Another year-old thread of the same issue being ignored by Plex devs.
It’s been >1.5 years and >700 entries on this thread and still not fixed with minimal communication from devs… It ain’t getting fixed. I switched over to a different solution a while back, but still come here from time to time to see if this ever got resolved. It sure seems like they have no intent or no clue as to how to fix this. Too bad because otherwise I like plex. But ironclad DVR functionality is a must and lack of a fix keeps me from coming back.
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Same here… I switched to Emby about 9 months ago just because of the broken DVR, never looked back other than to monitor progress of the “fix” and every time I do it justifies my move further. I have never missed a recording and can enjoy watching a program whilst it is recording without fail on ALL my clients 
As it happens, Emby is way ahead of Plex for features with media libraries too so plus all round!
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This inconsistency is what is driving everyone nuts. What platform is your Plex server? I’m getting the watch from beginning on my Rokus (more later, no one jump on me yet), but my Plex server is Linux and to extent that timeshifting works varies widely depending on the server and clients used.
While watch from beginning works for me, being able to fast forward through commercials only works for a while. Once the show crosses a “boundary” the client thinks it is showing live, even when it is actually many minutes behind. At this point I can’t fast forward, defeating much of the benefit of timeshifting. The “boundary” is when the actual time crosses into a new listing, though on long listings like football games it also seems to do this when live crosses into a new hour. Effectively this makes timeshifting broken for me since it’s sports I want to timeshift and fast forward through commercials.
This past summer there was a server and a couple of client releases done to try to address the problem, but only limited benefit. When I posted my findings on an Android beta one of the developers told me that the full fix would require changes in the Plex server to provide more information to the clients. I can only hope this is being worked on in the background… I haven’t given up hope, though I get why some have.
I’m running on Windows 10, Version 1.18.5.2309. I tend to try to update as frequently as releases come out, as I keep hoping something in this will get fixed, but instead it seems to go in reverse. I’m using Roku Ultra 4660X running 9.2.0 build 4807-46. Plex Roku clients are 6.4 build 10.
I have my Plex application data stored on E:, while all of my libraries are on D:. I have 3 HDHomeRun Dual tuners, for a total of 6 tuners, with Remove Commercials enabled.
When any of the tuners are in use, they’re sending data to e:\plex media server\cache* directories. At the conclusion of a recording it’s then moved into a specific over-the-air library on D:\
The behavior I’m seeing currently is that if I go to the guide and select a show that is recording, it doesn’t bother asking if I want to watch from the beginning or live, as it used to do. It now just starts live. Always. I also found, similar to you, that even in the past when it would work, I wasn’t always guaranteed that I’d be able to fast forward completely. As an example, I could start watching a show at half past the hour, and after one or two fast forwards, I’d find that I was stuck and that could no longer fast forward, so I’d be forced to watch commercials, even if the playing time (i.e. 8:30pm wasn’t yet caught up with the wall time, say 8:45pm).
I have been faithful to Plex for some time, and I don’t look forward to migrating to something new, but the positive feedback on Emby may force my hand, especially given the radio silence from Plex development. This is really hard for me to understand, as my daily life is as a product manager for enterprise software solutions, and if I wasn’t addressing asks of my customer base as well as bugs/technical debt, at some level of priority, I can imagine I’d not be continuing in my role for long. While having News, Podcasts, Tidal, and even the latest web shows/movies is nice, none of that really matters to me if the core features that I need on a regular basis don’t work, like DVR functionality. To me, it’s akin to having a bunch of nice features in a car, but the steering wheel can only turn right; none of those features matter if I can’t actually use the thing to drive where I need to go with ease.
As a product manager, you should understand that while you most likely know what your product’s deficiencies are that there are external pressure (e.g. Sales) who wants to push new features as a way to make your app more attractive to a broader audience. What’s clear is that someone in Plex management is pushing for more customers and that many of the folks on this thread probably are lifetime members and not generating any additional revenue.
I agree that if it ain’t fixed by now, it’s very unlikely that a 500+ post thread is going to make a hill of beans worth of difference.
The way I see it is there are 3 options.
- Go find another solution that is more responsive to customers and take your losses for Lifetime Plex
- Start to bring this conversation out of a closed community and publicly ridicule poor DVR functionality and horrible support.
3,. Complain here because it somehow makes you feel better.
I haven’t decided which of those I prefer, but do think that #2 is probably the most effective…as it could potentially have a negative impact on sales.
You’re absolutely right @Gonzo-the-Great. The challenge is that sometimes you need to make sure your house is in order before taking on more, even to the point of standing up to sales. If you add features to expand your attractiveness, then those expanded users will also find the previous deficiencies.
Your #2 option is a good one, provided they want to listen, and to the extent that it puts them in a bad light compared to the competition to the detriment of sales. I’ve always gone on the basis that a good endorsement by an existing customer base brings you more customers than trying to generate new customers organically. The messages of “I left Plex for Foo because feature Y was horrible.” does tend to get attention. But it seems that not much on these forums actually gets any attention from anyone at Plex in a position to change things.
Have you looked at all of the HDHR web interfaces to see if it is allocating a second tuner when it doesn’t prompt you to start from the beginning, but it should? Obviously it should recognize that a tuner is already doing what has been asked for again, so if it isn’t prompting then it may be ignorantly allocating another tuner to the same channel. I’ve only one tuner device, an HDHR Extend, so if it’s a Plex bug having to do with multiple tuner devices I wouldn’t see it.
If that is what is happening then that is yet another spin on the issue of this thread. I remember a couple releases back there was a fix to address tuner use optimization. Perhaps a regression?
Simply because of the arrogance and the lies I’ve made it a point to “get the word out”. I’d like to think that I’ve cost PLEX well over 100 paying subscribers and I’ll not stop. I’ll tolerate a lot but not lies and arrogance when you’ve taken my money
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I knew I was done when my year is up months ago when the devs actually did participate in this thread only to tell us to quit "@"ing them in posts here. They stationed a whiny mod here for a few weeks then it’s been radio silence ever since.
When I canceled my auto pay a couple weeks ago I left a few F bombs in the exit interview comments about why I was leaving. They also advertise the DVR frequently on Twitter, I make it a point to tell the truth. I feel like they stole $39 since I have no use for the app without DVR functionality.
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dvr, guide, and livetv?
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hmm. thanks for the SS. I may look in to this. I have Emby server still installed. Just got rid of the channel off my roku’s.
I’ll check that the next time I try to watch something live again. I did post some months (year?) back about the tuner selection algorithm. If you have multiple tuners, I think a separate physical tuner should be used, unless the same channel is already in progress of being recorded. It would parallelize the I/O and minimize network latency when there is a single Ethernet port out of a tuner. I expected, maybe erroneously, that the “Is Something Already Recording?” lookup would happen at the Plex server, based on channel, prior to it deciding it needs to grab a tuner to service the request. It seems a relatively minor lookup table for channel/tuner that wouldn’t grow very large. I purposely have 6 tuners so that I could pretty much record all broadcast networks simultaneously and still keep a couple free for on-demand live tv.
You do raise a good point on the tuner selection portion though, and worth taking a look at. Though even if that’s it, I’m not sure that a developer may notice and do anything about it.
Is there a trial license or anything that will allow all features for a period of time to try out? I’d go with lifetime if it works, but want to know things are truly better before I’d make the jump, but generally don’t like month to month subscriptions if there’s a lifetime option available.
For Plex or Emby?
For Emby. I have a lifetime Plex subscription, which apparently doesn’t account for much when features are inop. I’d like to try the full Emby experience, and I tend to prefer to go w/ Lifetime subscriptions, so a 30/60 trial of all features would be nice before buying lifetime.
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I’ve been using Plex Server Version 1.18.4.2171 with my Synology NAS and it was working the start watching without problems. However, updating to any 1.18.5 or 1.18.6, the feature is broken again. Please, could you help me to forward this to your devTeam? thanks
The trial for Emby is $5/month IIRC.
Using Plex Server Version 1.18.4.2171 works perfect in my Synology. I could see from the start any record and forward and rewind without problem.
