abomination describes the new Plex
I FOUND A FIX FOR THIS PROBLEM!!
Remove the batteries from the remote, unplug the Roku and reconnect both, which will reset Roku and the remote. I did that and Plex worked as before. I am relieved and hope this works for you.
YES! Please roll it back. This is trash!!! I can’t actually play anything in any of my specialty libraries. It just won’t play at all - regardless of file quality. Using a remote control for Plex is super hard and it isn’t as fast or as useful as they might have imagined it to be. It’s almost like they hate their users. It takes far more clicks to do anything and IT IS NOT FUNCTIONAL. Not at all. PLEASE roll it back!
This interface is a Nightmare. My mom and Aunt are in Hospice and don’t know how to watch their shows. Why did they do this?
No joy. It’s still infected with latest Plex update. Honestly, what kind of drugs what are the marketing department on when they thought this is a good look? I’d say that they hired monkeys, but I have far too much respect those primates.
I also hate the new interface. WTF were they thinking?
I guess this is Plex’s attempt to streamline and look the same as other media apps with the top bar and multiple sub categories, It is NOT an improvement. 
Even if future updates fix it from running slow, the crash issues, the jumping back to the top while browsing movies or shows and starting your search over…as well as other issues others have mentioned, it’s not PLEX, its a huge downgrade. Now it’s a cookie cutter UI with more clicks needed to get to where you want to go that everyone uses. The original side categories was a much cleaner and intuitive UI in my opinion. Yes, my opinion, everyone has their own and some may like this look, but it doesn’t appear that many do after reading the feedback so far. Also reading the replies so far It doesn’t appear that Plex will be going back to their original look and feel. Instead they will spend lots of time trying to fix the issues with their new cookie cutter design that no one really asked for or needed.
Yeah, I’m just copying and pasting with a few additions of my dissatisfaction about the New downgrade for Plex on all the related posts now. If I honestly felt it would make a difference, I would type out a 10,000 word essay on what a dumb move it was for Plex to destroy the great User Interface they had for some crappy UI that everyone uses. Why be a sheep? Be a leader and not a follower.
Again, before I start looking for an alternative app I will ask for one request for many of us that love our Plex…. Give us the option to have our original classic UI PLEX, Pretty Please…. With sugar on top. I’ll even add 2 cherries to show extra love. 
Thanks from a Plex Lover……
When they switched to the new utter farce and I could no longer find/play/pause with crashes. It was over. The fact that they have not rolled back means my change to an alternative is permanent. What I use is not as good as Plex but it DOES work. They have joined the corporate mindset of they are right and the rest of the world is wrong. So like with Disney the thing to do is walk away. They don’t Give a FÙCK clearly. All good things come to an end and they have made the decision that it is now. I do not have the time to deal with their UI downgrade. I have a life to get on with. So fare well and thanks for all the Fish.
From other posts I’ve seen here it seems that if you have a playlist with a mix of things from multiple libraries, that playlist will now show up in and can be accessed from every one of those libraries (and once accessed will still have all its content from all relevant libraries). HOWEVER, you’ll still have to know which libraries the playlist draws from so you can go into one of those libraries to access the playlist, instead of being able to see a list of all your playlists in one place and choosing which one you want from there. Very poor design choice, like many others in this abomination of an update (IMHO).
There is a setting under one of the gear icons that lets you set the default behavior for libraries to browse instead of recommended. One bright spot in an otherwise abominable update.
I would rather just have the option back, where it remembers which tab I was in last per library.
I have libraries where I frequently use “browse", other where I use “Collections" or “Recommended".
I fully agree and the Roku application is no not usable for searching media.
I was unhappy several years ago with the last UI overhaul but this is horrendous.
Can you divert the developers who made this abomination to fix the Play Together functionality? Have them do something actually useful.
The intro stated customizations were possible? Where tf are they? Stop lying to us! I got a plex pass because I liked the software, not because I wanted to support this trash move to push plex content ahead of my server’s content.
And there’s no option to contact support for paid members?
Same here.
I got hit with the zero day ugly plex gui virus too lol
Not sure exactly which customizations you are looking for, but some key ones I’ve found so far are:
- You can still determine which libraries to include in the (now stupidly placed) horizontal list along the top by favoriting the ones you want to appear and unfavoriting those you don’t want, and can re-order them in a couple of ways (either individually (by using the “*” button on the Roku remote, IIRC) or by favoriting them in the order in which you want them to appear, based on another post I’ve seen). However, I believe that this is now only applicable to all Roku devices instead of being able to be configured separately on different Roku devices.
- You can still disable all the live TV and other external sources so they won’t show up on your Roku clients/players (not sure if you do that directly on the Roku app or using the web/PC interface - I always use the latter for those sorts of settings so I haven’t tried doing it on the Roku app but it may be possible there).
- You can change the default behavior so that all libraries open up in the “browse” view instead of the stupid “recommended” view, but again that seems to be a setting that will apply to all libraries so you can’t have different libraries behave differently (and those are the only two choices, so you can’t tell libraries to open in collection view, for example).
So, there are some customizations that are still possible, but not as many or the same as before, and some are buried behind hardware button presses or otherwise a bit harder to find now.
It’s butchered, and Plex has confirmed they won’t rollback to the previous interface. The new interface is tolerable when you disable all the recommendation nonsense, but the navigation is far from tolerable. The “top navigation” method makes no sense to me. I’ve been using it probably for about a week or so now (since whenever Plex dumped it as a “production” release - a laughable thought on its own) and I can’t manage to get a handle on the navigation. I bought a Lifetime Plex Pass about 10 years ago when I got the golden offer and loved Plex up to this point (quirks here and there throughout the years, but not bad for over 10 years of use).
I spent about 30 minutes setting up Jellyfin on my current Plex server. The hardest part was figuring out the networking (Windows firewall is bad, but I got there). Easiest platform switch I’ve done - 10/10, definitely recommended for current Plex/Roku users tired of Plex’s nonsense.
RIP Plex 2025 </3
Be sure to update your review of the now-terrible app for Roku here:
I have the same issue with my 76 year-old aunt that we take care of not able to navigate the new UI. I’ve changed some settings in Plex to try and make it more simple for her but there isn’t many options such as turning off Discover and showing the Library as an alphabetical list.
I’m hoping Plex at least makes an amendment to the Theme to bring back the side menu style as an option.
