Hi there!
It’s very good time to became brave and make some public speech about broken core product.
Going that way you may expect some tolerance.
but keeping your head in the sand is a road to nowhere.
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Hi WingDog. I am always happy to chat with people in the forums. It can be a bit tougher for some people to respond to certain topics, therefore I have been in touch with both of the people mentioned in this post and let them know I would hop in here.
To address the question and the post, first, we are almost certainly going to disagree on things here. That is an assumption I will start from. That doesn’t mean there isn’t any attempt at understanding and empathy towards views of how we got to this point, it is more of a recognition that there are many details and factors that go into any decision, and without context, it is impossible for us talk apples-to-apples without both having full understanding of that context. There also won’t be an attempt to provide that full context as it would overwhelm both my writing ability and would necessitate bringing in many other people to help explain that context which isn’t possible right now.
What I will say is that even in the best of times, when we aren’t releasing new things or upsetting the cart in some way, we still get feedback that we aren’t doing the right thing. We aren’t working on the one feature that people just can’t believe that we are still ignoring. We still aren’t making the one bespoke change that would keep some person from jumping ship. And there is where we are at now in a bit of a bigger way. I have a feeling that you and I are not going to agree on the same definition for “core product” and therefore won’t be able to agree on whether that is broken or not. One of the beautiful and amazing things about Plex, and one of the reasons I am here and love this product so much is that it can be so many things to so many people. I have heard some amazing and crazy use cases that people try and create for themselves and celebrate those. But, unfortunately, this varied and awesome breadth of use also means that while we won’t stop trying, unfortunately we will never be able to make everyone happy.
For our new experience this has obviously created some massive challenges in how both we and our product are perceived. What I can unequivocally state is that who we are as Plexians and humans hasn’t changed. We are still the biggest fans of this thing called Plex and us as users see and feel the pain and frustration that is echoed here in these forums. We are actually on the front lines here as we get to see, experience, and feel the pain for a bunch of this before the rest of the world gets to it. Yes, I am attempting to separate the “who” from the “what” here. We are still a bunch of passionate media nerds. I will never lose the joy of getting into a deep dive, super technical conversation about some rabbit hole codec topic and seeing the eyes glaze over from our less technical team members.
Regarding the decision to release - we had to find a way to move forward somewhere. This has been a massive project soaking up so many resources that in order to get to some new things, we had to draw a line. While I am sure where and how that line was drawn will continue to be a debate for a very long time, we have done our best to respond and react and I think (at least IMO) it is fair to state that the apps have been getting better with every single release. Also, before the inevitable question comes up, of course we would have made different decisions if we had known then what we know now. This is a bit of a loaded comment because you may be tempted to play the “what if” game but I will not be engaging on that line of comment. Let’s move forward. You may also want to respond with “well you just said that you knew some of the pain points but chose to release anyways!” Yup. I point back to the comments around context and also around my premise that we will disagree here. Again, a potentially challenging statement with lots of areas to pull apart but we are here now and continue working hard to deliver for all of our users and I choose to focus on that area.
So what is next? As was just stated, I believe this to be a more relevant discussion to have. We still have a long list of things to build and address in the mobile apps and are also hard at work on the new tv experience. We have tried to incorporate learnings into how we approach these next releases, and hope to make these go a bit more smooth for everyone. We have lots of exciting plans but we have to get over this hurdle in front of us to have the space to work on these exciting areas. It is my hope and desire to share more of these plans here in the forums for feedback up front, something that hasn’t been done as successfully as we could have recently. There is a lot to both address and feel excited about and it is my hope that over time we can get both you and I on the same page for this excitement. Thanks for the opportunity to comment here. 
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I think a lot of people’s biggest concern is it really felt like Plex pushed an alpha level product out the door (and most likely to hit some date that someone said you needed to hit).
Yes, a lot has been fixed since then, but the majority of those fixes should have been caught before it was ever green lighted for release. And in the process, you’ve lost the trust of a lot of your core user base.
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@Lazarus_Long I wholeheartedly agree. Trust is hard to earn and incredibly fragile.
@McWanke Trust within this community has been shattered for many of us who have been diehard Plexians for years, going on decades now. Frankly we’re shocked that something this broken was released.
Initially there was the “excuse” that and alpha was accidentally released. We can accept that. However once the actual release was published not much seemed to have changed in terms of core/basic functionality. Video playback was broken, and I would argue that is core functionality to the mobile app.
I am certain that many users, like myself, are as upset as we are because we love Plex so much. I have heard from many friends and family asking if I know how to fix the current app. I have to inform them that it’s currently broken beyond use and that I have no idea when it will be fixed.
What could be done today to restore a lot of trust in the community? Restore the previous app, the old experience, to the respective app stores as a “legacy” release to at least restore basic functionality to the widest user base until the new experience catches up.
I know there would be plenty of people willing to continue testing the new experience side by side. I know I would. I have nothing against the new app once it functions. Until then we need an app that works. Bonus, it would allow the developers to slow down and focus on quality releases instead of speedy ones.
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“hard at work on the new tv experience” GULP.
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I’ve had much worse things happen in my life, a month or two of Plex not working as well as it used to in mobile isn’t gonna kill me, I still have the browser and desktop apps that are still working as it used to (Altho I feel bad for people who can only watch on mobile)
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Please. Do not release the Apple TV app without theme music.
It is one of the things that make watching a TV show or a movie a real experience. No pun intended.
Edit: Just to add that I am referring to theme music as local assets - theme.mp3. All my TV shows and movies have a local mp3 file with theme music.
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No one is dismissing that this is the end of the world considering what is happening geopolitically around the world as we speak, HOWEVER these Plex apps are their bread and butter and their whole ecosystem relies on its entire line of clients and server apps to stay connected and be functional and of course, throughout the years, one thing or another was listed as minor, but there were definitely items on the list that were causing dis functionality.
The recent events that took place were self inflicted on the company’s part and while I and many understand that this is JUST MEDIA and trivial, it prevented millions of Plex users from getting to their media, using the very same routines that they’ve gotten themselves into by depending on the Plex ecosystem.
Many of us Plex Server Admin are use to getting text messages from our household saying that Plex was down, meaning Plex abruptly crashed on the PC and I’d have to start it up again. I can just remote in from my phone and click on the Plex Server app icon and restart it. Back in business.
And even when there are Plex.tv disconnections, I inform my household that while Plex is usable, one or two things might not work properly. Absolutely no biggie.
HOWEVER, this rollout of a release back two months ago has literally halted all enjoyment and access from the mobile apps in particular.
Who wants to get text messages about Plex not working when it’s not something within the Plex Server Admins control? It sucked big time and the whiplash that came along with it was abrupt but was also a bit more aggravating because this was something that Plex has been known to do.
Emotions have been running hot the past couple of months due to people’s routines being abruptly stopped and became further worried about the other planned release of the tv apps. So yes, we can all understand that next to a famine and wars, this would be a minor issue but this is also Plex’s only job and product/service. Each and every time they made the apps better, people started to trust the company and the overall goal, be the best media server and best ecosystem for all to enjoy and all of that was tainted by this whole firestorm of a release.
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I hate speculating and it’s part of the rules not to… but I HOPE it’s not due to licensing issue.
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There should not be licensing issues. After all, it’s just enabling playing a local mp3 file.
As it used to be in the mobile apps and how it still is in the current TV app which, by the way, I’m not planning on updating until I begin to hear good things from the beta testers.
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Well, I understand what you’re saying that there might not be any licensing issues but considering how things are looking more and more wall gardened, and seeing how Music Videos have not been addressed, we currently don’t know what other classic Plex features won’t make it into the newer apps. Time will tell.
Edit: Oops, going back to my speculation, with the bigger media corps as partners, they may have asked to close that feature down on us. Ya just never know what influences these ppl have. I don’t know if that’s it but I reiterate, we won’t know until any of that gets addressed.
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omg dude please do not change the tv apps the same way you changed the mobile, good lord
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There is a ticket for this. It will be added to the new experience. It is currently in the backlog but we are cycling through the backlog pretty quick right now. Once picked up it should be pretty quick to make it into a release.
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Hello McWanke.
First of all I would like to say thank you! I thank you for the respond. In case of no support system and deafening silence at the most threads with techical issues you joined unpleasant topic.
I read your message very carefully a couple of times - it’s a good skill to say a lot but nothing. some of us have to learn and practice this skill, others are native diplomats.
nevertheless I don’t start to play with words with unnative language, but will start on “core product” and will try to explain what is core in my opinion.
That doesn’t mean there isn’t any attempt at understanding and empathy towards views of how you create and develop your product, it is more of a recognition that there are not many customer expectations to satisfy.
what is Core Product - it’s HCL, SCL and declared technical capabilities.
before purchase any sane user have to test software with his own hardware setup, software stack and check required capabilities. If all is OK user became a customer and thus expects for the preservation of the tested and paid components or the solution as a whole.
later the customer will faced with some issue. he will search for support and reread HCL, SCL - it’s OK, but declared capability still not work as expected and as it worked earlier. This is the CORE - HCL, SCL and declared capabilities.
next step he will search for addtional support, but will find nothing except forum and will post here. what will he get? The silence for the three months and closed topic. In case the insane customer will bump up the thread for a year (!!) he may expect some fairy tales and nothing more. STR? debug logs and techical details? pffff nobody cares.
this is wrong and no need to say a lot.
you declared (hw) transcoding on the fly - so it must work.
you declared support for Samsung Smart TV - so it must work.
you declared support for downloads and offline mode at iOS - so it must work.
you declared support for multipart files - so it must work.
you declared translation to Russian language - so it must be.
these are Plex’s declared capabilites and they are not going well.
lack of support is not the customers waiting for.
some prealpha software is the same unwanted.
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At some point, someone at Plex is going to realize that you really HAVE lost sight of what’s important to most customers, especially those who have paid to make your company even possible, and that you are flying blind.
Don’t ever call yourselves users, even if you think you are, and even if you look like it on the surface. That’s the first assumption and fallacy a product leader MUST get over in order to learn, and this is the foundation for delivering REAL value to customers, especially those who have become advocates of your product and platform, like I have.
The arrogance of the responses from your team are beyond appalling. WAKE. UP.
I’m not generally one to fire someone, even for large blunders. My style is to coach them through it, as long as they’re willing to learn from and correct their mistakes. But if they aren’t willing to do this (and especially if they can’t even recognize reality when it’s clearly pointed out to them), they’re out.
Some deep self-evaluation would really benefit your team. Believe all of the 1-star reviews. Actually read them as if they’re real, weighty experiences that have way more truth to them than the false reality you’ve convinced yourself is true. Stop wasting our time and energy, and restore the foundation that once made Plex great.
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It appears that an answer has been made, and that the remedy is on the long list of items. I stand corrected and retract my original speculative commentary. Carry on.
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I agree with this, but I’m not sure the phrase “until the new experience catches up” applies. It’s fundamentally different in its priorities, clearly.
It doesn’t make sense to eliminate the old app until the new app BECOMES the old app, in every way that’s material and important to us, and then adds some meaningful value that we actually want (otherwise there’s no point in doing the work at all).
In other words, the shortcut for the Plex team that could preserve whatever goodwill you have left would be to simply revert to v8.45 and abandon the new experience altogether.
I love Plexamp, and I use it often. But I also love having everything in my Plex app (MY video, MY photos, MY music, MY audiobooks, all front and center, with control over all other content). Why are you forcing the twisted view of the world you have somehow developed? There’s a reason people are mad… many reasons, and it’s not just because it’s different, it’s because it’s far INFERIOR, in every way. It’s time guys… we’re really tired of this.
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As a reminder to all here, AND to put this into perspective…
PlexAmp on its very own had roughly EIGHT yrs of development and Plex Inc has only now attempted to rush the rest of the companion apps, Plex Movies & TV and Plex Photos, in under a few months? WTAF. That’s such an insane project timeline. Very suspicious, but definitely not how any of this should have gone.
Additionally, ANYTHING experimental that was being developed such as PlexAmp was supposed to stay in development purgatory under PLEX LABS. Plex Labs is where all of this should have been umbrellaed under. Why weren’t the Plex Movies and TV, and Plex Photos apps not kept under the PLEX LABS moniker?
Plexamp became publicly available on February 12, 2025. It was initially introduced on December 18, 2017, but the public release date for the version 3 of Plexamp was in 2025.
Again… I repeat this for emphasis. EIGHT FREAKIN YEARS!!!
How in the world did the executives and the project managers think they were going to pull all of this off, jam it into our faces, telling us “HERE! DEAL WITH IT” when many of whom had the pleasure, and well displeasure at the beginning, knew it would take at least a year, two, or even three before PlexAmp was going to turn into something special. Is it the Swiss Army Knife we all wish it was, especially with the tall order of paying homage to Winamp… and while the answer is still no, that PlexAmp has some way to go, it still had time to get polished.
I truly don’t know the real reasoning, there has been a bit of speculation, but it is sad to see the main Plex app itself be so torn into pieces and was awfully unusable two months ago at public release launch. Just wow.
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What I will say is that even in the best of times, when we aren’t releasing new things or upsetting the cart in some way, we still get feedback that we aren’t doing the right thing. We aren’t working on the one feature that people just can’t believe that we are still ignoring.
We aren’t talking about ONE FEATURE. We’re talking about the core philosophy of your entire platform.
I have a feeling that you and I are not going to agree on the same definition for “core product” and therefore won’t be able to agree on whether that is broken or not.
Agreed. It seems Plex believes their core product is the VOD segment while long term and upset users believe the core product is a self hosted content platform.
Regarding the decision to release - we had to find a way to move forward somewhere. This has been a massive project soaking up so many resources that in order to get to some new things, we had to draw a line.
Fine. The problem is that you drew a line where it cut people off from using a service they relied on. Who among you sat at the table and agreed that it was acceptable to prevent people from using something they’ve been using - that they paid for - for a decade? Then, who drew the line to say, no we are putting VOD up front as the product tent pole and forcing all users to bypass this before they access their own media?
Had I lacked the foresight to disable auto updates - meaning, Plex did not give users the option to opt out of these changes - I would no longer be able to listen to music on my Apple TV. I would have to drudge around the objectively horrible user interface to bypass an advertisement for your services on my media server hosting my media.
The issue is that it’s abundantly clear that yes - Plex and its users do not agree on what the core product is and you’re dismissing the real concerns we have with the intention of the product. You sold us one thing, we bought it, you’ve changed it.
It’s hard to present as respectful here but I do respect everything this team has done. Plex is one of the most important products I have used for the past ten years of my life. But other than fixing bugs or fixing things you thought were good ideas only to find out users hated them, I can’t really think of anything you’ve done to improve the product - based on my use case. And, I can’t overstate this enough, that is absolutely fine with me.
Instead of shoving your foot up everyone’s ass and asking them to say thank you, you should have created an all new product and allowed users to migrate if they wanted. That actually would have been awesome and exciting.
You’ve pissed off your rabidly loyal fanbase because the one thing in our lives we specifically want total control over is no longer in our control. You would have known to draw the line there if you understood what your core product was.
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