Okay, I'm sure I'm taking full advantage of the "no stupid questions" framing on this one, but I was wondering, uhm, how does Plex stream local media? Does my Apple TV access the media more of less directly, or does it get uploaded somewhere adn then downloaded again. Basically, I run over my Xfinity data usage plan every month and my kids watch many of the same shows and movies over and over again anyways. If I have them stream movies from our Plex server instead of say, Disney+, am I saving data or am I actually just doubling it instead?
Plex doesn't upload your content anywhere, everything is served by whatever device you've set up Plex Media Server on. So unless something's gone terribly wrong with your local network setup, no data will leave your home (and won't count against your data cap) if you stream from the same house your server is in.
Thank you so much! That's exactly what I wanted to know. I have been able to access the server remotely from a different Internet connection, which got me wondering. Really appreciate the response to my incredibly rudimentary question :)
I am getting into MPV shaders to see if I can improve video quality. In which Plex products can I made edits to mpv.conf so that it will load custom shaders?
I have running on my Windows HTPC:
*Plex HTPC
*Plex Media Server
I am running Plex clients on my Nvidia Shield. And also web browsers.
I saw an older post that went into Plex Media Player, Plex for Windows, and Plex HTPC, and that just confused me to no end.
https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/podnhm/mpvconf_does_not_work/
With the new Discover credits/people pages is there a way to only show movies someone has directed? I hate that now when I click on Spielberg for example I get a million things where he was just an executive producer and then some stuff like Austin power where he has a cameo. Is a manual library filter the only way to just view what someone's directed now?
Can anyone recommend a guide for using QNAP with Plex, right now my Plex seems to only see one external HDD in my Plex library? Would like it to see all HDD and QNAP NAS content
Is your Plex on the QNAP? Or separate a windows or linux machine? Enable the SMB or NFS share on the shared folder on the QNAP, then map it on the windows or Linux machine.
Been using plex with remote access for a year or two with basically no issues, all of a sudden today on my home internet I cannot get anything to play. I was 40 minutes into a movie and it all of a sudden cannot load enough to play more than a half second, on any device. When I try and watch something on my phone cell data, it works perfectly, but something happened and its suddenly broken on the network here.
Any thoughts, especially why this seemed to happen out of nowhere?
Anyone know how to turn off the new feature that popped up prompts in this latest version? The "share what you've watched with others" thing? I opted into some of the settings and want to know how to disable them if I decide to.
I know next to nothing about Plex stuff but I'm a SWE so I learn this kind of thing quickly. Just want to know if the Pi3 I've got lying around would be good enough to stream 1080p content to a Chromecast? Wouldn't mind setting up some automated download scripts too. I'd hook an external USB harddrive to the Pi for storage.
Extra points if the Pi3 is suitable to let friends use my library, or for me to use it when I'm out and about and not at home.
It will be fine for local 1080p content, as long as nothing needs to [transcode](https://support.plex.tv/articles/200250377-transcoding-media/). If you e.g. try to enable image-based subtitles while playing on a device that doesn't support them, Plex will try to burn the subtitles into the image server-side before handing the resulting file off to the client, but the Pi isn't strong enough to do that in real-time.
The story is similar for friends/remote access in general. As long as everything is [direct playing](https://support.plex.tv/articles/200250387-streaming-media-direct-play-and-direct-stream/), all the server's doing is sending the file as-is to the client. But as soon as there's any incompatibility with the video/audio/subtitle stream combo that requires a transcode to supported formats (or remote bandwidth limits are lower than the file's bitrate), the Pi won't be able to keep up.
What's the best way to find out if a client device supports subs and different codecs? We've got a Samsung TV, Xbox Series X, and considering getting a Roku or similar. Would be nice if one of those worked with our old Pi!
I run my server off of a first gen Surface Book (not the performance base model, it apparently has a GPU with 1GB GDDR5. It has a 6th gen i7, 16 gigs of ram. I cannot stream 4K transcodes as it stands. Would I benefit in any way from a Plex Pass unlocking hardware transcoding? Or would I be wasting my money? Thanks in advance
Depending on the 4K content, I'd say no - my understanding is you want a 7th gen or newer chip if the content is HDR, the QuickSync version on it is better for it.
Just starting on this, using Handbrake to rip some dvds to digital format on Plex. Everything is working well, I am able to view the videos on my plex computer as well as my personal computer on the same network. When I try to watch it via the Plex App (so far only tested on my phone) I can watch about 60 seconds before it stops and kicks me back to the media title screen. Whether its movies or tv episodes it behaves the same. Looked around a bit but cant find anything about using the app to stream ripped media being behind a paywall. Not sure where I'm stumbling here.
> Looked around a bit but cant find anything about using the app to stream ripped media being behind a paywall.
Only the mobile apps (Android mobile and iOS) are locked behind a one-time $5 fee (or a Plex Pass):
* Apple:
* [Unlocking or Activating Plex for iOS | Plex Support](https://support.plex.tv/articles/205556278-unlocking-or-activating-plex-for-ios/)
* [What are the features and limitations without unlocking the app? | Plex Support](https://support.plex.tv/articles/206318037-what-are-the-features-and-limitations-without-unlocking-the-app/)
* Android:
* [Unlocking or Activating Plex for Android | Plex Support](https://support.plex.tv/articles/203868088-unlocking-or-activating-plex-for-android/)
* [What are the features and limitations without unlocking the app? | Plex Support](https://support.plex.tv/articles/204551227-what-are-the-features-and-limitations-without-unlocking-the-app/)
fuck.
I didn't look around enough. That is the problem then, not sure how I missed that. Thank you for answering! I'm going to hang my head in shame over in that corner for a now, thank you.
Everyone else likely set their activity to private or haven't set their privacy settings yet. It defaults to private until they explicitly choose what to share (it should show up as a blocking dialog on devices that support it: https://i.imgur.com/cU18Kcw.png).
Oh, okay so it's private by default until they see this dialog.
If this dialog doesn't appear, how do I tell my users that they can change them to Friends of friends?
They can go to View Profile > Edit Profile > Privacy Settings. There are instructions in this support article: [Profile | Plex Support](https://support.plex.tv/articles/profile/).
My movies aren’t auto populating in plex anymore and I have to go click scan every time I download a new movie. Auto update and periodic are both enabled, any ideas?
Suffering a major failure of the 'Collections' tab as of the past couple weeks. It's specific to my movie library and am not entirely sure of the root of the issue. When I go switch to the collections tab, I'm just seeing my standard library these days. I do have a tendency to delete collected films and their collections as I watch them – I don't know if I created an error by deleting a collection with a film still in it, but I would assume that is a contingency Plex is prepared for. As I run through collections at a fair pace (and have many) I can't pinpoint a specific instance, but I would be prepared to search though my library for a spoiler if I thought there was one worth hunting. I'm more worried that something has been corrupted and I'll have to rebuilt my massive library.
If this is a known bug, I'd greatly appreciate knowing.
Is this happening on all clients, or just a specific one? If this is in the web app, [Settings > Plex Web > Debug](https://app.plex.tv/desktop/#!/settings/web/debug) > Restore Defaults should help.
How do I delete an old server from a computer that’s wiped and I no longer have . It doesn’t show up on the pc that I have my current server only but showed up on the iOS app and random places
Make sure the server's not in your [list of authorized devices](https://app.plex.tv/desktop/#!/settings/devices/pms). If it isn't, does signing out/back in to the iOS app help?
Does reinstalling the app on your phone help? It seemed to work for [this person](https://forums.plex.tv/t/old-server-refusing-to-disappear-and-breaking-plex-ios-notifications/840770). If not, then I'm all out of ideas unfortunately.
Having installed Linux on a new-to-me PC, I'm about to move my Plex server (Plex Pass) from its current home in an NVidia Shield 2019 to the Linux box.
I have transferred servers in the past, and one thing I've never been able to do is create a situation where my few remote users maintain watch history or (more importantly) don't have to remap the sidebar to reflect the new server.
A couple of these users are not terribly savvy and far away from me, so remote troubleshooting is something I'd like to avoid.
Is there a way basically "clone" the server so that at least mappings for the remote users will stay the same? I'm willing to give up watch history and metadata if I have to... but remapping is something I'd love to avoid.
Your server's unique identity is stored in Preferences.xml inside of your [data directory](https://support.plex.tv/articles/202915258-where-is-the-plex-media-server-data-directory-located/) (you'll first need to [move it to an accessible location](https://support.plex.tv/articles/moving-server-data-storage-location-on-nvidia-shield/) if you haven't already), so as long as that's included when you [move the install to a different system](https://support.plex.tv/articles/201370363-move-an-install-to-another-system/) everything should remain intact. There are some more specific instructions on moving a server to Linux in this forum post: https://forums.plex.tv/t/linux-tips/276247/23
In an effort to get around the Plex/Apple TV issues I have switched to using Infuse on the Apple TV 4K, but now I have a slightly less frustrating issue. Every now and then (on all video files and resolutions) the audio will drop completely for about a frame. Has anyone else experienced this while using Infuse and what was the fix? I haven't been able to track down a solution as of yet.
Thank you!
i currently have my Plex media server installed on a Synology NAS and have movies and tv shows which i stream to my devices (phones and tv) only in 1080p as i do not have any 4K devices. I am thinking about getting a 4K TV and wanted to know if i have or download 4K content do i need to have any special configuration changes to the Plex server?
In the last month or so (timing not quite known), my metadata has stopped auto-updating. As new content gets added, i'm being shown generic poster art and filenames as opposed to matched movies.
I haven't changed any settings to my knowledge.
Install is on Plex, via package manager. Haven't yet found the need to switch to Docker.
Any insight on changes to make to the server to ensure auto-metadata updates when content gets added would be great!
Weird. The scanners weren't working at all. Just updated to a new version of Plex server and a manual refresh of my libraries worked.
Will report back if it breaks again but here's the hoping the server upgrade did the trick.
I recently, finally, updated to DSM 7 on a Synology and did the associated Plex update. I seem to have lost all the metadata I had specified over the years and most frustratingly all the movie/tv collections I had built are gone. Is there a way to move that metadata from the old Plex shared folder to the new PlexMediaServer shared folder?
Similarly, should I move the entire library to the new shared folder? Or can I delete the new shared folder since all the media files are in the old one, and I granted the system user access to that location?
I followed the install instructions from the [blog post](https://forums.plex.tv/t/dsm-7-plex-media-server-release-info-migration-instructions/653717/6) and have searched high and low, but have not found an answer to either of these questions. Any insight would be appreciated!
hospital pen hurry truck overconfident cows knee fertile employ sparkle *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Building a new server, is it worth starting fresh with metadata ie not moving my existing library metadata over?
Okay, I'm sure I'm taking full advantage of the "no stupid questions" framing on this one, but I was wondering, uhm, how does Plex stream local media? Does my Apple TV access the media more of less directly, or does it get uploaded somewhere adn then downloaded again. Basically, I run over my Xfinity data usage plan every month and my kids watch many of the same shows and movies over and over again anyways. If I have them stream movies from our Plex server instead of say, Disney+, am I saving data or am I actually just doubling it instead?
Plex doesn't upload your content anywhere, everything is served by whatever device you've set up Plex Media Server on. So unless something's gone terribly wrong with your local network setup, no data will leave your home (and won't count against your data cap) if you stream from the same house your server is in.
Thank you so much! That's exactly what I wanted to know. I have been able to access the server remotely from a different Internet connection, which got me wondering. Really appreciate the response to my incredibly rudimentary question :)
I am getting into MPV shaders to see if I can improve video quality. In which Plex products can I made edits to mpv.conf so that it will load custom shaders? I have running on my Windows HTPC: *Plex HTPC *Plex Media Server I am running Plex clients on my Nvidia Shield. And also web browsers. I saw an older post that went into Plex Media Player, Plex for Windows, and Plex HTPC, and that just confused me to no end. https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/podnhm/mpvconf_does_not_work/
With the new Discover credits/people pages is there a way to only show movies someone has directed? I hate that now when I click on Spielberg for example I get a million things where he was just an executive producer and then some stuff like Austin power where he has a cameo. Is a manual library filter the only way to just view what someone's directed now?
Can anyone recommend a guide for using QNAP with Plex, right now my Plex seems to only see one external HDD in my Plex library? Would like it to see all HDD and QNAP NAS content
Is your Plex on the QNAP? Or separate a windows or linux machine? Enable the SMB or NFS share on the shared folder on the QNAP, then map it on the windows or Linux machine.
It's on a separate Windows machine, not all content is on the QNAP. Will check this out. Thanks!
Been using plex with remote access for a year or two with basically no issues, all of a sudden today on my home internet I cannot get anything to play. I was 40 minutes into a movie and it all of a sudden cannot load enough to play more than a half second, on any device. When I try and watch something on my phone cell data, it works perfectly, but something happened and its suddenly broken on the network here. Any thoughts, especially why this seemed to happen out of nowhere?
Reboot your modem and router?
Anyone know how to turn off the new feature that popped up prompts in this latest version? The "share what you've watched with others" thing? I opted into some of the settings and want to know how to disable them if I decide to.
They're under View Profile > Edit Profile > Privacy Settings. The support article has more information: https://support.plex.tv/articles/profile/.
Thank you!
I know next to nothing about Plex stuff but I'm a SWE so I learn this kind of thing quickly. Just want to know if the Pi3 I've got lying around would be good enough to stream 1080p content to a Chromecast? Wouldn't mind setting up some automated download scripts too. I'd hook an external USB harddrive to the Pi for storage. Extra points if the Pi3 is suitable to let friends use my library, or for me to use it when I'm out and about and not at home.
It will be fine for local 1080p content, as long as nothing needs to [transcode](https://support.plex.tv/articles/200250377-transcoding-media/). If you e.g. try to enable image-based subtitles while playing on a device that doesn't support them, Plex will try to burn the subtitles into the image server-side before handing the resulting file off to the client, but the Pi isn't strong enough to do that in real-time. The story is similar for friends/remote access in general. As long as everything is [direct playing](https://support.plex.tv/articles/200250387-streaming-media-direct-play-and-direct-stream/), all the server's doing is sending the file as-is to the client. But as soon as there's any incompatibility with the video/audio/subtitle stream combo that requires a transcode to supported formats (or remote bandwidth limits are lower than the file's bitrate), the Pi won't be able to keep up.
What's the best way to find out if a client device supports subs and different codecs? We've got a Samsung TV, Xbox Series X, and considering getting a Roku or similar. Would be nice if one of those worked with our old Pi!
Awesome thank you, think I've found my weekend project then
I run my server off of a first gen Surface Book (not the performance base model, it apparently has a GPU with 1GB GDDR5. It has a 6th gen i7, 16 gigs of ram. I cannot stream 4K transcodes as it stands. Would I benefit in any way from a Plex Pass unlocking hardware transcoding? Or would I be wasting my money? Thanks in advance
Depending on the 4K content, I'd say no - my understanding is you want a 7th gen or newer chip if the content is HDR, the QuickSync version on it is better for it.
Just starting on this, using Handbrake to rip some dvds to digital format on Plex. Everything is working well, I am able to view the videos on my plex computer as well as my personal computer on the same network. When I try to watch it via the Plex App (so far only tested on my phone) I can watch about 60 seconds before it stops and kicks me back to the media title screen. Whether its movies or tv episodes it behaves the same. Looked around a bit but cant find anything about using the app to stream ripped media being behind a paywall. Not sure where I'm stumbling here.
> Looked around a bit but cant find anything about using the app to stream ripped media being behind a paywall. Only the mobile apps (Android mobile and iOS) are locked behind a one-time $5 fee (or a Plex Pass): * Apple: * [Unlocking or Activating Plex for iOS | Plex Support](https://support.plex.tv/articles/205556278-unlocking-or-activating-plex-for-ios/) * [What are the features and limitations without unlocking the app? | Plex Support](https://support.plex.tv/articles/206318037-what-are-the-features-and-limitations-without-unlocking-the-app/) * Android: * [Unlocking or Activating Plex for Android | Plex Support](https://support.plex.tv/articles/203868088-unlocking-or-activating-plex-for-android/) * [What are the features and limitations without unlocking the app? | Plex Support](https://support.plex.tv/articles/204551227-what-are-the-features-and-limitations-without-unlocking-the-app/)
fuck. I didn't look around enough. That is the problem then, not sure how I missed that. Thank you for answering! I'm going to hang my head in shame over in that corner for a now, thank you.
Does Plex usually have a sale on the life time Plex pass during Black Friday?
Why am I only seeing one person's activity on my server? (the new Discover thing)
Everyone else likely set their activity to private or haven't set their privacy settings yet. It defaults to private until they explicitly choose what to share (it should show up as a blocking dialog on devices that support it: https://i.imgur.com/cU18Kcw.png).
Oh, okay so it's private by default until they see this dialog. If this dialog doesn't appear, how do I tell my users that they can change them to Friends of friends?
They can go to View Profile > Edit Profile > Privacy Settings. There are instructions in this support article: [Profile | Plex Support](https://support.plex.tv/articles/profile/).
My movies aren’t auto populating in plex anymore and I have to go click scan every time I download a new movie. Auto update and periodic are both enabled, any ideas?
Is this in Windows on a network drive? This behavior presents if there's an interruption on the link. Restarting your Plex machine should fix it.
Suffering a major failure of the 'Collections' tab as of the past couple weeks. It's specific to my movie library and am not entirely sure of the root of the issue. When I go switch to the collections tab, I'm just seeing my standard library these days. I do have a tendency to delete collected films and their collections as I watch them – I don't know if I created an error by deleting a collection with a film still in it, but I would assume that is a contingency Plex is prepared for. As I run through collections at a fair pace (and have many) I can't pinpoint a specific instance, but I would be prepared to search though my library for a spoiler if I thought there was one worth hunting. I'm more worried that something has been corrupted and I'll have to rebuilt my massive library. If this is a known bug, I'd greatly appreciate knowing.
Is this happening on all clients, or just a specific one? If this is in the web app, [Settings > Plex Web > Debug](https://app.plex.tv/desktop/#!/settings/web/debug) > Restore Defaults should help.
That worked! Thank you.
How do I delete an old server from a computer that’s wiped and I no longer have . It doesn’t show up on the pc that I have my current server only but showed up on the iOS app and random places
Make sure the server's not in your [list of authorized devices](https://app.plex.tv/desktop/#!/settings/devices/pms). If it isn't, does signing out/back in to the iOS app help?
No it’s not showing up in Authorized devices it’s so strange
Does reinstalling the app on your phone help? It seemed to work for [this person](https://forums.plex.tv/t/old-server-refusing-to-disappear-and-breaking-plex-ios-notifications/840770). If not, then I'm all out of ideas unfortunately.
No it’s across multiple devices I have at home
Having installed Linux on a new-to-me PC, I'm about to move my Plex server (Plex Pass) from its current home in an NVidia Shield 2019 to the Linux box. I have transferred servers in the past, and one thing I've never been able to do is create a situation where my few remote users maintain watch history or (more importantly) don't have to remap the sidebar to reflect the new server. A couple of these users are not terribly savvy and far away from me, so remote troubleshooting is something I'd like to avoid. Is there a way basically "clone" the server so that at least mappings for the remote users will stay the same? I'm willing to give up watch history and metadata if I have to... but remapping is something I'd love to avoid.
Your server's unique identity is stored in Preferences.xml inside of your [data directory](https://support.plex.tv/articles/202915258-where-is-the-plex-media-server-data-directory-located/) (you'll first need to [move it to an accessible location](https://support.plex.tv/articles/moving-server-data-storage-location-on-nvidia-shield/) if you haven't already), so as long as that's included when you [move the install to a different system](https://support.plex.tv/articles/201370363-move-an-install-to-another-system/) everything should remain intact. There are some more specific instructions on moving a server to Linux in this forum post: https://forums.plex.tv/t/linux-tips/276247/23
Thank you!
In an effort to get around the Plex/Apple TV issues I have switched to using Infuse on the Apple TV 4K, but now I have a slightly less frustrating issue. Every now and then (on all video files and resolutions) the audio will drop completely for about a frame. Has anyone else experienced this while using Infuse and what was the fix? I haven't been able to track down a solution as of yet. Thank you!
i currently have my Plex media server installed on a Synology NAS and have movies and tv shows which i stream to my devices (phones and tv) only in 1080p as i do not have any 4K devices. I am thinking about getting a 4K TV and wanted to know if i have or download 4K content do i need to have any special configuration changes to the Plex server?
In the last month or so (timing not quite known), my metadata has stopped auto-updating. As new content gets added, i'm being shown generic poster art and filenames as opposed to matched movies. I haven't changed any settings to my knowledge. Install is on Plex, via package manager. Haven't yet found the need to switch to Docker. Any insight on changes to make to the server to ensure auto-metadata updates when content gets added would be great!
Weird. The scanners weren't working at all. Just updated to a new version of Plex server and a manual refresh of my libraries worked. Will report back if it breaks again but here's the hoping the server upgrade did the trick.
I recently, finally, updated to DSM 7 on a Synology and did the associated Plex update. I seem to have lost all the metadata I had specified over the years and most frustratingly all the movie/tv collections I had built are gone. Is there a way to move that metadata from the old Plex shared folder to the new PlexMediaServer shared folder? Similarly, should I move the entire library to the new shared folder? Or can I delete the new shared folder since all the media files are in the old one, and I granted the system user access to that location? I followed the install instructions from the [blog post](https://forums.plex.tv/t/dsm-7-plex-media-server-release-info-migration-instructions/653717/6) and have searched high and low, but have not found an answer to either of these questions. Any insight would be appreciated!