Plex Media Center for OS X Leopard

+ Top FAQs with Plex - for more help please check the WIKI.

How do I add internet video such as TED, YouTube, CNET etc?
Internet sources are added using the App Store found in the Applications menu. See the following screencast for more info. vimeo.com/3315184
One of the plug-ins has stopped working.
If a plug-in stops working, it’s likely that the structure of the site changed. This doesn’t happen very frequently with most sites, but it’s a definite possibility. When this occurs, an entity we call the “Campfire Robot” springs into action automatically and tracks us down to let us know, and shortly thereafter we can push an update. As such, if a site stops working, the best thing to do is to check the App Store for updates. If you have automatic updates turned on, check your install history to see if an update got installed while you were getting coffee.
I don’t see the Applications Menu Item.
If you previously used v5 of Plex we suggest deleting the folder called Plex found in ~/Library/Application Support/. Many things have changed and a fresh install will ensure the best performance with Plex.
How do I make Movies and TV Shows show up in their respective areas with poster art, plot info, etc?
View this screencast for more info vimeo.com/2758185

Plex 0.8.5: Fixes, fixes, fixes

November 18th, 2009 | Category: Status | Author: elan

The Plex/Eight series is supposed to be about stability, and with all the changes we introduced in the 0.8.3 there were a few regressions that slipped in as well. We’re very sorry about that, and we’ve worked extremely hard since it was released to fix the issues introduced as well as new ones that came to light. So what happened to 0.8.4? We were on the verge of releasing it and then found a few more bugs, so we “nuked” the release. Those of you who sniffed it out on the server, you may want to upgrade now to the real thing.

Without further ado, the fixes:

  • FIX: A bug where Plex and the Plex Media Server could get out of sync and display the wrong contents for a directory.
  • FIX: An issue when stopping music playback, where the GUI “clicks” don’t restore and the playing track is still selected.
  • FIX: Photo thumbnails were broken for plug-ins (thanks to orr721 for the report!)
  • FIX: Hitting the menu button during a blank slideshow causes a crash. (thank to Majkel and other for the report!)
  • FIX: When a track fails to play, Plex jumps into (blank) Now Playing screen anyway.
  • FIX: Sometimes the photo screensaver started going “crazy fast”.
  • FIX: The new remote code logged too much.
  • FIX: The duration didn’t show up in plug-ins.
  • FIX: You weren’t returned to the main menu correctly from items added to your Favorites, or direct links to plug-ins in the Music section. Existing favorites will need to be removed and re-added. (James)
  • FIX: The iTunes plug-in now sorts artists by the “sort artist” field in iTunes. This one is for Scott!
  • FIX: Crashes with WebKit plug-ins that appear in the Music section.
  • FIX: PlexHelper occasionally stopped responding (or responded incorrectly) to button presses.
  • FIX: Sometimes Plex didn’t start after the first run. Believe it or not, this was an OS X bug, now worked around.
  • FIX: Plex hung when using the mouse wheel to scroll through text (thanks to hqrs for the report!)
  • FIX: Changed the servers in the TVDB scraper to use the load balanced ones. (many thanks to kruisje for the fix!)
  • FIX: Fixed a crash loading some RAW files.
  • FIX: DTS-to-AC3 was broken in the last release. Thanks to our audio doctor Ryan who fixed it and improved the AC3 trancoding in the process.
  • FIX: When you select “previous track” it now does the right thing with streamed content: moving to the start of the track or the previous track depending on how far along the track is (awesome, James!)

OK, so I said there were just fixes, right? I lied! James, as usual, pulled out a great new feature or two out of his hat, and we hope you enjoy them.

  • NEW: Plug-in preferences show up on the context menu for the plug-in itself.
  • NEW: Auto-sourcing of remote Plex Media Server iLife plug-ins. Let’s say you have a laptop with iTunes music, or your wife’s iMac has iPhoto on it. No longer do you have to manually add the sources, or wonder if they’ll work when you click on them. With the new version, sources add and remove themselves auto-magically thanks to Bonjour. Make sure you install the new Plex Media Server on the remote machines.
Plex-1.jpg

I’ll leave you with a rare sighting of the Loch Ness Barkley.

Aperture-2.jpg
72 comments

72 Comments so far

  1. Pereza1 November 19th, 2009 12:57 pm

    I’ll be updating tonight. Keep up the great work!!

  2. Jon November 19th, 2009 1:14 pm

    Plex updates always make me feel like a kid on Christmas morning. Thanks guys for all your hard work!

  3. Pereza1 November 19th, 2009 1:22 pm

    I’m updating tonight. Great work!!! Keep it up!! :)

  4. Kent November 19th, 2009 1:23 pm

    Ooh.. like the automagical sources – would be *very* nice if we could extend this logic to video – with the appropriate bits of the library hidden when it isn’t available…

    even better (new library function now) so the library can check 2 places for the same file – so, I can connect to my main lib when at home, but still watch my local copies when doing that whole leave the house thing I’ve read so much about

  5. scotsman77 November 19th, 2009 1:34 pm

    Amazing work guys… keep up the good work.

    The DTS to AC3 conversion is invaluable to me thanks to a Panasonic home cinema system that only accepts DTS soundtracks from DVD source, not optical in. Doh!

  6. Mike November 19th, 2009 1:46 pm

    Just updated and now, when I hit menu, it brings up Front Row and not Plex :(
    (10.5)

  7. elan November 19th, 2009 2:04 pm

    @Mike: Try restarting Plex, and make sure the PlexHelper is running. If all else fails, rebooting should fix the problem, although you really shouldn’t have to.

  8. Maersk November 19th, 2009 2:12 pm

    Thankx to all PLEX team members for this great update on this already fantastic piece of software. Much appreciated.

  9. Simon November 19th, 2009 3:23 pm

    Hi Guys, Just updated and now movie information in context menu jumps to edit title????

  10. elan November 19th, 2009 3:34 pm

    @Simon: Three of us that tried were not able to reproduce that issue.

  11. Andrew November 19th, 2009 3:37 pm

    Thanks for the release!

    Although, it didn’t fix an issue that developed randomly in the last release, where TV episodes are not added from a networked drive. It isn’t the connection, because movies add fine from the same drive, and the file names are identical to other episodes that were successfully added. Any help would be appreciated.

    Thanks again for all your work on this awesome application!

  12. Simon November 19th, 2009 4:01 pm

    Ok just restarted mac mini and opened plex and same issue. If i highlight a movie and press c and then select movie information it opens a screen much like edit title but the heading reads “Enter movie Name” Press enter and same screen pops up again, where as before it used to take me to another menu where i can refresh change thumb etc. Just checked my other system without update and this is doing the same thing now.
    Any clues??? Awesum program by the way!!!!
    Simon

  13. Mark November 19th, 2009 5:13 pm

    I have a really weird error, and it was showing up with 0.8.3 as well. I added a jpg cover art to one of the TV shows that wasn’t coming up in via the TV DB feed (some National Geographic special). Now, when I go through my Music/Photos (the iApp feeds), the jpg cover art shows for my Events, Albums, Artist, Genre, etc. I’ve found the cover art and deleted it locally, but it’s still happening. Any idea? I can log a proper bug report if need be.

    Thanks for all your hardwork! I LOVE PLEX!!!

  14. Ryan Devine November 19th, 2009 7:44 pm

    My computer is named macadamia too!!! i have peanut, pine, bunya, macadamia and walnut!

  15. xain09 November 19th, 2009 9:33 pm

    Thanx again :)

  16. alyaba November 19th, 2009 10:04 pm

    downloading now, thanks for the update everybody.

  17. elan November 19th, 2009 10:25 pm

    @Ryan: All of mine have “mac” in them, like macadamia, macaroon, maczilla, mactenna (don’t ask), etc. Well, except for mini…dammit, now I need to rename it.

  18. Keane16 November 19th, 2009 10:28 pm

    Cheers guys.

    Solid fixes. And them 2 features are cool. :)

  19. AshTemple November 19th, 2009 11:02 pm

    Loving your work! Keep it up!!!!

  20. josh November 19th, 2009 11:10 pm

    Having trouble starting Plex with the AppleRemote. If I start it via mouse/keyboard I can close it with a long menu press on the remote. But I can’t start it with a long menu press. Anybody else?

  21. elan November 20th, 2009 12:51 am

    @josh: Make sure you have the “Always running” preference enabled.

  22. Dellenty November 20th, 2009 2:24 am

    Hi guys. Plex always getting better :)

    Just one question I have upgraded my MacPro server to Snow Leopard and have the auto wake feature setup and working with everything except Plex. Is this due to Plex connecting via SMB?
    My other computers wake the sever all OK to use AFP or printer sharing.

    Thanks for all you great work on Plex

  23. Hanibal November 20th, 2009 4:01 am

    Hi
    First, thank you so much for your hardworking to release the new great version of Plex! :-*

    I’m Vietnamese and I hope you will work on fixing the problems about display Vietnamese subtitle (*.SRT file) – Encoding: UTF-8.

    Thanks in advances ^^

  24. josh November 20th, 2009 4:32 am

    elan: thanks for your response. That did the trick. Opening is fine now. I choose “universal-fernbedinung” under the Apple-Remote Settings and did what you said. Now a long push on “menu” doesn’t navigate me to the Power on/off menu to close the app. Is it working for you?

  25. eerkov November 20th, 2009 5:38 am

    Great to see a new update!

    Maybe this is me being stupid, but how can I download this new version? Download links at the site all still point to 0.8.3. When I start Plex, it asks me to update, downloads and extracts, but nothing else happens… so where does it go exactly?

  26. Bryan November 20th, 2009 6:22 am

    I dunno if its the 0.8.5 update or what. but Cnet is broken!!! =*(

  27. interconnect November 20th, 2009 6:41 am

    release notes on main page point to 0.8.3

  28. Bryan November 20th, 2009 7:02 am

    I dunno if it is because of the update or not, but Cnet is broken!!! =*(

  29. steve November 20th, 2009 7:29 am

    Mine are all names from Macdonalds. BigMac, CheeseBurger, McNugget etc.

  30. elan November 20th, 2009 9:11 am

    @steve: I used to name all of my hard drives “big mac” and “whopper” :)

  31. grid8400 November 20th, 2009 12:30 pm

    Royal with cheese :D

    Tnx guys for the release…

  32. Francesco November 22nd, 2009 12:31 pm

    Siete sempre i piu mitici! grazie a tutti voi.

  33. kgerm November 22nd, 2009 8:46 pm

    the link for 8.3 is showing up as 8.5

  34. 刘承言 November 23rd, 2009 3:28 am

    谢谢你们做出这么好的软件。我和我身边用mac的朋友都很喜欢它。它是我见过就棒的播放器了！

  35. Peter November 24th, 2009 7:13 am

    Hi folks,

    I didn’t load the 0.85 right now. What I want to know: are there made some improvement in slideshow-mode? is it now possibel to have music while looking the pictures – and if not – when will this feature enhance PLEX?

    many thanks

    Peter

  36. Hanibal November 28th, 2009 6:24 am

    Hi
    First, thank you so much for your hardworking to release the new great version of Plex! :-*

    I’m Vietnamese and I hope you will work on fixing the problems about display Vietnamese subtitle (*.SRT file) – Encoding: UTF-8.

    Thanks in advances ^_^

  37. shuffleshu November 28th, 2009 12:14 pm

    Hi elan!
    I can send the Russian language for the Plex 0.8.5? You have an oldest and a lot of mistakes in translation.

  38. Peter November 29th, 2009 5:32 am

    Hello,

    isn’t there anybody out there how will answer my question made on Nov, 24th? (Music with slideshows)

    Peter

  39. elan November 30th, 2009 10:15 am

    @shuffleshu: Please, that would be great!

  40. Poofyhairguy December 1st, 2009 9:38 am

    Thanks for fixing DTS-AC3 support. There are two receivers in my life that can’t decode AC3, and this is invaluable for them!

  41. pavlo December 1st, 2009 11:24 am

    Hello,

    The full screen view seems not to be working fine for this version when you try to do it at a second monitor.

    Does it happen the same to you all?

    Pavlo

  42. Johannes December 6th, 2009 1:56 am

    Hi,
    i am really greatful for this update. I t finally fixed my issue with iTunes with more that 100.000 files!

    THANKS THANKS THANKS!!

  43. Gerry December 6th, 2009 11:33 am

    I love this app! I’ve had a couple issues with Plex crashing though. When I try to listen to lastfm I get the popup prompt saying that it’s opening the playlist then music starts playing and that’s it. The popup never goes away then I wind up having to force quit the app.

  44. David December 7th, 2009 4:40 pm

    Just a question: my 0.8.5 still doesnt scrape properly–once again im facing a downgrade to 0.7.15 the last one that scrapes properly…when is this problem gonna be fixed? the site said it was fixed in an earlier version but now again it says fixed when it really isnt–and i have to downgrade a second time.

  45. Sundance December 9th, 2009 11:31 am

    Super! Thanks for the update. Keep up the great work!

    I am still hoping for some fix on this issue:

    http://forums.plexapp.com/index.php?/topic/10319-video-file-playback-problem

    Sundance

  46. elan December 9th, 2009 10:11 pm

    @Sundance, I checked that thread and I’m hoping that you can do some detective work and track down which file is causing the crash.

  47. Fabio December 10th, 2009 12:36 pm

    Plex is a very good App, but with last update something go wrong, a lot of films report a wrong end time and plex stop the view before the end of film, I tried to change version of VLC but all remain the same.
    It’s a shame, the first in 2 years.
    pls don’t stop to improve it.

  48. o6sidian December 12th, 2009 2:32 am

    “Auto-sourcing of remote Plex Media Server iLife plug-ins”
    You´ve got to be kidding me. This rocks so hard it deserves its own headline!
    I just wanted to get some pics on my plex machine to show friends coming over today and found this. This feature continues with the no-hassle, zero-trouble-once configured approach i love so much about plex.

    Thank you very much!

  49. Mike December 13th, 2009 1:58 pm

    I love this app, and i use it all the time, but i have a question…i recently reformatted my comp and reinstalled the latest version of plex (never had an issue prior to doing this), but now the graphics/fonts/etc look all choppy and not crisp like they once were…is anyone else with leopard/snow leopard having these issues?

    I reinstalled my leopard operating system and noticed this problem, then upgraded to snow leopard and still am having this issue.

  50. DJ Rivera December 17th, 2009 8:39 pm

    Will there ever be support built in for bluetooth headsets?

  51. Peter December 20th, 2009 8:10 am

    It’s me again!

    some weeks ago I asked the question how to have music while watching slideshows in 0.8.5. There was no answer till today :-( ((

    1nd possibility: nobody (beside of me) is watching pictures with Plex
    2nd possibility: nobody is bored watching thousands of pictures without music
    3rd possibility: I’am too stupid to figure out how it works

    if possibilty 3 : please tell me where I can find a manual how to

    Peter

  52. subcell December 20th, 2009 3:04 pm

    While…it’s all good…

    I still can’t read m2ts files under Snow Leopard…. it hangs after 10 seconds…

    Anyone had this problem?

  53. elan December 21st, 2009 11:21 am

    @Peter: Sorry, you’d probably get a much quicker answer posting to the forums. If you play music, and then browse over to a photos folder and play the slideshow from there, that *should* give you the effect you’re looking for.

  54. garyREM December 23rd, 2009 5:03 am

    So why does the modify date show July 28, 2008? Very confusing.

  55. Peter December 26th, 2009 7:52 am

    Hi elan,

    thanks for your response. I tried to get music while browsing the photos how you told me to do . …. hmmmmm … it works – but realy not the way I like it:

    Have a look at Apple TV or Playstation 3. On both systems predefined music is played when you start to browse your photos … wouldn’t it be nice to have this feature in PLEX?

    If I would be familar with programming I would try to develop an own solution… but last time I was programming I did it in Basic 10 years ago :-)

    So do you think the function can be implemented soon? Only a button “play music while browsing pictures” is needed in the preferences. To make it a little bit more comfortable the user should have the chance to make the choice directly in slideshowmode while watching pictures.

    What do you think about that?

    Looking forward to hearing from you

    Peter

  56. CF December 30th, 2009 6:18 am

    Hi, why not give us a release with a working support for Snow Leopard?

  57. elan December 30th, 2009 10:31 am

    @CF: The current release is working fine on Snow Leopard so I’m confused by your request :)

  58. Jonas January 1st, 2010 6:55 am

    @elan: I understand CF’s question. The “download button” on the first page of plexapp.com sais:

    Download v0.8.5
    Intel/Leopard Only

    Confusing…

  59. elan January 1st, 2010 3:21 pm

    @Jonas: Excellent point, I apologize! I’m fixing right now :)

  60. Peter January 12th, 2010 5:28 am

    It’s me again – is there really nobody out there missing music during slideshows in PLEX ???

    Peter

  61. Edward Imbier January 25th, 2010 7:30 pm

    After I installed Snow Leopard, the newest version of Plex opens but stalls. It does not access any application television programs any longer. I re-installed Plex with no improvement.

  62. Daniel Rhodes January 30th, 2010 11:12 am

    Hello,
    I stay away from intel and was wondering if there is a version of plex somewhere for the PPC macs.
    Thanks,
    Daniel

  63. Jiraya February 18th, 2010 5:33 pm

    Hi,
    I’m running OSX 10.6.2 on a macbook with intel graphics and the menu color in the application looks just awful, but no problems with watching videos.
    Is anyone else experiencing the same problem?

  64. elan February 19th, 2010 11:54 pm

    @Jiraya: AFAIK, this is a graphics driver bug with X3100 on Snow Leopard. If you search in the forums you’ll find more.

  65. Andy April 6th, 2010 9:20 am

    Is there any way of making the menu text font any bigger than the default ?
    I have my iMac situated way across the room & cannot make out the small text :-(
    Thanks
    Andy

  66. Ryan April 24th, 2010 1:34 pm

    I’ve been trying to run front row/understudy and have been frustrated until I stumbled on this Plex. How awesome this program is! Why doesn’t Apple hire you guys and switch our front row to Plex????! Great job really, it works and looks damn good.

  67. Jasper April 28th, 2010 7:58 am

    There were some issues using Plex and Snow Leopard (Apple Remote related amongst others). Are these issues fixed yet? Can I safely upgrade to Snow Leopard at the moment?

  68. pamper May 12th, 2010 11:43 am

    Very good product guys!!!
    Plex is a great Media Center for OSX, only a minor issues in current version.
    Have you an estimated date for the next release?

  69. Ben June 7th, 2010 11:58 am

    I thought it was absolutely hilarious that my search for a program to organize TV Shows led me to your Plex application, wherein your video depicts you organizing none other than Arrested Development, Lost, and Oz – three of the four shows I’m organizing!

    Coincidence aside, Plex is fantastic. It’s far superior to Front Row or any alternative floating around; the theme music feature alone is ingenious.

    One issue I’ve noticed: When trying to replace a season cover via “Set Season Thumb,” the app hangs indefinitely until I force quit. This happens every time I try to edit the thumb for “Fringe” which for some odd reason is displaying “Parks and Recreation” as its season thumbnail.

  70. nian June 21st, 2010 7:41 am

    Well great job :) I just bought a mac mini for to use as media center my old xbox don´t want to play anymore :( and when I looked at all plugins for the swedish users i was sold :)

  71. philfoster July 6th, 2010 3:27 am

    Tried setting up on my i7 iMac running OS X 10.6.4 and keeps on crashing, is a fix coming?

  72. JaceRobinson July 15th, 2010 8:01 pm

    Running 8.5 on OSX 10.5.8, just recently I can’t seem to get all my movies to scrape properly. I just get 100s of titles saying “Movies” and a rating of 1.90! I haven’t had any problems before with naming conventions etc. Any clues?

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