Update link for new beta download has broken X-Plex-Token

Plex Media Server Plex Pass Betas
1
  • Environment: Linux (Ubuntu)
  • Plex Pass Membership: Yes (lifetime)
  • Update channel: Beta

Summary:

For the last few months, whenever I “Right Click → Copy link address” to get the update link to download a new beta plexmediaserver_*.deb file, the X-Plex-Token in the URL is broken.

  • Expected link: https://plex.tv/downloads/latest/5?channel=8&build=linux-aarch64&distro=debian&X-Plex-Token=real_token_here
  • Actual link: https://plex.tv/downloads/latest/5?channel=8&build=linux-aarch64&distro=debian&X-Plex-Token=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx quoted above is an actual literal as generated within the Activity -> Server Update Available page on Plex Web. I have not sanitised it or replaced the token myself.

Until a few months back, the actual token used to be pre-encoded in the link within that page.

What I checked so far:

  1. Yes, PMS is logged in and linked with my Plex account having the Plex Pass subscription.
  2. Going to Settings > General shows (at the time of writing):
    1. Beta as Server update Channel
    2. Is showing a beta update available so the Plex Pass update check is working. For example, right now at the time of writing: Version 1.28.2.6106 An update is available. Please install manually. .

Auto-generated link provides stable build 1.28.2.6151-914ddd2b3

wget --content-disposition https://plex.tv/downloads/latest/5\?channel\=8\&build\=linux-aarch64\&distro\=debian\&X-Plex-Token\=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
# -> plexmediaserver_1.28.2.6151-914ddd2b3_arm64.deb

Manually corrected link provides beta build 1.29.0.6219-b1b4d4871

wget --content-disposition https://plex.tv/downloads/latest/5\?channel\=8\&build\=linux-aarch64\&distro\=debian\&X-Plex-Token\=real_token_here
# -> plexmediaserver_1.29.0.6219-b1b4d4871_arm64.deb

Is this intentional? If so, what’s the official way to obtain the X-Plex-Token? I only have it now as I luckily had it in my shell history.

If not, hopefully this ticket serves as a bug report. I couldn’t find similar posts about this.

If it’s a duplicate, apologies.

Thanks

2

https://support.plex.tv/articles/204059436-finding-an-authentication-token-x-plex-token/

If you’ve changed your Plex password recently, due to Important notice of a potential data breach 24th of August 2022
you will need to fetch the token anew, as the password reset procedure will have made the previously used token invalid.

3

Thanks but nope, that’s not it.

  1. This issue has been going on for at least 6 months, which pre-dates the recent data breach issue.
  2. Yes I have changed passwords recently, but this issue pre-dates that.
  3. My old token still works fine. Simply not auto-encoded in the UI in the update page.
1 Like
4

This issue has been going on for at least 6 months, which pre-dates the recent data breach issue.

Agreed. I noticed the ‘xxxxxxxxxx’ string a while ago (definitely before the data breach) in the think generated by the Plex UI.

Seems like a bug to me…

1 Like
5

Bump?

6

There are likely much better ways of accomplishing this, but you can parse your PlexOnlineToken out of Plex Media Server’s Preferences.xml file. Something like:

sudo grep -oP '(?<=PlexOnlineToken=")\S+(?=")' "/var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Preferences.xml"

So, by extension, this should work (and indeed does):

wget --content-disposition https://plex.tv/downloads/latest/5\?channel\=8\&build\=linux-aarch64\&distro\=debian\&X-Plex-Token\=`sudo grep -oP '(?<=PlexOnlineToken=")\S+(?=")' "/var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Preferences.xml"`
1 Like
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