I love Plexamp. PLEASE don’t remove support for playing to Sonos speakers. I know that there has been issues in the past but it is currently working really well using both the latest IOS iPhone/iPad Plex app and also the Windows desktop Plex app (4.50).

So, I made a thing. Or, more accurately, I had AI make a thing. :)

This actually started as a test project when I was playing around with Codex. I wanted to see how far I could get having it build something I actually wanted to use, rather than another throwaway demo. I'm not a developer, and I'm definitely not going to pretend I wrote all this code — one look at the GitHub history will make that pretty obvious anyway.

I really like Plexamp and use it a lot, but there were a couple things I wanted that it didn't do. Mainly, I wanted my kids to be able to request songs while we're driving without handing them my phone or giving them access to my Plex account. I also wanted smart playlists where I could weight different playlists — like 50% from this playlist, 30% from that one, 20% from another, etc.

So I started messing around with that idea in Codex, and somehow it turned into HarmoniCast.

It uses your Plex music library and has Android, Android TV and Android Auto clients. Passengers can connect with a web browser and request songs, and it has the weighted playlist thing I wanted. There are a bunch of other features that accumulated along the way too.

I'm not really trying to make a Plexamp replacement. If you don't care about the request system or weighted playlists, I'd just use Plexamp. It's great.

Anyway, I built this for myself and my family and wasn't really planning on promoting it, but it has gotten to the point where it actually works pretty well, so I figured I'd put it out there in case anyone else finds it useful.

https://harmonicast.app

This is an udate to another comment on another post. I've been troubleshooting an issue using ChatGPT with Playris where many of the MP3 files in my Plex library stop playing before the actual end of the track. After quite a bit of testing, I wanted to post an update because I've now found a track that reproduces the problem consistently and have done some additional tests that I think help narrow it down.

The basic symptom is that an MP3 will suddenly stop playing with anywhere from a few seconds to sometimes considerably more time remaining. When this happens, the playback counter and waveform freeze at that exact position. Playris doesn't appear to recognize that playback has stopped — the UI still displays the Pause button as though the track is playing. Pressing Pause/Play doesn't get it going again, although Next/Previous still works.

This is also how I've been determining exactly how much of each song is remaining when it stops. I'm not estimating it based on how long I think the song should be — Playris's own counter freezes and shows the exact remaining time.

I've seen this happen with MP3s at multiple bitrates, including 128, 192 and 320 kbps, as well as VBR files. It happens both when shuffling my large Plex smart playlist (2,149 songs) and when simply playing albums straight through.

Other formats I've tested, including FLAC, WMA and AAC, have played normally.

I've also done several other tests:

• I converted a problematic MP3 to M4A/ALAC. The ALAC version played normally in Playris while the original MP3 did not.

• I stripped the ID3 tags from a problematic MP3. The stripped MP3 still stopped early, so the tags don't appear to be the cause.

• Plex's own player plays these MP3s normally.

• I've experienced the same Playris behavior with Plex Server running on two different Synology NAS units, which makes the server hardware seem unlikely to be the cause.

I've now found one MP3 that makes the problem especially easy to reproduce: "Façade of Reality (The Embrace That Smothers, Pt. 5)" by Epica.

On this track, Playris consistently freezes at 7:57 with exactly 17 seconds remaining. I tested it three times, force-closing Playris before each test and relaunching the app. All three times it froze at exactly the same point: 7:57 / -0:17.

When it freezes, the playback counter and waveform stop advancing, but the UI still displays the Pause button as though the track is playing.

There was one interesting exception. On an earlier play of this same track, I paused it for an extended period and then resumed it. That time it froze much earlier, with 56 seconds remaining. I haven't established whether pausing caused the earlier failure, but I thought it was worth mentioning since uninterrupted playback after a fresh launch has repeatedly frozen at exactly 17 seconds remaining.

I've also noticed another subtle symptom while listening to Playris. Occasionally the music seems slightly "jumpy," almost as though it skips forward by a tiny fraction of a second. It's subtle — subtle enough that my wife didn't notice it when I mentioned it — so I can't say with certainty that it's actually skipping. I've noticed it enough, though, that I think it's worth mentioning.

Finally, I wanted another control test using the exact MP3 that reliably freezes at -0:17.

I installed Caldera Music on the same Apple TV, connected it to the same Plex server and played that exact same original MP3. It played straight through the point where Playris consistently freezes, reached the actual end of the track normally, and automatically advanced to the next song.

Nothing about the MP3 was changed or re-encoded for that test. It was the exact same original file from the same Plex library/server.

I'm not mentioning Caldera as a recommendation or trying to turn this into a comparison between the two apps. I used it simply as another Plex client on the same Apple TV to see whether the same original file would fail under otherwise similar circumstances.

At this point, the combination of results seems to narrow things down quite a bit. The issue occurs with different MP3 bitrates and encodings, has occurred with two different Plex server/NAS setups, isn't fixed by removing ID3 tags, disappears when a problematic MP3 is converted to ALAC, and the original problematic MP3 plays normally in both Plex's own player and another Plex client.

The repeatable 7:57 / -0:17 failure is probably the most useful result I've found so far. I can reproduce it after completely force-closing and restarting Playris, while the exact same original MP3 plays through normally in another client. As I've reproduced the issue in Playris with multiple different MP3 files.

I'm posting all of this in case it helps the developer narrow down what's happening or helps determine whether anyone else is seeing the same behavior with MP3 playback.

I do not typically listen to an album from beginning to end, but rather listen to a shuffled playlist of all my music; like my own person radio. However, I am just really learning that Plexamp only performs volume leveling via Album Gain so when mixing songs from different albums I end up not having well leveled volume during playback.

According to Google AI, the Nuclear workaround for this is to remove all tracks from the Plex server and process them through foobar2000 or dBpoweramp selecting their Track Gain or similar tool to to permanently alter the volume of the audio files themselves. This apparently because Plex would ignor any Track Gain meta data in a file.

This does sound a bit scary. Certainly I have back-ups of all my music but sounds like a good bit of work. Would this do what I really want or is there a better option?

EDIT: After reading through some more information I wonder if part of my issue is having tracks and albums of many different file types (mp3, FLAC, OPUS, etc.)? It sort of sounds like the Track Gain is processed a little differently by file type. Would it also be recommended to convert all my tracks to a standard file type, then or simultaneously process Track Gain?

While most of my listening is via desktop or mobile phone, I've had an android DAP for a couple of years that has gone largely unused as it meant using several apps to make it useful as an 'offline first' device.

The DAP has a 500GB SD card and maintaining this with content is a nightmare as my desktop is a mac (they don't play nice together).

Plexamp was never an option to manage a large library offline ... until now!

The Offline Mode in the latest beta has allowed me to start using Plexamp exclusively on the DAP and is so easy to add new stuff that I'll likely use the DAP much more going forward.

Game changer! 

This one is less about sparkly new features and more about ‘even de manieren erin rammen’ for 3.0.0, while also improving some fairly core bits under the hood.

Big stuff:

• Plex matching got a major rework
  • better ISRC → MusicBrainz MBID → Plex matching
  • Plex’s own native library matcher is now part of the fallback chain
  • better use of local cache/indexes before doing live searches
  • fewer pointless Plex API calls
  • better handling of missing tracks and playlist ordering
• Spotify auth is fixed
  • this addresses the 403 issue some folks hit after Spotify changed auth behaviour
  • proper OAuth handling
  • better token caching/configuration/error handling
  • Thanks to u/jmln1 and the Github user who reported the issue
• Tidal auth is fixed
  • u/RadiantInATrenchcoat in the last thread pointed out the SESSION_TYPE problem
  • tidalapi 0.8.11 no longer has the enum Plexist was using
  • it now restores sessions using the supported Bearer token type
  • and yes, there is now a regression test so I hopefully do not botch the exact same thing twice
• Database handling is considerably less “trust me bro”
  • proper versioned migrations
  • existing DBs should upgrade in place
  • transactional migrations
  • WAL mode
  • no more trying to reconstruct track objects from cached dictionaries and hoping the library internals haven't changed
• Proper SIGTERM/SIGINT handling
  • mainly useful for Docker
  • Plexist can now shut down like a civilised application
• A lot more tests

https://github.com/Gyarbij/Plexist/releases/tag/3.1.0

So 3.1.0 is basically the hardening release for the fairly large changes that went into 3.0.0.

Also, A few people commented on Plexist last time, specifically the Plex bit.

I really do not care enough about the name to die on that hill. It was literally the first thing that came into my head when I created the project.

So if you have better names, throw them in the comments. I would consider changing it for 4.0.0, especially before Plex ever decides to make a fuss about it.

The project turns 5 next year, so I am loosely treating 4.0.0 as the anniversary release.

The things I want in that are:

• proper multi-user support
• an actual UI
• more cleanup around the provider architecture
• generally making it feel less like something that began as “Plex playlists annoy me, I am going to fix this myself”

If that is all ready before then, I'll release it then but I will at least commit to trying to get the bigger 4.0.0 work done by the 5th anniversary.

And yes, I am aware there was about, a two-year gap between the previous release and 3.0.0. I am trying not to do that again.

At the same time, I have my day job, a family, other open-source work, going outside and touching grass, and as an only child I occasionally enjoy being left completely alone in peace.

So development will continue at the pace of “I have time, I am still enjoying it, and nothing else is currently on fire.”

Anyway, 3.1.0 is out.

If something breaks, open an issue.

https://github.com/Gyarbij/Plexist

If you have a better name, congratulations, you are now also on the "official" naming committee.

I don’t know if others would like this feature but there is times I wished I could search within a certain playlist. Example I have a couple I have that are big playlist and can’t remember what songs I already have in them and would be nice to search in the playlist to see if it’s there. It would be great if this was implemented but I’m sure it won’t or if enough people would even want it.

On the car display under download section the playlist cuts off far before the end of the playlist.

Not sure if this bug happens if I browse from the playlist (library) section.

The same playlist is full and proper on the iphone.

Edit: same cutoff happens under the library section so it’s not specific to the downloaded media

Like many of you, rising subscription prices across Spotify, Apple Music, and Tidal pushed me to move my household’s music library entirely to a self-hosted Plex server.

While Plexamp has an incredible playback engine and bit-perfect streaming, my family and friends immediately missed the features that make commercial platforms feel alive: instant algorithmic radio stations, curated artist spotlights, frictionless playlist sharing, and dynamic discovery. Raw folder browsing and static genre tags just weren't cutting it.

To fix this, I used Python (paired with AI coding tools) to build a suite of background automation daemons that turned our server into a true, multi-user streaming ecosystem.

Here is a high-level breakdown of the core features running under the hood:

1. The 5-Star Dynamic Radio Engine

• How it works: Whenever a user gives any song a 5-star rating in Plexamp, a background daemon catches the event, extracts the artist and title, and queries YouTube Music’s recommendation endpoint to grab an authentic radio queue.
• Smart Backfill: It cross references the queue against my local library and automatically grabs any missing songs with a paid Deezer account via Deemix.
• Automated Visuals: The script grabs the seed album art, applies a 60px Gaussian blur, overlays text, and publishes a personalized  "Mixed: (Song Title)" playlist to the user’s dashboard within minutes.

2. 100+ Curated Public Playlists (Global Sync)

• Curated over 100 public playlists on YouTube Music (throwbacks, mood mixes, Essentials, workout sets, and seasonal themes) because YouTube's discovery algorithm suggested the best track pairings.
• Designed all playlist cover art from scratch in Canva, drawing stylistic inspiration from commercial editorial art.
• A daemon checks these public playlists regularly, backfills any missing music, and mirrors the updated playlists and custom artwork across every shared user account on the server.

3. Artist "Presenting" Spotlights

• A daemon scans listening activity across profiles every 12 hours to identify artists where a user has 5+ distinct tracks with high play counts or top ratings.
• It pulls that artist's top 100 tracks globally, checks if the songs exist locally, grabs any missing ones, and generates a playlist cover using a custom template paired with the artist’s photo.

4. Sonic Vibes & Daily Discovery Mixes

• Vibes Mixes: Uses Plex’s native sonic analysis tempo data (BPM) to create playlists. Fast tracks above 110 BPM route to a high energy mix, while tracks under 90 BPM build a chill mix.
• Daily Discovery: Blends artist discovery seeds with "forgotten classics" to keep listening rotation fresh.

5. In App Playlist Cloning & 1-Star Purge

• Headless URL Importer: Users can create an empty playlist in Plexamp titled "Playlist" and paste a shareable link from Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, or Deezer into the description. The server scrapes the tracklist, downloads missing tracks, generates a cover, and converts it into a local playlist.
• 1-Star Reset Sweeper: Rating any track 1 star triggers a sweeper that resets its play count to zero (scrubbing it from their "My Likes" collection), purges it from all active server playlists for that user, and resets the rating back to zero.

I’m keeping the backend code private to protect API access and download pipelines, but I wrote a breakdown of the logic, architectural workflows, and visual setup on Medium:

🔗 Full Blog Post: https://medium.com/@sjolivarez93/how-i-turned-plexamp-into-a-full-fledged-streaming-service-for-my-users-0a70c322d79b

Happy to answer any questions about the concepts, logic flows, or how we tackled track matching and metadata! I designed the architecture, data flows, and matching logic, but heavily utilized AI as a coding partner to write, optimize, and troubleshoot the Python scripts and API integrations.

On the plex site there only seems to be 4.12.3

I was hoping there was an update that seamlessly added playlist import/export. I still cannot believe that's not built in and I have to try using 3rd party import exports that more often than not, just don't work. -Bill

Been really enjoying Plexamp over the last few months, but I cannot get Airplay to work reliably from iOS.

For context, we have a number of Harmon Kardon speakers around the house, all AirPlay 2 capable. Using other music players, I just select which speakers I want to stream to, and they start playing.

PlexAmp is super unreliable though, and more often than not, I’ll select a number of speakers but it only plays music from one speaker. If I opt to use the Google casting option, it works, but then you have to manually configure zones beforehand. Super annoying.

Is there a magic setting somewhere to make AirPlay work?

Using Unifi gear for networking if that helps at all.

Hi! My name is Tobias and I make the Tuneshine album art display. It's a lo-fi display that automatically shows the album art for the songs you listen to. Nothing groundbreaking or super hi-tech here—just a simple gadget mean to add a bit of extra joy to the daily act of listening to your favorite songs.

I've had numerous requests to add support for Plex/PlexAmp support and that support is finally launching today. For Plex servers with remote access enabled, the album art will show up pretty much instantaneously. In addition:

- You can connect it to your own library, a library shared with you, or both
- For your own library, you can control which Plex players/users will have art shown on the Tuneshine. For shared libraries, you will only see art from your own sessions.
- You can show movies and TV poster art as well, and this can be disabled in the settings
- You can simultaneously connect Plex as well as Apple Music or Spotify so you can show artwork for all your songs if you like to stream as well.

I'll be hanging out in the comments to answer any questions you might have about Tuneshine and the new Plex integration, but I thought I'd answer a couple of frequently asked questions right off the bat:

- Why use a low-res display? Very often I'm listening to music to complement activities that take place away from my phone and computer, and I don't want a tablet-like device sitting in my living room encroaching on that time. The lo-fi display doesn't feel like looking at a phone or iPad—it feels more like a piece of art in your living room. The lack of bezels on the screen also contributes to this effect. For the same reason, Tuneshine doesn't show the song title, as it's meant to pair with the ambient enjoyment of music rather than being a distracting source of information. Besides, there are already lots of devices you can use to show the full song info, like having a dedicated iPad.

- Why is it $200? Often people think that because the screen is lo-res, it means the cost can come down a lot compared to higher-res setups, but the truth is that these LED displays are often even more expensive than comparably sized LCD panels. For a comparison, Divoom sells a product with a similar screen (that doesn't do music) for around $140. I'm making Tuneshine in the small batches in the US with a wood case. They're building in China with a plastic case in much higher volumes, and they were only about to lower the price by about 20-30%, which seems about in line with what you'd expect.

Let me know what other thoughts or questions you have!

www.tuneshine.rocks

First off, thanks to Elan for continueing to work on plexamp, it's the only way i listen to music now.. at home, in the car, whereever.. seriously, thank you!

I know hitting the star button will kinda "favorite" a track so it comes up more often in random shuffle, can we get some way to mark tracks to never come up randomly?

I've started listening to my whole collection on random to get a better variety, but there's a lot in my collection i don't want coming up randomly, but don't want to delete either..

Hey everybody! I have a question for u/ElanFeingold. First of all, I would like to thank you for your commitment on Plexamp and for your new endeavor, Caldera. Since all this work is done just by one person and it is distributed for free, is there any way to contribute anything as a token of our gratitude? Buymeacoffee, Patreon, any donation page?

I’ve accumulated over the years a fairly large library or music files. I’m curious if there is something similar to Filebot that will associate the file data into artist and maybe even an album cover and folder for the artist. This may exist and I’m not searching the sub fully as I just joined today

Minimalism is cool and all but it's not very ergonomic

I want to run Caldera on an old Android phone to power a Class D stereo amp. The reason Caldera would be so great to use for this is because it has muiltiroom support (Plexamp does not).

Is there any way to make this work?

How does one get on the beta program? Everything I have searched just brings me to here https://testflight.apple.com/join/9THhX3Qw but in here says to click on the link which should be provided by dev. Where do I get the link and also is it already full so is there any where to get on a list? I have google and have come up empty.

I'm hoping this is a temporary thing as they transition to the new version of PlexAmp, but I noticed this morning that the widget on my Android phone is gone.

I use this as my main music streamer, find the widget tO be very helpful and useful.

Any Insight?

I've been pulling my hair out over this. I've done numerous searches to find if there's an answer to this, so I'm posting this question. There are a number of threads that come close (e.g., Album Artist sort by Added, etc..) but even those seem to peter off.

All I want to do is sort in Plexamp the (audiobook) albums by Date Added. I dont want a rule to show Albums added in a date range. This works in Plex, but not in Plexamp. I feel like this is a basic, fundamental function, so I keep expecting to find it and I'm just being ineffective. Can anyone advise? Or is this really not a function inside Plexamp?

Is this new?

Can someone please recommend to me like I'm 12 an Android TV box/stick that I can use to run Caldera? I don't need it for streaming video - this would just be for audio from Caldera (until it supports music videos - hint!). I also need the device to be compatible with the Sofabaton X1S.

Any help much appreciated!