Homey Plex application - main discussion thread

jorden

Chromecast without a problem here! 

It is the built in chromecast functionality of my Sony Bravia android TV. Plex running on a synology. I can try later with a 'real'  chromecast v2 to see if that works. 

MikeOne

Thanks @jorden ;

phb

@jorden great  for you, nice  that in works. 

phb

Homey keeps saying now :  could not find any media items

phb

Installed latest version, followed all  instructions  now onlangs get  a message from homey : could not find any media items

Imko

completely removed the APP, installed it again (of course!!) reconnected with the PIN and this time i got the "select" button i missed the last time. Added my test plex media player (desktop install on windows) created a flow Homey found my content so no problem there. But if i run a test the process from the play card keeps turning (i try to start a movie). Did a reboot of homey but sill the same result.

recap:
Reinstall app
Finding server = Yes
Finding player = Yes
Finding media = Yes
Play media = Not yet

posthok

@Imko. You'll have to add another device this time the plex chromecast device. Now you can send a movie to your Chromecast. 

MikeOne

Yes, I'm missing the install device step in your steps @Imko

Imko

@posthok @MikeOne i did add a device.. "Added my test plex media player (desktop install on windows)" and "Finding player = Yes" this is a plex home theater not a chromecast.... is it only possible to send to a chromecast device?

MikeOne

Ah, missed that. No PHT works! There are some things no note. The PHT instance needs to be loggedin with your PMS and it needs to be running. 
Did you try it with a voice command? 
"Okay Homey, watch minions"

Imko

@MikeOne ill dubbel check if PHT is logged in, and ill try the voice command's (when i get home)

Imko

@MikeOne i think its windhoos messing plex up.. has anyone used rasplex + homey succesfull? Voice command runs and no feedback like media not found so i think pht is the "problem"

DieterKoblenz

If I'm not mistaken this app does not work with the Plex Samsung App right?

MikeOne

Correct @DieterKoblenz, samsung doesn't allow it it seems. Only option is a chromecast for now. 

Maybe in the near future it will be possible though. I hope so as it's my main player as well..

MennoVanGrinsven

I still have the problem that a movie is not being played on my chromecast. the chromecast is used (i.e. i see the progress bar), but it finally fails.

If i play those movies through the android plex app, it is working fine. The movie is transcoded to a format the chromecasts can handle. 

is there any news on this problem?

MikeOne

I'm sorry, there isn't yet. I'm pretty limited on time at the moment, plus, I need to be able to reproduce this issue in order for me to find out what is going on. Seeing it does seem to be able to contact plex, understand the voice command and sends the URL to play to the chromecast (blie bar), it seems almost there. Is your PMS up to date? Are you using cc v2? 

I need more information to find out what is going on in order for me to pinpoint where the issue lies. Seeing it works fine for other users (including me), we need to dig deeper.

MennoVanGrinsven

MikeOne said:

I'm sorry, there isn't yet. I'm pretty limited on time at the moment, plus, I need to be able to reproduce this issue in order for me to find out what is going on. Seeing it does seem to be able to contact plex, understand the voice command and sends the URL to play to the chromecast (blie bar), it seems almost there. Is your PMS up to date? Are you using cc v2? 

I need more information to find out what is going on in order for me to pinpoint where the issue lies. Seeing it works fine for other users (including me), we need to dig deeper.

It is with a chromecast v2 and my PMS is up to date.
If there are things that i can check, let me know.

posthok

Sorry, maybe a silly question.
Is'nt it possible to add dlna ? This way you can send media to any compatible device.

MikeOne

Probably not silly at all :-)

Yes it is on my list of things to investigate.. The challenge though is that Homey is just the intermediate so it simply gives a device (ChromeCast in this case) a URL and it is up to the device to then contact that device (in this case the PMS) and start streaming. With DLNA the use case is different. 

MikeOne

@MennoVanGrinsven  - maybe we should have a look at your network? ChromeCast will try to connect to your PMS using the IP address (the local one) as shown on the (Homey Plex) settings page. Would there be any reason why your chromecast would be unable to reach that address maybe? different subnet? Maybe separated WiFi networks?

Still thinking about possible reasons why..

MikeOne

@Imko did you manage to get it working with your PHT?

MennoVanGrinsven

@MikeOne No subnets. My PMS is wired to my router. Besides playing movies through my CC using the Plex App is working fine. 
But there is in thing that I could check, but I do not think that would be a problem . 

MikeOne

Yes, but that might use another IP address..

MennoVanGrinsven

@MikeOne the only thing I can check is ufw. But I thought I checked that already. 

MikeOne

The URL for PMS uses the local IP as shown in settings, however, there might be more IP's available for your PMS machine (ethernet, wifi etc). So it might not choose the correct one. Secondly, the PMS streaming url uses a loopback address to connect to itself (127.0.0.1) so it is technically possible that that loopback address is bound to another interface then the actual connection IP. That *might* cause an issue on some setups I guess..

MennoVanGrinsven

@MikeOne hmm. I am running PMS on a HP ProLiant microserver that has 2 ethernet controllers. Only one is used . Could be a routing issue indeed . 

Edit:
No only one interface is used in the routing table . 

MikeOne

The question is, does PMS see both interfaces maybe? 

login to plex.tv and visit https://plex.tv/devices.xml
Search for your (active) PMS and check which Connection URI's it shows. If it also shows the inactive interface, we might have a winner...

MikeOne

Hmmm... this is probably a red herring now I think about it.. You can see your media and that uses the same IP so it can't be this almost (unless loopback does something weird..)

How handy are you with athom-cli and github? maybe even with NodeJS? 

MennoVanGrinsven

@MikeOne have not tried athom-cli and no experience with node-js , but I used to be a developer (c/c++) so do not think it will  end too hard to understand 

MikeOne

In that case, you could install the app directly via athom-cli (get a clone from github). That will give you console output, maybe that will tell us something. 

If you get that to work, you can also get newer versions on your homey much quicker as I don't have to do release updates in the app store..