Weird behavior: one client interfere with other???

General Discussions
1

Hi
I have a very weird issue:
Running

  • SERVER: Plex Server Version 1.2.7.2987
  • CLIENT 1: OpenPHT (v1.6.2.123) @ Raspberry 3
  • CLIENT 2: OpenPHT (v1.6.2.123) @ Windows 10
  • USER: HomeUser “mediacenter”

If I play music on my CLIENT 1 (logged on as USER) and start CLIENT 2 (logged on as same USER), I notice that “sometimes” the current playing track on CLIENT 1 is skipped and next track is starting.

I can reproduce the problem, but it is not straightforward. It happens if I play same music on CLIENT 2, skip forward, skip back, close CLIENT 2, start CLIENT 2 etc….
Hard to debug, but it seems that instructions coming from CLIENT 2 are picked up by CLIENT 1.
All clients on same network segment, same subnet, fixed IP’s

Users with same experience?
Bug?

2

PS: to reproduce:

  1. logon as USER on CLIENT 1
  2. start playing music on CLIENT 1
  3. logon as same USER on CLIENT 2
  4. start playing music on CLIENT 2 (same album, bu does not have to be the same song)
  5. quit OpenPHT on CLIENT 2
  6. start OpenPHT on CLIENT 2
  7. logon as USER on CLIENT 2

–> music stops/skips track on CLIENT 1

3

You are probably running into a symptom of the fact that Plex keeps track of what has been played by user not by device. So if a media stream is playing on one client under a given user and the same user starts a media stream on another client then, if the two streams are part of the same structure then when one finishes it will look at the Plex server and see that the user is playing something and base “next” on what is next on the other client.

That is Plex is being misinformed about “next” because the same user is playing the same set of content twice on different clients. There is no good way to resolve that except to base “next” on the client rather than the user or override the “next” by user when that user is playing from two clients.

Either choice presents complexities that I think Plex should avoid and just keep things as they are.

The “fix” is to use different users to play from different devices if overlapping content is to be played. That places to onerous on the user to control situations like described which is where it should be. Plex is not designed for playback of the same content by the same user on different clients and designing for that should, in my opinion, be WAY down the list for the Plex team because it is a fringe case that few people would want.