The entire thing is so some devs and designers could justify keeping their job. They’ve broken basic functionality like shuffling, casting after starting to play something, and even codecs are broken. x264 now forces transcoding to Google devices when playing from Android devices. How is it that Plex can’t resolve a Google OS talking to a Google device? This entire thing has been a huge slap in the face for users and the mods/devs could not care less. Absolute sh*t show.
I highly suggest users start looking into Jellyfin, because this doesn’t look like it’s going to get any better.
I hate the broken app, but what you’ve said is simply not true.
Devs don’t decide what features to add (that’s the product team’s job),
the new app is an effort to move to a single code base across all apps which would reduce complexity and speed up velocity on providing new features (that may be an engineering choice, but for good reasons)
The timing of the swapover (e.g. releasing a new version of the app which is nowhere near stability or feature compatibility) seems to be related to the new licensing (e.g. watch licenses) this is again, not the decision of the developers.
Honestly as much as I’ve sincerely enjoyed using the new app and have very fortunately had very few issues, I really do get having complaints, and obviously it’s super fair to have complaints.
Some people here are weird as hell about it though, calling to treat the devs like animals? (Hey, how poorly do you treat your animals anyways?) Calling for Plex to make a list of everyone responsible for the update so they can be fired? Weird as hell! I get being unhappy but so many people here seem so deeply bloodthirsty for the devs while also going “I’m not using Plex anymore!” or “I reverted back to the old version!”
It kinda gets in the way of actual constructive threads a lot
I found a way to list “libraries”, and when I do, music libraries do not appear. I did get a message to appear saying something like “looking for music or photos? Use PlexAmp or Plex Photos”. PlexAmp does work. The implication is that the IOS App called “plex” only supports streaming video..
I don’t like the change. Like you I primarily use plex for my music collection.
I am hoping I can find something that explains the new app
I’d just like to throw my voice in here for being extremely upset with the new mobile app. The only thing keeping me on plex was the (always terrible, but eventually-worked) offline downloads. I take my media on long trips with no internet, syncing up and downloading more when I can. I’m about to leave for another trip and just realized my iPad “updated” to the new version of the less-functional app. Downloading every episode by hand? Manually figuring out which ones to download based on where I am in a series? No indication which ones have been queued or not while I’m marching through a big list? Just a big wall of every download I have in a single place with basically no organization?
This lifetime pass holder is super incredibly disappointed. Each time Plex decides to redesign for no reason, leave out a few features, and screw over users it makes me angry. I’ve been through several in my, what, ten years. Why keep doing this?
Like, managed downloads are the only thing keeping most of us from using Jellyfin, right?
put the sidebar back… the new layout is ridiculously arduous without it
fix the screen flicker that happens constantly!
when going from 1 episode to the next, the next episode audio plays but no video. have to exit the app and restart it to get the next episode
reorder screen won’t scroll to the bottom to select the last folder and move it up.
Its stupidly slow loading my server on my own lan. outside my lan, it fails to play content. Prior version was better, but not always consistent. browser version loads fine and plays fine on my lan and remotely
UPDATE! Searches no longer work for personal media, like it did before. Thankfully the web interface still functions as expected.
Were the devs sleeping or vaping when they threw this release at the wall to see if it stuck? its laughably BAD!
My frustration with Plex, mirrors my experience with Netflix, where intrusive large banners and an annoying UI led me to cancel. It’s baffling why 2/3 of my 4K screen is now consumed by new buttons and banners.
Frankly, I despise the new Plex experience. These changes have completely destroyed my trust in the platform.
Consequently, I’m already migrating. I’ve set up Jellyfin in Docker on one of my Synology NAS devices, and it’s working perfectly. Today, I’ll test Emby on my other NAS for a direct comparison.
Despite my lifetime Plex Pass, I’m abandoning my account post-migration. Plex has devolved its software from being the world’s best to its worst.
It’s rather the opposite. Plex laid off 20% of their staff in 2023 (including UX experts, test managers and backend developers). I think Plex is now trying to shrink their feature set and codebases down in order to get along with fewer people.
EDIT: That said, I think they just initially left out a whole lot of features in order to see what features creates an outcry and what features nobody cares.
I also agree we should treat everyone with respect, and I disagree with the aggression. But I think we’re seeing the disrespectful comments as a reflection of the disrespect and disregard Plex’s team has demonstrated for their customers.
The volume/severity is only escalating because Plex simply isn’t listening. They’ve also given no indication that they care about user concerns (or our extremely valuable time that has been wasted).
Can you imagine if we added up the amount of hours wasted because of these poor decisions, then multiplied that by our collective hourly pay rate? The amount of wasted money/time/productivity would be astounding. This isn’t what I paid for.
Customers are feeling it and getting louder and more aggressive. I get that.
And yes, there is a point where those who are operating counter to the best interest of paying customers should be dismissed - especially if they won’t listen and learn. Why would Plex employ someone like that?
I mean, I sincerely haven’t seen much disregard. I’ve personally been given direct help with an issue I had and I’ve seen the same with others, never dismissed. I’ve had my concerns heard and I’ve seen many others have by various other moderators, maybe I just got lucky but many of the issues I’ve seen reported here have been fixed, and for the ones I haven’t seen fixed yet I’ve at least seen the mods mention they’re sending the reports up to the dev teams, I’ve seen them directly diagnose what’s happening, etc.
I get being frustrated but that’s not really what I’m talking about. The “animals” quote was a direct quote, I think that the increasingly unruly and verbally abusive messages towards the people who are just trying to help is just biting the hands that feed you. The same people calling for lists of people’s positions so they can be fired cry “1984” when a message gets deleted for harassment.
I sincerely just think we should be reasonable to the devs who’ve been really consistent about updates and pretty good at helping the community, post-update
The personal attacks and “treat them like animals” don’t have any place here. But let’s not miss the reason they’re happening.
The overall experience for paying customers that the Plex team as a whole has created in this rollout is not good.
When I say the Plex team, that primarily places the responsibility on the decision makers, which I’d call Plex’s leadership team. They are disconnected from what matters to customers (otherwise we wouldn’t have hundreds of 1-star ratings in the app stores for the new experience and no apology or action taken to restore the previous experience immediately). Rollback plans exist for a reason and are part of every development best practice. The misalignment of priorities between customers and Plex’s decision-makers is stark, otherwise we would have seen a rollback long ago.
I agree that we shouldn’t flog the people active and trying to help here, and the less-humane comments are the worst of the lot.
But nobody’s hearing a “we hear you, we’re sorry, and we’ll fix this” From anyone at Plex. Most customers can’t tell who in the forums has authority to make decisions because it’s not really transparent, so they express their growing frustration to anyone with the ability to pass the message on, probably also hoping that maybe the decision makers might sense their frustration… what a terrible environment to have created for customers.
People are screaming into the void precisely because the Plex team has created that void.
Rollback plans are not always possible, especially when you make changes to Database structures on SaaS services. In that instance though, there should be enhanced support for a period and clear communications with customers as to what is being done.
If that were the case here (although not convinced it was because those situations are caused by engineering/design/architecture decisions), but if it was so dangerous or impactful that no meaningful rollback plan could be formed, then this rollout was TOTALLY mishandled.
We alllllllll know that this rollout has been completely mishandled. Not ready for release, poor comms from Plex, and the regressions in functionality affecting many users.
Uhmmm, what response? Seriously, when was the last time anyone from Plex has said ANYTHING about this mess? Have they responded and I just missed it, or are they staying quiet and hoping the problem (or outspoken users) goes away. Classic head-in-the-sand tactic. Nothing but..
