Did you have to link this LG Plex client with a pin or login link?
Yep! Linked with the Link | Plex method and signed in with the admin user (me)
Did you customize the monitored users (or other options) in the Plex section on the Integrations page?
Nope
Is that the Plex server IP? Sometimes clients report their IP that way. Or is the TV connected to both wifi and ethernet and thatās the other IP?
Since it seems like thereās something a bit off in the data being returned by the Plex server, can you share the output of these two commands while the TV is playing?:
curl http://<PLEX_SERVER_IP>:32400/clients?X-Plex-Token=<TOKEN>
curl http://<PLEX_SERVER_IP>:32400/status/sessions?X-Plex-Token=<TOKEN>
Make sure to remove your token before posting.
Nope, that IP isnāt actually in use, as far as I can tell. Just confirmed the TV is .183 and the server is .220. Everything on my network has a reserved IP higher than 149. Pinging 10.0.1.141 gives a timeout, as I would expect
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<MediaContainer size="2">
<Server name="Chrome" host="10.0.1.220" address="10.0.1.220" port="32400" machineIdentifier="ri6i5o0z88msj6crmxkcldma" version="4.22.3" protocol="plex" product="Plex Web" deviceClass="pc" protocolVersion="3" protocolCapabilities="timeline,playback,navigation,mirror,playqueues" />
<Server name="LG OLED55B9PUA" host="10.0.1.220" address="10.0.1.220" port="32400" machineIdentifier="qmhey9cn2jyn2eutlpr7kkeq" version="4.29.2" protocol="plex" product="Plex for LG" deviceClass="pc" protocolVersion="3" protocolCapabilities="timeline,playback,navigation,mirror,playqueues" />
</MediaContainer>
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<MediaContainer size="1">
<Track addedAt="1323392753" art="/library/metadata/45672/art/1570010193" duration="111804" grandparentArt="/library/metadata/45672/art/1570010193" grandparentGuid="com.plexapp.agents.plexmusic://gracenote/artist/05BA9F4000413157?lang=en" grandparentKey="/library/metadata/45672" grandparentRatingKey="45672" grandparentThumb="/library/metadata/45672/thumb/1570010193" grandparentTitle="Simon & Garfunkel" guid="com.plexapp.agents.plexmusic://gracenote/track/4272471-BA9F40B07E30FD01221BECF5EF73A603/4272480-B18B8B92E5ADAD9463612BBCC0E76340?lang=en" index="9" key="/library/metadata/45682" lastViewedAt="1574093920" librarySectionID="1" librarySectionKey="/library/sections/1" librarySectionTitle="Music" originalTitle="Simon & Garfunkel" parentGuid="com.plexapp.agents.plexmusic://gracenote/album/05BA9F4000413157/4272471-BA9F40B07E30FD01221BECF5EF73A603?lang=en" parentIndex="1" parentKey="/library/metadata/45673" parentRatingKey="45673" parentThumb="/library/metadata/45673/thumb/1491802821" parentTitle="Sounds of Silence" ratingCount="833541" ratingKey="45682" sessionKey="168" summary="" thumb="/library/metadata/45673/thumb/1491802821" title="April Come She Will" type="track" updatedAt="1565400708" viewCount="8" viewOffset="19000">
<Media audioChannels="2" audioCodec="mp3" bitrate="160" container="mp3" duration="111804" id="41933" selected="1">
<Part container="mp3" duration="111804" file="/nas/music/Music/Simon & Garfunkel/Sounds of Silence/09 April Come She Will.mp3" hasThumbnail="1" id="118545" key="/library/parts/118545/1323392753/file.mp3" size="2321212" decision="directplay" selected="1">
<Stream albumGain="-0.74" albumPeak="0.707672" albumRange="8.020374" audioChannelLayout="stereo" bitrate="160" channels="2" codec="mp3" displayTitle="Unknown (MP3 Stereo)" gain="-0.74" id="172130" index="0" loudness="-22.17" lra="8.93" peak="0.458740" samplingRate="44100" selected="1" streamType="2" location="direct" />
</Part>
</Media>
<Mood filter="mood=289" id="289" tag="Tender" />
<Mood filter="mood=170" id="170" tag="Sincere" />
<User title="" />
<Player address="10.0.1.183" device="" machineIdentifier="qmhey9cn2jyn2eutlpr7kkeq" model="OLED55B9PUA" platform="webOS" platformVersion="4.7.0" product="Plex for LG" remotePublicAddress="184.60.220.198" state="playing" title="LG OLED55B9PUA" vendor="" version="4.29.2" local="1" relayed="0" secure="0" userID="1" />
<Session id="ejy8otmy0mu4sd9cd3au0yo7" bandwidth="336" location="lan" />
</Track>
</MediaContainer>
Itās definitely playing, but the HA state is still listed as idle
Very interestingly, it says <User title="" />, but Iām logged in on that plex client with my admin user. The full User information shows up when using any other client. And I just double checked, I am monitoring all users including guests
Okay, I found a solution that makes the user show up and everything appears to be working correctly with HA and Plex together:
I had a āmanual serverā configured in the Plex client. Removed that. All fixed. Odd. Seems to be a Plex issue.
Except: media_player.play_media still does nothing. No error or anything.
Awesome, nice work figuring it out! That was not near the top of my list of ideas. Plex is tricky with odd behaviors like this and every client seems to behave just a little differently from the others.
Iāll see if I can handle this weird edge case somehow.
Iām pretty sure the play_media fix in 0.108 will help here if youāre already able to pause/play this client. Please let me know if it doesnāt.
Thanks again! Iāll check back in when 108 is out
Updated to 108.2 this morning (skipped .0 and .1) and Iām still unable to play media from service calls.
Do you know off-hand how I can trigger the call directly with curl or something, to rule out HA as the issue?
Iāll try to test with a WebOS Plex client sometime this weekend.
As a sanity check, have you installed another Plex custom component?
What do you mean by custom component?
Iām only using plex installed from the integrations UI. I have a few clients and others work correctly when calling the play_media service
There are integrations from outside of what ships with HA, and sometimes they can cause conflicts or weird behavior. Just making sure that wasnāt a possibility first.
Okay, good and bad news. I tested with an LG TV running Plex 4.29.2. Using 0.108.X I wasnāt able to get the media to play, either. Iām still digging into exactly why.
However, when I tested with my current HA dev branch against the unreleased version of plexapi (the underlying library) then I was able to play media fine.
If itās something I can fix in HA without a new library version then Iāll try to get it into a bug release. Otherwise it looks like itāll be fixed in 0.109 if we can get a new plexapi release pushed out before then.
ā¦and of course as soon as Iām able to test again to gather more info it starts working on 0.108.3. Itās working on movies, TV shows, music, etc.
Not sure what I can suggest besides trying again. Perhaps give the TV a power cycle to make sure itās not stuck in a bad state?
Updated to 0.108.3 and still not working. TV is on, Plex is running, and I can see its status in HA (idle).
Iāve tried EPISODE, VIDEO, and MUSIC content types with appropriate content id JSON and nothing will play.
Iām looking through my Plex serverās debug logs, but I donāt see any request based on my random artist/title/etc showing up in its logs, so I donāt think itās ever reaching the server. Itās also now the same for a Roku TV that I have.
There are no errors or log warnings in HA about the service requests either.
Sorry, Iām not quite sure what the current issue is. If youāre able to play/pause but you arenāt seeing any errors or warnings then it means the play_media request is being sent to the client and itās not acting on it for some reason.
I hope to upgrade the plexapi library for 0.109 which should make things more consistent. Itās not available yet but I continue to push.
Iām also going to add a bit more logging to make this more visible and eliminate silent failures.
No worries! Thanks again for all the help
Hey @paulstronaut have you tried 0.109 yet? It has the new plexapi version and better (debug) logging for troubleshooting playback.
Updated, but havenāt had a chance to test yet. Hopefully in the next couple of days!