I purchased a WD My Home Home 4TB personal server on Friday and was pleasantly surprised to find that it has the capability to be a Plex server and comes with a 3 month trial to Plex Pass. I’ve been looking for a media player for Android since it became apparent that YouTube Music is far more inferior to Google Play Music, and feel like Plex could be the one stop shop for all my media. However, there is an issue that is preventing me from springing for the lifetime license.
I try not to use mobile data as much as possible, and want my devices to be able to function even without internet connectivity, so I synced a few albums to my Galax S10 successfully. So far so good, but then I turned on Airplane Mode. Suddenly I was met with the Home screen saying “No Internet Connection,” the Music screen claiming “No items to display,” and the Downloads and Sync screen sometimes claiming “No items to display,” sometimes showing the album that I synced, but either returning me to the home screen, claiming “An error occured while playing this item,” or crashing whenever I attempt to play something that has been synced. Many times, the app will stay stuck on the Plex splash screen when attempting to open in Airplane mode.
The behavior I guess I was expecting was to have the app function similar to Google Play Music in regard to offline content, which is to say I can display and play it regardless of whether or not my device is connected to the internet. Is that something Plex is capable of, or am I misinterpreting the available features?
I’ve got 3 months to figure this out, and I hope I can, if for no other reason than constantly loading local music is a pain, and a one time Plex Pass purchase costs as much as Apple Music annually.
Yes, The answer is AIRPLANE MODE.
This POS is most of your problem. Airplane mode places all electronic devices into the dumbest mode. No Wifi Do Data
My answer to your problem is connect your WD Home to your router by ethernet cable.
As was told to me and it worked for me. I created a shortcut to Plex shared by one of my computers. This computer can only ping things on my local net because I blocked internet access. But that has run into a snag lately because I had to unclaim my server from my subscription to get it to work.
Maybe one of the Guru’s will fix the offline mode again. Until then. I hope the servers can authenticate enough. BTW Cookies and certificates cannot be deleted when you exit your browser. You then have to sign in again and again.
Forgot to mention WD Home Cloud is a great system just don’t let it sync to anything on the internet. Too much headache and Cloud services are getting tougher to keep.
I guess I’m a little confused. How would my phone being in airplane mode affect the server in such a way that the phone can’t recall what was synced to it?
The WD is plugged into the router via ethernet, mainly because it didn’t come with any other cable.
Let me say it this way.
Airplane mode was created to turn all services (including Smartphones) off.
As you can plainly see. Airplane mode prevents ANY and ALL signals from the device.
It also means that the device cannot receive also.
I say this because I got caught using a device in airplane mode when I was specifically told to turn off all devices. I used the above argument to plead my case. Needless to say they did not want to hear it.
And yes, The Home Cloud uses an ethernet cable to connect to the router, MY BADD
I connected mine to another port on my computer so I could control it. I never did like plugging anything into the modem without some kind of control.
Sorry if I confused you with the sync info. A lot of data can be shuffled around thru the ISP.
I even had bought a Nighthawk X10 to try. Don’t waste your time.
Just so you can understand me. I have a FX 8320 on a GA-78LMT-USB3 board.
I have the WD Cloud connected to an ethernet port on it. I use a WiFi card to connect to my Router. This allows me to keep my computer mobile in my house.
Its on a cart.
When we lost the Plex Servers that day, I should have been able to wheel my computer to my TV. Plug in the HDMI cable to it and run PLEX OFFLINE. It was not JOY. With over 50 TB of movies and TV series, I was left with watching A DVD. I’m not blaming the PLEX Team for playing the Judas card but they did. My advise is wait until you are sure you want to spend your money that way… Monthly means you can quit anytime. Lifetime like me, means TBSS.
I guess what it boils down to is that the Plex app is simply not able to be the replacement for Google Play Music that I thought it would be.
This Plexamp app seems quite promising though! I’m going to see what happens with it.
Thank you for your help!
