I actually gave up on this long ago. Since then, I’ve used Applicationize - Applicationizer to make a full-screen applicationized web app from the web version of Plex. That’s my preferred method for using Plex on my Chromebook now. The offline sync is the only use case for me that I would use the Android app (and I’ve been using Yatse to fill in for that specific case since Plex Android has been broken). Now that I have a workable workaround (see Synced content disappeared with latest updates (chromebook) - #141 by jhoward15) to use Plex offline with the Android app, I may go back to that. I prefer Plex to Yatse (when Plex works)
A bonus with the applicationize.me version is you can use ctl+ to zoom the UI. I always though the Android version was too small.
OK, so I tried and succeeded at almost everything. I agree that downloads works, I tried both the new downloads and the older sync tool.
But… for whatever reason, out of my testing, various shows didn’t work afterward. I tried them like three times for calling it. So Star Trek: Lower Decks and Letterkenny both worked perfectly. But I tried Superman and Lois as well as an episode of Arrested Development, both didn’t work. I then tried a different season of Arrested Development and it did work.
So it seems to work, but apparently various shows don’t want to play afterward depending on presumably the format/encoding. I even tried to change the setting from original to 1080p to force it to transcode. Still didn’t work after it was synced/downloaded.
I then tried that same Superman and Lois episode on my Pixel 3XL Android phone. It worked.
If you try this, I’d verify that shows work before heading out with no internet. I’m batting about 50% from the samples I’ve tried.
But thanks for letting us know @jhoward15 Maybe someone at Plex can take note of this? The fact that it seems to mostly work may point you to something useful.
I wonder if the play/not play situation is a format issue? Do you see any pattern - h264 vs h265 possibly? I just tested one show download+play and it was a h264 show. It did work. I can try a h265 and see if it’s any different
Uncertain at this point. It was very quick testing. I’ll do some more and report back once I’m done. It takes some time to test all of this out since I have to wait for episodes to sync/download. But I’ll try various shows and formats and see if any pattern comes out.
I tried both methods with the same results. I’m currently downloading 11 episodes, across 11 shows from different seasons. Trying to randomize between older and new files, etc.
This is with the new downloads feature. I’ll test and report back once I have more.
Sorry for the delay. Last night when I tried to sync all 11 shows, I happen to also try to watch an episode of something on a chromecast/tv. Apparently that crashed my PMS running on my Windows machine. Not sure if I was asking too much… Had to start over everything and it was getting late here.
Tonight I got all 11 shows synced. Only one didn’t work. I then tried a different episode from the same problematic season of Arrested Development, still can’t play that one either.
I compared the two episodes that won’t play, and can’t figure out a pattern in those formats when I compare them to working files. Sorry. I just don’t have the answer as to why certain shows aren’t playing. Some sort of specific incompatibility between my Pixel Slate and those formats (and quite possibly that specific APK). Since those shows, when downloaded to my Android phone WORK.
But the fact that 10 out 12 randomly selected shows worked I think indicates it’s mostly working. I still think that Plex people should have a serious look as to why that version works. The episodes that aren’t working properly using that APK version of Plex are probably something not properly supported on this architecture. But I’m just guessing.
So we have an easily reproduceable bug, known version that works, known version that doesn’t work. An entire year to work on this. What more could a dev ask for?
Please try out the newest release 8.23.0 that just came out earlier today. This has a potential fix, well at least with the new Downloads feature. There may still be issues with Sync. Sync will be going away at some point so I would recommend using Downloads from now on.
I assume you mean 8.23.0? Because my current version is 8.22.0.27533 (bdaff3f3). I realize this rolls out but 1.23.0 doesn’t seem to jive the version numbers I’m getting at all.
I am very happy to report that I am able to use the new Downloads feature successfully on my Chromebook (ASUS C434) after updating to version 8.23.0! I’m grateful that development time was spent to figure this out. I hope that more QA testing can be done on Chromebooks in the future so this feature continues to work on Chromebooks. Chromebook popularity is on the rise and I imagine that more and more of Plex’s user base will be using them in some fashion as time goes on.
Just got 8.23 from the Play Store, happy to report that the new Downloads feature seems to work.
A year later… lol but hey, it works!
Now to go and report other Chromebook related bugs. I agree with other users, hopefully Plex does more testing with Chromebooks in the future. They shouldn’t be an afterthought.
But thank you for getting it fixed. Please ensure to work on communication. That was seriously lacking since the beginning of this bug.
Frustrated that it took this long, but better late than never. I can confirm as well it appears to be working for me now as well with the latest version.
There seems to be a further issue using SD storage with this now working Downloads capability. My SD card is enabled in Device Settings and Plex has access in the App settings. It reports external storage is available, and the right empty space, but when I select it I get the “not writeable” message. So for now it appears that the Downloads functionality only works with Internal Storage.
