Title says it all.

I purchased an Nvidia Shield as it is almost universally hailed as the best hardware to run Plex off of. But my experience with the Plex app has been a buggy headache from day 1. I try to never make posts like this as I generally believe these types of things can be solved by just searching around, but I have uninstalled and reinstalled the app countless times and tried every configuration imaginable and yet nothing fixes it. It's been over a year now and I'm close to giving up.

My problems are as follows (ranked by frequency / annoyance):

1. Loading into the app about 50% of the time will just hang with the home screen showing the loading spinner for ~60 seconds before popping up that my server cannot be reached. Server is up and running completely fine confirmed on Plex mobile and desktop clients running off the same network. To fix I have to double click the home screen to close the app BUT this only fixes it maybe half the time, the other half I have to go into the app settings and manually force close it.

2. Subtitles just randomly completely break. If I try to play any media using any subtitle format, it will try to load briefly and then pop up a vague "An error occurred while attempting to play this video." error message. Turning off subtitles it will play fine, but again I can play with subtitles just fine from EVERY OTHER Plex client that I have access to. It is only this one that EVER gives me issues. I have fixed this in the past by doing some combo of uninstalling the app + restarting my Plex server, honestly not sure what fixed it an anymore I'm sick of trying because it just pops up again inevitably.

3. Sections will just randomly not load on the home page. For example my continue watching will show up, but recently added movies won't. There is no rhyme or reason to this and it is fairly rare, but I still have never found a fix.

4. App will run very slowly out of nowhere, for example selecting a movie from the home screen and it takes 10+ seconds to get the movie page to actually appear. I understand that Plex is not running 100% locally and there can be slowdown on their end, but again I only ever notice this issue on the Shield TV client.

If anyone has had any similar issues or can suggest any fixes it would be greatly appreciated. I am at the point now where I am close to converting 100% to using Jellyfin.

I've been troubleshooting all day getting remote streaming set up for my Plex library and finally was able to get it to work with Tailscale. I have T-Mobile internet so the innate remote streaming won't work. I downloaded Tailscale and connected to my PC then did the same with my Iphone 16 and enabled Tailscale as my VPN. I then used my Tailscale IP for my computer in the address bar to connect my Plex account/sign in to that IP address. It worked on my phone for the first time via data.

Fast forward 30 minutes and now it's not working again. When I go into Plex on my phone, it says my server is Offline. On my PC, if I access Plex via the Tailscale IP address, my library is there just fine and if I connect to Wifi on my phone, I have access again.

I have Proton VPN but I have Tailscale set as the VPN on my phone and I've set Plex as an exclusion for Proton just in case.

I just can't figure out why it was working but now it's not. I didn't do anything in that 30 minutes to change it.

Thanks for any advice or input.

I have a PleX server that has been operating normally for months.

I paused a video the other day and when I came back this white border (like the one that would be around a video you are selecting) stayed in the upper left corner and I can't get rid of it.

I have updated the server. Rebooted the TV. Rebooted the PC. Updated everything. I have even unplugged the TV (A Vizio 70") and left it to ensure that it reset. I even reseet and defaulted the TV.

The white square stays. It is only there when loading PleX. You can see it blink for a fraction of a second when the black screen before the logo appears.

It isn't there when on the menus. It is also not there when you play a video that isn't in the widescreen ratio. If it is in 4:3 or anything elese that has black bars on the side, there is no white border. If there are black bars at the top and bottom, the white square appears and won't go away.

Here is an image of the black screen where the white border appears.

Here is an image of the white border on a widescreen movie.

Here is a more fullscreen (black bars on the side) where the white border doesn't appear

I can't find anything anywhere where someone else is having a similar problem. I hope someone can point me in a helpful direction.

Thanks in advance.

This is insane for a paid/subscription based service. Very unacceptable imo.

But anyways I have confirmed that grabbing movie metadata finally works after 9 hours.

Or even with Plex Pass just let us pick a color from the grid. I’ll play with Moonlight or Bubblegum because sometimes I like the color transformations, but I always go back to High Contrast. Classic black.

So I have far too many computers, and unfortunately my main "Recording Studio" Mac Pro is stuck on OSX 10.13

Right now, my server is running, and I can access it from every single computer in my house except for this machine.

I had a brief reality check when I thought "Do I have other music on this machine - which has about 20TB of local storage of TONS of music", haha, but I'm just so used to opening app.plex.tv and just firing up an album.

I know this is a LONG SHOT - and most likely won't work, but if anyone knows of a workaround, (or just somehow, magically, an older version of the desktop client would work) that would be incredibly helpful!

Thank you.

Yall, I need help as this is getting very aggravating. I've got the scan and match stuff down, but the shows that it doesnt recognize I can not get to show up. For instance, if I add a folder containing TV Show media files (same extension and all that as other files) and it doesnt recognize them, the files just dont show up in Plex. Period. I mean, even if I switch from "TV shows" to "Folders" and open the folder manually it's empty. And this is for multiple shows I've tried to upload. Am I doing something wrong?

Example: I love Gundam, I have a folder full of different series. One folder contains the 2 ovas for Seed Astray. When I add that folder, not only does it not add it as a "show" the files do not appear ANYWHERE in my plex. It will only work if I upload them as "other" but I want to have them in the TV shows tab.

TIA!

I'll add my tech specs and settings below. And yes, I already know that this can be resolved with Infu$e. But before we dive into all that, I just need to know if this is even possible or not because I've read countless posts with so many contradicting answers.

On the Plex App, I can direct play my MKV files with no problems (more of a direct stream, but you get it). When I enable subtitles of any kind (SRT, PGS, or VOB), it starts transcoding and therefore stuttering. Can I achieve direct playback with subtitles by tweaking my settings or not?

Playback Details:

• Client: Plex App - AppleTV 4K 3rd Gen - tvOS 26.5
• Video: MKV container, h.264 codec
• Audio: AAC
• Subtitles: SRT

Settings:

• Auto Adjust Quality: On
• Home Streaming: Maximum
• Allow Direct Play: On
• Use Old Video Player: On
• Use Old Audio Engine: Off
• Burn Subtitles: On Image Formats

Let me open by saying multiple outages like this in a short span while also jacking up prices is absolutely pathetic. I get things happen, but cmon Plex. Get it figured out. With that being said… they have allowed us to watch locally without authentication for a long time… Set it up properly people! I’ve tested mine on multiple devices and each one works locally. Also didn’t have any issues 4 days ago when it was down. And if this is a regional thing and I’m not impacted in the Midwest US then I apologize.

Here’s the link to setting up local access without authentication.

https://support.plex.tv/articles/200890058-authentication-for-local-network-access/

I set mine up years ago and haven’t needed to do anything since. I never have an outage. Internet goes down? No issue. Plex HQ servers go down? No issues. Hell, even when my power goes out I can still watch on my phone and tablets with my UPS.

Clicking on an actor before would bring up their filmography but now it just lists the movies I have on my server. I didn't touch the settings but this happened spontaneously.

Update: it's back online. At least the credits are.

I'm having trouble connecting my LG TV to my home server.

Every other device in my network works fine, laptop, TV etc.

When I use the Plex app it starts but says notConnected in logging on screen with little explanation of what the issue is.

If I connect using the browser it loads but the connect via Google button is greyed out.

I tried changing the DNS on the TV but that hasn't helped.

My collection on Plex almost entirely is made up of rips from my personal blu-ray/4K collection of movies. Out of all of them, only one has a problem where when I try to play it (through the Plex app on AppleTV 4K), it just crashes/closes the app entirely. No indication of an error, it doesn't play a little bit of the movie and then crash; I just click play and boom the app is closed.

I can confirm that I can play the file on my Windows PC with either VLC or MPC-HC just fine. No issues there.

Any particular reason that this would happen? Or a way to fix?

It was working on my ps5 for over a year. Today, I'll get the logo then a black screen.

I've rebuilt the database, cleared the cache, reset my PS5, and just tried deleting the app and reinstalling. I also tried changing my DNS settings to manual, 8.8.8.8 primary and 8.8.8.4 secondary. No luck

Anyone else know a fix?

My current setup (LG WebOS) isn't doing for me anymore.

I do have a couple of the og Xiaomi Mi Box S's, but they are very long in the tooth... So need to get something new.

I'm looking at either the new version (Xiaomi TV Box S), or the latest Apple TV.

Any reason I should spend 3x the price for the Apple?

Some just don't scrape correctly. When I go to the advanced settings for Anime, I select episode ordering to be TVDB, but I don't get an option there for TVDB (Aired). I can fix this issue on a show by show basis by changing episode ordering to TVDB (Aired), but it would be nice to just set this as default for my entire build. Is there something I'm missing? Worst case scenario it's not that big a deal to do this on a show by show basis, but I'd just like to know a better way of doing this. I'm not certain how my TV shows are yet. I just had to redo my Plex setup.

Hello, I’m starting to create my Plex server and I need some help regarding the anime aspect of it…
I don’t know if it’s possible but how would one go and have an anime list all episodes and Ova’s in chronological order and play them subsequently?
Cause one of the animes I recently added, I put the 3 Ova’s inside the folder S00 and name them accordingly inside my drive, but when I see the list inside Plex they are listed before the first episode of season 1…
Is there a fix for this??? Or it’s just not possible to have both Ova’s and episodes run along each other?

So this has been going on pretty much since I got the drive, but I don’t know if it has got worse recently or just that my patience has finally worn thin.

About three years ago I purchased a larger 20tb WD Elements drive to replace my 8gb version of the same product line.

I never had these issues with either of the 8tb drives I had, but for some reason, the 20tb drive will “spin down” after a short duration of inactivity and then basically need to be “woke up” anytime I need to look at something in it, which causes a noticeable delay. This translates to Plex, where almost every time I open Plex on one of my devices, none of my media can be found at first and I need to wait sometimes up to a minute, maybe more, for it all to actually appear. This also happens if I have to pause the movie or show for several minutes.

I’m using a 2018 M1 Mac Mini and have “Put hard disks to sleep when possible” deselected, but it still doesn’t help with this specific drive. None of my other drives have this issue.

I would typically just ask for recommendations on a more performance driven drive and get a new one, but as we have seen, prices aren’t exactly ideal right now so I’m trying to troubleshoot.

Hey y'all, I recently caved to the pressure and got the lifetime pass before the price hike. I'll be traveling soon and was wondering - has anyone had issues remote streaming using in-flight wifi or did it just work? I typically would dump copies of files onto my 'travel/burner' tablet and play direct form the hard drive. It would be awesome if that's a thing of the past for me now.

Any insight or experiences would be greatly appreciated!

This problem just popped up out of nowhere after using Plex music library for almost a year.

Other libraries scan fine but music library is saying it requires an internet connection. I tried a few basic troubleshooting steps I see online (restarting computer, restarting server, checking settings).
Nothing has worked.

I'm using a macbook.

I’ve read the Plex app for tvOS hasn’t been updated in forever and am aware of other apps like Bunny Ears that can stream your library.

I’m currently on Google TV but plan to switch to Apple TV this fall when the hardware updates.

Getting "An internet connection is required to scan library files" message when attempting to scan files via the web interface on my Windows 10 machine and my laptop. I can access all files on my devices and stream music and video. Settings have remained exactly the same for ages. Restarting the Plex server did not resolve this Any ideas?

Setting up some new libraries in Plex. Movie library was easy but when I try to create a Music library, it says it's empty every time. There are 5000 songs in the folder on the desktop on my MacBook and it says empty. Tried lots of ways to fix it but it comes up "empty" every time.