7 ms·

Plex lost their best users by missing the point of self hosting entirely. Nobody wants to deal with third party downtime, even if it is rare and intermittent.

Plex lost their best users by missing the point of self hosting entirely. Nobody wants to deal with third party downtime, even if it is rare and intermittent. I think most products go through phases like this. Plex has some diehards that have stuck around (I think it's just buyers remorse for the Plex pass) but I think they are at a 5th or 6th tier of "customer" at this point, seeing the continuous churn spiral they are fighting.

imran-iq 4y ago
> Nobody wants to deal with third party downtime Not only that, I don't want my adblocker to have to block services running on my local network (they have some analytics + sentry).
- srcreigh 4y ago
  Does this require any special set up? I’m asking out of laziness.. my local server has pi hole set up, and the other devices use that for DNS thru Tailscale, but I’m not sure what gets blocked for stuff running on the server. I recall some Tailscale setup involved a flag to disable some DNS thing. Hmmm
  - imran-iq 4y ago
    In my case not really. There is server side scanning in which plex shares data about your media with their backend. Not sure if there is any setting to disable that. As far as the web client goes ublock origin handles it for me.
    - srcreigh 4y ago
      Ok. As per my above comment, it should be possible to filter out the analytics/sentry via DNS using pi hole. In theory, you'd just have to set up your Plex machine to use pi hole DNS ad blocking, and ensure that the pi hole domain list includes analytics domains. And Tailscale MagicDNS with the primary DNS server being your Plex/pi hole server, with your other devices configured with Tailscale, should block everything. The only potential blocker I can see is whether the HDMI streaming device makes HTTP requests, in which case it would need to use the Tailscale proxy, and I'm not sure if that's supported.
daemoens 4y ago
I haven't really encountered any issues besides the downtime that has occured maybe twice since I bought the yearly two years ago. Everything just works and I never really notice those three submenus except when I'm logging into a new device and it takes like ~10 seconds to unpin them. Everything has been basically perfect for me.
- hatware 4y ago
  > I haven't really encountered any issues besides the downtime that has occured maybe twice since I bought the yearly two years ago. > I never really notice those three submenus except when I'm logging into a new device and it takes like ~10 seconds to unpin them. Maybe it's just me, but the way you've written these sentences makes it sound like you have buyers remorse. Doesn't sound like things are "basically perfect." FWIW, I left Plex two years ago for Jellyfin, and haven't looked back. Never even bought the garbage Plex Pass.
  - daemoens 4y ago
    How does that sound like buyers remorse? Twice over two years is essentially nothing, and I do the ~10 seconds unpinning like twice a year. It's so close to basically no issues I consider Plex to be perfect for me.
    - hatware 4y ago
      Because if it was actually perfect that's the only feedback you'd give...? > It's so close to basically no issues There are issues. You can keep contradicting yourself by explaining how perfect means there are still problems. I'm enjoying it.
      - daemoens 4y ago
        > It's so close to basically no issues I don't think you understand what I mean. Plex has worked perfectly for two years straight. These 2 issues have taken up less than ~2 minutes of my life. That is equivalent to perfect from my point of view. Stop being unreasonably pedantic about my own words.
katbyte 4y ago
Don’t forget about 3rd party security, they were recently hacked exposing customer accounts details. thier push for online accounts is what ruled it out for me.
indigodaddy 4y ago
You can’t auth directly to your server from a Plex app with a local account anymore? I thought you could still at some point in the past but haven’t tried it in awhile. I know you can still do that from a web browser (I believe)..
- fragmede 4y ago
  it's not officially supported so there's a workaround but that has its own limitations.
d4rti 4y ago
I started using plex when my synology nas stopped supporting smb1 and Sonos doesn’t support anything newer. Do any of the competing solutions work with Sonos and have iOS and webOS (LG TV) apps?
- hatware 4y ago
  Any Subsonic music server works well with this: https://github.com/simojenki/bonob https://github.com/simojenki/bonob
mrlatinos 4y ago
I guess I'm not one of Plex's best users. Huh.

imran-iq 4y ago

> Nobody wants to deal with third party downtime Not only that, I don't want my adblocker to have to block services running on my local network (they have some analytics + sentry).

srcreigh 4y ago
Does this require any special set up? I’m asking out of laziness.. my local server has pi hole set up, and the other devices use that for DNS thru Tailscale, but I’m not sure what gets blocked for stuff running on the server. I recall some Tailscale setup involved a flag to disable some DNS thing. Hmmm
- imran-iq 4y ago
  In my case not really. There is server side scanning in which plex shares data about your media with their backend. Not sure if there is any setting to disable that. As far as the web client goes ublock origin handles it for me.
  - srcreigh 4y ago
    Ok. As per my above comment, it should be possible to filter out the analytics/sentry via DNS using pi hole. In theory, you'd just have to set up your Plex machine to use pi hole DNS ad blocking, and ensure that the pi hole domain list includes analytics domains. And Tailscale MagicDNS with the primary DNS server being your Plex/pi hole server, with your other devices configured with Tailscale, should block everything. The only potential blocker I can see is whether the HDMI streaming device makes HTTP requests, in which case it would need to use the Tailscale proxy, and I'm not sure if that's supported.

daemoens 4y ago

I haven't really encountered any issues besides the downtime that has occured maybe twice since I bought the yearly two years ago. Everything just works and I never really notice those three submenus except when I'm logging into a new device and it takes like ~10 seconds to unpin them. Everything has been basically perfect for me.

hatware 4y ago
> I haven't really encountered any issues besides the downtime that has occured maybe twice since I bought the yearly two years ago. > I never really notice those three submenus except when I'm logging into a new device and it takes like ~10 seconds to unpin them. Maybe it's just me, but the way you've written these sentences makes it sound like you have buyers remorse. Doesn't sound like things are "basically perfect." FWIW, I left Plex two years ago for Jellyfin, and haven't looked back. Never even bought the garbage Plex Pass.
- daemoens 4y ago
  How does that sound like buyers remorse? Twice over two years is essentially nothing, and I do the ~10 seconds unpinning like twice a year. It's so close to basically no issues I consider Plex to be perfect for me.
  - hatware 4y ago
    Because if it was actually perfect that's the only feedback you'd give...? > It's so close to basically no issues There are issues. You can keep contradicting yourself by explaining how perfect means there are still problems. I'm enjoying it.
    - daemoens 4y ago
      > It's so close to basically no issues I don't think you understand what I mean. Plex has worked perfectly for two years straight. These 2 issues have taken up less than ~2 minutes of my life. That is equivalent to perfect from my point of view. Stop being unreasonably pedantic about my own words.

katbyte 4y ago

Don’t forget about 3rd party security, they were recently hacked exposing customer accounts details. thier push for online accounts is what ruled it out for me.

indigodaddy 4y ago

You can’t auth directly to your server from a Plex app with a local account anymore? I thought you could still at some point in the past but haven’t tried it in awhile. I know you can still do that from a web browser (I believe)..

fragmede 4y ago
it's not officially supported so there's a workaround but that has its own limitations.

d4rti 4y ago

I started using plex when my synology nas stopped supporting smb1 and Sonos doesn’t support anything newer. Do any of the competing solutions work with Sonos and have iOS and webOS (LG TV) apps?

hatware 4y ago
Any Subsonic music server works well with this: https://github.com/simojenki/bonob https://github.com/simojenki/bonob

mrlatinos 4y ago

I guess I'm not one of Plex's best users. Huh.