I have a plex pass subscription and it’s great. Starting today plex is inserting commercials on my shows. Anyone know what is causing this?
You’re mistakenly clicking on something that we happen to also have in our On Demand content is what is happening. The apps have no way to insert commercials inside playback of content from a Plex Media Server.
If you have no interest in our on demand content you can turn it all off in the Online Media Sources settings for your account.
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I have read that from many sources, and I have been using Plex for almost as long as it’s been around.
I know what exactly what I clicked on, I did not search for anything. I went to a specific folder, and ads came up.
What you are saying is just not true
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Not only that, when I got through the ads, I then went to my server admin, and saw the server was showing what I selected as streaming.
There are problems with Plex serving ads.
I now turned off all online media sources, meaning the players will not have access to anything but what is on my Plex. Even shut off discover, which I assume you would rather I not do, since you guys put so much work into it.
I will report back if it continues
Neither the server or any app has any technical ability to inject ads into server content. ( obviously the other thing could be commercials in a DVR recording )
The way to see if something from a server somehow got adds put into it is make take a file that is a home movie and rename it to be a real hollywood movie or tv show. Then play that file which would be your home movie and wait for commercials to show up into and screen capture it, get server logs etc,
Also curious which player
Perhaps a preroll like “You’re watching Plex” before any Plex hosted content would help eliminate any confusion? I get how this works, but it the issue still arises for those that don’t. A clear litmus test would eliminate the confusion.
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We do actually run “station ID” prerolls, but they are frequency capped (they don’t run before every playback - but should always run before the 1st one)
Though all On Demand playback has ad pre-rolls (even when resuming), so if they don’t see ads before the content plays ( with the timer/learn more button etc) then it’s not us adding commercials
but again if it is happening need logs from server and players to begin any investigation
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@BringerOD, our team checked your Plex account and you did definitely stream three episodes of a TV show from our free, ad-supported Movies & Shows service yesterday. Seems like you mistakenly chose our service as the source instead of the Plex Media Server to which you have access.
Apologies for any confusion.
This happens quite often if the users have Plex’s own free service options enabled. The user’s own “Continue Watching” in the Home menu WILL pick from the free service even if the show had been watched using the customer’s own content.
I haven’t tested, but I suspect that if a “Continue Watching” item has multiple possible sources (the same item in 2 or more libraries), that the client picks the content from the top-most pinned source. If this is Plex’ own free streaming offerings, then it will auto-play from there instead of the user’s library.
Is it possible for you (Plex devs) to de-prioritize the Plex free streaming options if there are multiple sources? This would help fix the few “ads in my content!” posts that pop up here every week.
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Ok this is just not accurate.
I have everything turned off on the server. Even discover.
Just now 9:17 pm pst , 5/27/24, just played a movie on my hardrives, and it’s playing commercials.
There is something wrong with the servers. You can check the logs.
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Regarding the tv shows with ads, that might have happened, just not with what I tested. My wife said she saw ads, so I tested it, and sure enough there were ads.
So she might have picked a tv show on demand, But when I posted, I had already turned everything off the server a selected a known movie, not tv show, and it had ads.
Just did it again. With 100% certainty, it was a movie I have on the servers and it had ads.
Thanks for taking a look at this.
I believe @chrisc reply above should have been meant for the OP @mikeke36 not you @BringerOD .
Do you have your server logs from when you were playing the item and the player logs.
Ya, sorry about that, I hit reply on the wrong message as well.
The server is on Synology. The latest server. Version 4.130.0
The app is Apple TV. Here are the logs
Plex Media Server.log
Ads shown on this. Session ID: 140135115508536
Trying to find the other one. It;s the next movie I played.
Here are my online media source settings
it is possible for you to get a cell phone video or something when it happens so we can see the commercial playing the next time it happens
Also your Apple TV logs since that is the app you are using.
Can you also please disable verbose logging in your server settings, It isn’t needed 99,9% of the time and just adds lots of stuff that makes reading logs hard. Only Debug logging should be enabled
Ok, I will, the third movie we are watching now, did not show ads. Can’t test it now, family watching a movie,
Do you want a video, to make sure what I am saying is accurate? Where is the trust, lol. Also, this does not happen all the time, and will be tricky to Apple TV app logs. I have to see the ads, then go back to settings, turn logs on, because they only go on for 20 minutes, then turn off, I think. Then hope it does it again, while I am recording.
Will make the attempt.
Thanks again for looking into it.
Yes. I mean you don’t trust us that it can’t be from us. The server has no code in it connect to the Ad providers, it wouldn’t know how. You say it is happening and I don’t want to argue with you but I do need to prove it to others for anything to be done about it.
I didn’t see anything in your server logs to indicate it was connecting to ad providers but that is expected since it can’t. That is why the player logs would be more telling
Fair enough. Good news is I have an example. I really do appreciate the help.
- Video
- Screenshot of the folder from my PC of the file location
- Logs from Apple TV App
- Logs from the server, and I turned off verbose.
That’s not an ad.
That’s a cinema trailer.
https://support.plex.tv/articles/202934883-cinema-trailers-extras/#toc-1
The “Cinema Trailers” feature is designed to let you watch movies with an experience more like a real cinema. When you start playing a movie, instead of the movie starting immediately, you can have some trailers automatically play before the movie. It’s like going to a cinema theater without the sticky floors!
Edit Library > Advanced tab > uncheck Enable Cinema Trailers.
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