Stop Playback Functionality - Clarifying Scope

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
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Server Version#: 1.40.0.7998
Player Version#: 8.31 (7837)

Hello All – I’m not certain this topic is specific to a particular plex media server or particular player, but I nonetheless provided the versions for my PMS on Windows & Player on AppleTV.

The purpose of this topic is to help clarify if I’m encountering a bug, a feature request, or a user error…

The Server Status and Dashboard pages seem to operate exactly as described in the relevant Support Article. That said, I’m encountering something unexpected when it comes to the Stop Playback functionality.

  • When a user is playing a video stream (e.g., a movie), hovering over the user’s name produces the expected button to stop playback, provide a message, and ultimately terminate the stream.

  • When a user is playing an audio stream (e.g., an album), hovering over the user’s name does not produce the expected button.

Is this functionality supposed to apply to all types of streams, or is this functionality only meant to be used with video streams?

Thank you in advance for any clarity on this matter.

2

Audio playback cannot be stopped, because in some cases it is not streamed.
Instead, the whole track (and often a whole bunch of tracks) is downloaded in advance to the client. This is true for the mobile Plex apps and for Plexamp.
And since there is no stream which could be stopped, there is no stop button available.

1 Like
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This makes perfect sense… One follow-up question which is more aligned with what led to me asking the question in the first place.

While out at dinner last night, I became worried the audio stream restarted & would be bothering our neighbors. It was my desire to eliminate the possibility anything was playing & I thought this might be the best approach.

Is there any other functionality I could use to ensure a particular player isn’t producing output?

4

Stop the playback on that player.

Apart from that, there is only the sleeping timer in Plexamp. But even that needs activating first and cannot be triggered remotely.

5

Play something over the top remotely that you are able to stop.

Or make a silent movie and play that.

You might need to VPN to remote play to your home players.

6

Might not be related, but I often have to stop paused playback for users on my server. Now the stop playback isnt an available option. Why was it removed. I mean I can restart my server to force stop the one or two playbacks that people left paused, but it used to be that I could just stop their stream, where did that option go?

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