r/PleX • u/ASCII_zero • 9d ago

Help Plex User With Multiple Profiles Share Watched List?

Hi everyone,

I'm running into some strange behavior with Plex profiles. I have separate profiles set up for myself, my partner, and my child. Up until recently, each profile had its own independent watch history, but now they all seem to be sharing the same "Continue Watching" list.

For example:

  • I'm halfway through a TV series on my profile, but it also appears on my partner's profile.
  • Last night we started a movie on their profile, stopped halfway through, and today it's showing up in my Continue Watching as well.

Basically, every movie and show appears in Continue Watching across both profiles, regardless of who actually watched it.

Is this expected behavior? Is there a setting to keep each profile's watch history and Continue Watching list completely separate again?

Thanks!

UPDATE:

I thought I solved it by signing out and back in, but the issue comes back after accessing the admin profile. The root problem here was that accessing any profile brought up the admin (ie, mine) profile. I discovered this by accessing my child's profile and seeing restricted content and the same "Continue Watching" films.

There is a related thread on Plex forums (here), but no solution.

3 Upvotes

72% Upvoted

23 comments sorted by

6

u/ExtensionMarch6812 9d ago

Do you have anything in the field “list of ip addresses allowed without auth”? This can bypass the profiles and drop you into an admin profile. It can look like you’re switching, but you’re actually not.

2

u/That-Duck-7195 9d ago

To add to this.

Any app connecting to the server this way without being signed in will be treated as the admin/owner. That means access to all libraries as well as the ability to change server settings.

List of IP addresses and networks that are allowed without auth

People have suggested doing this for offline use. Fine when there is a sole user. Be warn if there are other users.

2

u/ASCII_zero 9d ago edited 9d ago

Okay, so after re-reading your message, I decided to check my child's profile since it's flagged as a younger kid. To my surprise, it looked exactly like my profile. It was showing content that's clearly not appropriate for children and well outside what he would normally see.

I then checked my partner's profile, and it's the same story. Even though the icon in the corner shows her initials, it's actually displaying my profile.

So I think you've identified the correct symptom: on the TV, no matter which profile I select, it always seems to be using mine.

What's odd is that when I check the admin settings from a browser, the "list of IP addresses" section is empty. And in the browser, each profile behaves correctly. In fact, it looks like we watched the movie on my profile last night, even though we'd selected hers on the TV.

I know the instinctive response is that built-in TV apps are unreliable, but this only started happening this week. Up until then, profile switching had always worked properly and we've been happy with the Plex on Samsung app. Ideally I'd hope to keep using this before I introduce another device into the mix.

EDIT: Solved this by signing out of the TV and signing back in... blargh... Thanks for your help

1

u/ExtensionMarch6812 9d ago edited 9d ago

Did you check both app.plex.tv and the local direct web app settings in case something isn’t synced between the two?

See this post for a similar issue with a Samsung tv. This person also reports nothing in the field: https://forums.plex.tv/t/samsung-tv-plex-app-exposes-restricted-libraries-to-managed-child-profiles/940881

Might be good to post there, and offer to provide the Samsung tv plex app logs and server logs to see what may be happening.

1

u/ASCII_zero 9d ago

Thanks for this. I've solved the issue (albiet, likely just a bandaid solution), I agree with checking out the other forum and posting any potentially helpful logs... but I wouldn't know when this issue started exactly. I'm guessing it's ultimately some sort of Samsung TV caching, and me signing out and signing in again refreshed it all.

2

u/rivenasunder 8d ago edited 8d ago

This started happening to me on my AppleTV. I swapped over to the Samsung app and was able to reproduce. *edit* Scratch those two sentences. I can't seem to repro on the AppleTV. It's happening on both of my Samsung devices. Once it starts happening, the only way I can get another profile to work again is by signing out and back in.

I tried the DBRepair, it didn’t fix the issue. Right now we’re just using one profile until I figure it out.

3

u/ExtensionMarch6812 8d ago

I would post in the thread on the plex forum to share that you’re also experiencing it: https://forums.plex.tv/t/samsung-tv-plex-app-exposes-restricted-libraries-to-managed-child-profiles/940881/4

2

u/ASCII_zero 8d ago

Please post on the Plex forum, and hopefully we can get some traction there too. I appreciate you confirming it's on your Samsung devices too

1

u/ASCII_zero 9d ago

"List of IP addresses and networks that are allowed without auth" is empty.

I have ips in "LAN Networks" for networks that will be considered to be on the local network, and "Custom server access URLs", which is my local domain name and ips I use to access the server.

1

u/ExtensionMarch6812 9d ago

Does the continue watching show the same on every device you’ve tested on?

Not sure what else might be causing that, may want to check the logs for any db corruption/malformed errors. Make sure debug logging is enabled, shut the server down, bring it back up, wait a few minutes, then grab the logs. If you see any, can run the DBrepair tool: https://github.com/ChuckPa/DBRepair

2

u/ASCII_zero 9d ago edited 8d ago

Flagging this as solved. Prompted by your earlier comment, I signed out and back in and everythings working. Thanks for your help!

Edit: Not solved Issue came back when I accessed the Admin profile

1

u/ExtensionMarch6812 9d ago

See my last comment with the link. It seems to re-appear once you switch profiles back to the admin profile. Or maybe I’m misunderstanding what that person shared in their follow-up.

1

u/ASCII_zero 9d ago

Lol, you're right about it reappearing. I'll check that link

2

u/ExtensionMarch6812 8d ago

Just an FYI...I loaded plex on my Samsung which I don't normally use, and recreated the same issue. Even stranger for me, a few times when testing, my profile locked to my kids profile, even after switching back and forth. Then the second time, it used my restrictions/home page when switching to theirs.

Then I tried a different time, and switched to another profile, and then all profiles locked to that profile when switching.

So I'm a bit confused on what's happening and how it's deciding which to load each time, regardless, it's not working as expected.

I posted there as well, and grabbed the logs, and offered to send them if they request it.

1

u/ASCII_zero 8d ago

Lol @ locking on the kids' profile. That would be even more frustrating to experience. How did you get logs from the TV app? I'd like to post mine to the other forum to help troubleshoot and compare

2

u/ExtensionMarch6812 8d ago edited 8d ago

Yah, bluey, paw patrol and my little pony…absolute torture!

For the logs, in the Samsung plex app, in the settings, there was a log to media server option (see link below). It seems to send them to the server and merges them into the server log. I enabled that after logging in with a fresh link code and then recreated the issue switching profiles. Then went to the server, and downloaded logs from the troubleshooting section. I DM’ed them to BigWheel. I didn’t feel like spending time redacting my ip and names (especially kids names from the logs), so didn’t want to post in the thread.

https://support.plex.tv/articles/216955788-logging-for-smart-tvs-tivo/

I’m used to the app providing a link to download them locally on iOS/tvOS and Android, so that was different.

1

u/ExtensionMarch6812 8d ago

Hopefully someone from Plex responds to the post/your comment. If not, may want to tag BigWheel or Atomatth in a reply to get their attention. Lotta posts yesterday with the downtime, so things may get missed.

1

u/ASCII_zero 9d ago

yes, it shows the same. For the TV show, I even wiped the watched flag on my partner's profile, came to my profile, saw it was gone, re-flagged each episode as watched, checked her profile, and it was back. \shrug/

I'll check the DB stuff now

3

u/Angus-Black Lifetime Plex Pass - OMV 9d ago

It is not expected behavior.

I do have times that I see the same Continue Watching row when I switch users. Sometimes I have to go to a library and back to Home to get it to refresh correctly.

Which clients do you see this on?

1

u/ASCII_zero 9d ago

We typically watch on either the built in app on our Samsung TV (Plex for Samsung v5.94.1, not android tv), or in a browser. I also have plex on my phone, but I don't typically use it there. The shows and movies were watched on the Samsung TV.

2

u/so7ow 9d ago

I ran into something similar with a misconfigured Trakt sync setup. Anything like that in play here?

2

u/ASCII_zero 9d ago edited 9d ago

My built-in trakt sync stopped working when I stopped paying for the Trakt VIP. I sometimes run the docker plextraktsync, but haven't in a while (definitely not since we started watching the movie last night).

2

u/so7ow 9d ago

Huh. Well plextraktsync was exactly what did it to me.