@anon18523487 can’t find this anywhere in the thread. New download feature doesn’t work with smart collections. Sync works fine…
I was really excited to hear about the new Download feature since Sync always seemed to be hit or miss. Looks like it’s more of the same issues, getting ready for a trip and neither sync nor download works.
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Do you mean cast as in “casting” to a Chromecast? That work is still planned,
New download feature doesn’t work with smart collections
I thought it’s been mentioned. Downloads does not work with collection or playlists that are based on collections. I’m surprised Sync works.
Understood. Kindly requesting that Plex continue with the parallel run until we can get some semblance of continuity from sync to downloads. There is currently no recompense for sync functionality with any added features coming from the new download experience.
I assume the whole point of downloads is to enhance being able to seemlessly transition from an online to offline experience. That applies especially to chrome casting IMO, that’s just a no brainer.
Thanks as always for the support, I can see the hard work that is being put into getting the feature up to par with sync.
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Yay! I just grabbed the latest TestFlight for iOS complete with fix for DNS rebinding.
Yay! It actually completes the transcode AND download.
Yay! I will let someone else confirm if they get the never ending “spinning circle of death” when playing back the files. (I tried 4 files of varying qualities)
Thank f*ck for infuse.
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Anyone actually please feel free and chip in if it’s working for you and it’s just me having an issue?
It’s still not working for me.
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As in the same issue as me?
It now downloads but doesn’t play…or something else?
Can you get me a log with the failure? Also check you don’t have the old player enabled.
I did the latter and set some new downloads going and playback is immediate so thanks. It also seems extremely fast compared with Download & Sync.
But did I miss seeing in the opening post that a requirement is using the new player for playback? If not it may be worth adding that important info to avoid unneeded frustration?
It is hoped that users do not need the old player anymore so having that enabled is not the normal use case. Downloads supports more codecs, which only play with the new player. Using the old player will just fail since the video may have a codec that is unsupported. The old player is still there for mainly 1 use case, PiP, which does not work with the new player. There is a Downloads setting called “maximum compatibility” which basically forces Downloads to only allow codecs supported by the old player.
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Yeah no worries and to be honest I was surprised I was on the old player on my mobile but then realised why.
On iOS and tvOS there is a thread regarding Dolby Vision in the mkv container. I think it may have been either @DaveBinM or indeed one of the Apple devs that mentioned we needed to use the old player for that particular feature. So it does get pretty confusing when we are testing out different newer features and switching between the two players.
It’s all good though now we know. My primary usage in iOS will mostly be for the Downloads feature.
Despite the false starts I do have to say I’m really impressed. It seems far faster.
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Not specific to Downloads, I think folks use the old player for a few other reasons too.
Some HDR/DV profiles
Spatial audio support
Airplay audio lipsync and weirdness
Some high bitrate files stutter in the new player, but are smooth in the old (At least on Apple TV; my phone is much faster.)
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Spatial Audio is (often) all for me.
Again even with the old player it’s limited in codecs.
It’s probably one of my last major stepping stones to moving away from Infuse.
But anyway it is what it is and I’m fairly confident for Spatial Audio at least, Plex will get there in the end.
Sadly the other reason is the ability to rate our own media in clients other than mobile ones (as we can in Infuse) as opposed to having others opinions rammed down our throats (be that tvdb, IMDb, tmdb or Rotten Tomatoes). I’m far less confident that Plex will ever understand that.
Anyway I’m going down a whole new path with that.
But yeah on Apple devices we do seem to be getting told often that brand new features require the old/new player depending on the feature even now.
So it’s pretty surprising to be told there’s not much reason to use the old player.
I wasn’t aware these features were possible with the old player, although I’m not surprised. The old player is iOS’s native video player so it may be able to do some things the new custom player can’t. Unfortunately, that old player is limited in codecs so there is a trade-off of better codec support or special features.
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Sooo… its been how long? The app says sync will be removed by end of the year, even though Downloads just do not work. At all. Not even sometimes. They have literally never managed to download anything to my iPhones and iPads.
Can you please just gice up, delete downloads and go back to sync? At least that worked.
This is like the utterly broken photo sync (that I will never forgive you for) all over again. This is super frustrating for a lifetime member who was loyal to you ever since you forked from XBMC.
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Any update on this please?
(Finally) Working for me now.
….and failing again 
I think you are saying it’s a good idea for every user to be able to see every download on a device. If so, I strongly disagree. While it may be great for parents to be able to see what their kids are downloading on their devices, it is NOT desirable for kids to be able to see what their PARENTS download on a shared device! As it stands, if I give my iPad to my kid, I have to worry about whether I or my spouse has downloaded any content that’s not safe for kids, because there’s no way to set things up to hide such content from kids once it’s downloaded.
The old Sync feature did respect user/library permissions. Or rather, synced files were only visible to the user who synced them. I’m not sure which— but I know I didn’t have to worry about handing my iPad to my kid, even if I had synced some unsafe content.
Please consider enhancing Downloads so that when a user doesn’t have access to a particular library, that user will also not have access to content downloaded from that library by other users. Unless I can count on that, I can’t use Downloads much at all.
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With the old Sync feature, only the user who downloaded items had access to them, and only one user could download items at all.
For road trips, that meant handing the iPad to kids while logged in as an adult. So they had access to everything as that adult - all online content, libraries, and anything downloaded. It also meant any viewing history was tracked under the adult’s user.
Now they don’t have to be logged in as an adult - the iPad can be logged into a kid account. Controls for that user apply - online content, access to libraries, viewing history, under the appropriate kid account.
It’s not perfect, but from my perspective it’s a huge improvement.
I mostly use this in the car or airplane, where monitoring what’s being watched is easy. I’m not super worried about inappropriate things being seen.
