Can you confirm whether 1) this decision only affects Plex or 2) Tidal is ending support for ALL 3rd party service integrations?
And if the answer to #2 is that Tidal is ending all 3rd party integrations, will this also affect hardware that has Tidal Connect integration?
Their answer which has nothing to do with what I asked:
Thank you for reaching back out to us.
We would like to share with you that we are removing the ability to pay for TIDAL through Plex. However, we can see that your account under (removed) is not being paid through them, so your subscription and account will not suffer any changes. If there are any additional changes regarding our integrations with third-party apps, we will make sure to let you know.
I asked Tidal for more info via their Twitter DM support, including whether this affects only Plex and is due to Plex not supporting the Tidal Max API, but after prodding them for specifics this is all they had to say:
At this time, this only affects the Plex integration, and we have no additional information to share about the integration with third parties.
As we don’t have more information that we can share with you, we kindly recommend that you contact Plex for further assistance. We appreciate your understanding.
This just seems weird all around. Plex is blaming Tidal. Yet Tidal is apparently saying they are not ending any other 3rd party integrations at this time. Over on the Roon forum there’s a thread about this, but nobody has heard similar news from the Roon team. I’ve seen no other announcements anywhere else that Tidal is ending support for other 3rd party integrations.
Is Plex beholden to some NDA that is preventing them from telling us exactly why this is happening? There is speculation on Reddit that it’s because Plex didn’t implement the new Tidal Max API (and other services have, I suppose) and that Plex is being cut off because the old API has hit end-of-life.
I’m super frustrated because losing Tidal integration removes a HUGE part of the functionality that I rely on in Plexamp, whether it’s music discovery or just filling in the blanks on songs (such as one hit wonders) that I don’t have in my library. I doubt I’ll cancel my Plex subscription since it’s only $5, but damnit… Plexamp + Tidal was the solution that met my exact needs (after trying every other music service on the planet). Now I don’t know where else I’m going to find the same special sauce.
As I said before, companies always say half the truth. I would wonder that API compliance is important to Tidal. I have given Plex team the benefit of the doubt in the past, but I’m very skeptical about the explanations given so far. Or at least what’s mentioned is half the story.
A final reply that I received from Tidal email support, which is very specific:
At this time, we are concluding our partnership with Plex only. We do not have more information about removing the support for any other third-party apps.
Whether you care to believe it or not Tidal decided to end our partnership. Not us. but Y’all will take that as you will regardless if i said anything or not.
If I was wrong about them removing other apps then I was wrong because misunderstand what I was told previously. As I said I don’t know what their deals with other companies are.
So I will bow out of this thread and let y’all ponder what ya want to ponder about…
Did Tidal give a reason that you’re allowed to share? Or did they give no reason at all, and simply told Plex that the contract would not be renewed, end of story, no opportunity for negotiation?
More information to help users understand why this happened would be appreciated, even if it doesn’t change the outcome. This is a very important issue to me. I would have gladly paid a combined sum of $20-30 per month for Plex + Tidal, if the alternative was losing the integration altogether.
Seems like it has to come down to either a money issue or a technical issue. And at least for the time being, it’s confusing why this is only affecting Plex customers. Especially in lieu of all of the other ways that Tidal actively promotes listening via 3rd party integrations, such as Connect and DJ Extension.
I guess it is what is. At first I was looking to maybe move to Roon, but if if in fact is Tidal. I think I might as well dump Tidal and just move back to Apple Music. Or just discovering music on Spotify and then buying it if I liked it and uploading it to Plex.
Soundiiz offer this already to move stuff from platform to platform. It’s not free and not without its issues but I found it works ok. You can sub for a month and cancel it’s a few quid.
Thank you to the Devs who worked so hard on making integration with Tidal a thing. Though it is short lived. It cannot be easy to see so much work get flushed. As painful as it is for the people using the feature and functions of tidal integration it has to sting even more for the Devs who worked on it so much and who also use the software. The hours of brainstorming, the forum questions and answers, so much time and energy. Respect.
Plexamp and Tidal together especially with DJ Doppelganger was so so good to have. Such a good way to discover music. And having new releases on tidal show up right in the home screen on plexamp was awesome as well.
Chin up to the Devs this one is tough hit to take. I look forward to seeing the recovery and the way forward. I am sure you all will come up with something.
Sad news. Tidal has been great, but only in Plex with PlexAmp. I will be moving off Tidal if there is no PlexAmp integration, as none in my family like Tidal.
Wrote a support ticket to Tidal too re. this, the reply was clearly already a standard template, we’re sorry blah blah. “We recommend contacting the manufacturer for further verification regarding TIDAL compatibility”, right… “Additionally, you can see if your device is available” … Right. So sad.
I use Plexamp headless on Raspberry pi’s (with AES/EBU hats!) to do the streaming and output to Genelec monitors (and to all kinds of other systems when on the go) - also have a secondary Plex server on one of those Rpi’s, with a 1TB SSD to carry a copy of my local CD library for semi-offline use…
Really sad to lose Tidal, it complemented my own 1700+ CD shelf nicely.
If just casting from the Tidal app to Plexamp headless “streamer” worked in the future, that’d be a game changer. Sure, switching apps would suck and Plexamp (client) is much, much better than the Tidal app, but at least playing music would be possible…
I don’t want to move to another streaming platform. I am going to redirect my subscription money to buy the music I used on Tidal over time. This sort of thing is why I use Plex to host my own movie/tv content, to avoid streaming service shenanigans.
Using streaming doesn’t stop me buying anything. I buy all albums I want to keep regardless . Streaming just gives me the
me opportunity to try it before I buy and discover new stuff that I then buy. I only keep a local library of music and use Qobuz to just discover new music. Dropped Tidal as can’t justify both.
Dude. Nice setup and great idea. I travel frequently and I feel stupid saying it but I didn’t think of a Raspberry pi with a hard drive as a portable server for music. Like plane ride keep that thing in your bag and you are good to go with everything in your library and not just the things pulled down to your device. Nice. Also Genelec. Oh man those are like if the human ear could play sound. I worked in a place that used Genelecs for audio playback. So nice.
I got to say this is really disappointing. I really liked this a lot. Plus without it, music on Plex just took a crap. Plex needs some form of online music to stay modern. LMS, soon to be Lyrion, can stream nearly every online service that Sonos can and it’s free and I think open source. It’s not as good looking as Plex, but it has great DJ functions. Plus it can be extended via plug ins. I always have kept it running alongside Plex because it was my first music server and I occasionally use it. I like the mixes it produces. The issue here would not seem to be monetary, because I doubt a freeware project like LMS is paying them anything. Tidal integrates well with the system and whatever you choose can show up as in library. Lots of decent clients also. But it’s mainly for in house, not advisable on the net. If online music is critical, give it a look. Not meant a Plex diss. It’s overall better by a small amount with tidal or any other online service. But without tidal it’s not as good
If you are running PlexAmp headless (I did in the past) you might consider Ropiee XL - it is a Roon, PlexAmp, Spotify Connect, DLNA, and Logitech Media Server in a device like experience for the Pi.
I have been using it already, as my Logitech Media Server covers my Podcast needs (with SqueezeCTRL on my mobile phone as the controller). I now have Tidal integrated to LMS as well, and rescanned my music with LMS for the magic playlists option via Last.FM - I hope it can pick up Tidal for discovery in this manner just like the Spotty plugin could.
-I will keep you up to date.
Still, LMS is not PlexAmp - I will keep the PlexAmp as my app of choice - with LMS only filling the gap - (or I move to Roon?).
BTW: Community Plugins have been fantastic at LMS - and given Logitech abandoned the platform years ago, they are all community plugins. Perhaps something to consider for the PlexAmp team!
