I know⊠âI paid a lifetime pass, I should get a lifetime of service!!!â But, if that means a lifetime of crappy service, Iâd rather just start over and pay for what I really want. Also, Iâd rather see the company survive, and if that means I need to help support them instead of going down with a burning turd, then Iâd do that.
10 Likes
I completely agree
8 Likes
Which is exactly why Iâve been saying since the beginning that the executives need to step in and face their own users. Itâs cowardice and shows weakness if Plex Inc. executives canât take ownership while putting all of this customer facing pressure on the floor level employees who are on these forums and on Reddit taking the heat and fall. Remember, the flip flopping and confusion is simply a way for corporate not to take responsibility for their decisions and goes back to me advocating for civility to these employees. The true answer to all of this is to cut Plex off at its knees and no longer give them a cent, start shutting down your servers so they see the data that their actions have consequences, realize their profits are drying up. Coincidentally, maybe thatâs what they are actually going for? Maybe thatâs their plan is to shake down those of us who run our own servers and say âhey, look at the metrics, we can finally shutdown the server products like we wanted to now.â
And there wouldnât be ANY speculation had they not lied multiple times. Itâs truly their fault for their own problems.
4 Likes
