Plex Media Server Manager - Installation and Configuration

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Tue Mar 31, 2015 10:50 am
RogueProeliator offline
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Plex Media Server Manager - Installation and Configuration

Quick Download: Plugin v2.0.2 | GitHub Repository

Introducing the Plex Media Server Manager Plugin
This Indigo 6.0+ plugin allows Indigo to monitor, and in the future control, Plex Media Server installations and their connected clients. Plex Media Server is a popular media-streaming server that can run on OS X, among other platforms, and stream to supported clients as well as over DLNA. This plugin supports v0.9+ using the official XML-based API.

_**INDIGO 6 IMPORTANT NOTE:**_ The Indigo 6 version of this plugin is end-of-life with respect to new development, however the latest stable version on Indigo 6 is still available on the releases page and is working as expected at the moment. Please consider an upgrade to Indigo 7 to support further development of our favorite HA platform!

Installation and Configuration
Downloading the Plugin Package
The latest version of the plugin is v2.0.2 and may be downloaded here.

Previous and pre-release versions of the plugin are available for download in the GitHub Releases section... those versions in beta will be marked as a Pre-Release and will not appear in update notifications. Once installed, you may use the Check for Updates option in the plugin's menu to check for and download updates.

Configuring the Plugin
Upon first installation you will be asked to configure the plugin; please see the instructions on the configuration screen for more information. Most users should be fine with the default values.

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Plugin Devices
Plex Media Server Devices
You will need to create a single Plex Media Server device for each server installation that you wish to monitor. This Indigo device will track basic information such as the number of connected clients and active sessions. Upon creating the new Indigo device, you will be presented with the device configuration screen:

Image

Plex Media Client Devices
Plex Media Client devices allow you to monitor particular clients which connect to the Plex Media Server which you setup in the previous step. This will allow you track their current state (e.g. connected, playing, paused, disconnected) as well as obtain information about the media that they are currently playing -- such as the title, rating, artwork, etc. You can also trigger off the current state in order to setup theater scenes or turn on lights whenever the client stops for that mid-movie popcorn break!

When you create this device in Indigo it will show you a device configuration dialog, as seen below. Select the Plex Media Server and the client you wish to monitor from the list of currently-connected clients. In order for your client to appear here, it must be actively connected to the Plex Media Server. The best way to ensure it is seen is to begin playing a movie, music or TV show on the client (it may be paused).

Image

Alternatively, if you do not care about what particular client is connected and just the connections, you may use the Plex Media Client Slot device. Instead of selecting a particular client, you tell it to monitor the first connection (Slot 1), the second connected client (Slot 2), etc. This is most often used to be able to show a control page with all of the connections to the server.

Available Device States
The plugin tracks several devices states which are updated according to the polling frequency set in Plex Media Server Device Config as seen above; both the server and client states are updated according to the update polling frequency.

Plex Media Server Device States
  • connectionState - track if Indigo has been able to successfully create/maintain a connection to the server
  • serverVersion - reports the version of the server software installed and monitored by the plugin
  • transcoderActiveVideoSessions - tracks the number of active transcoding sessions being processed by the server
  • connectedClientCount - the number of clients connected to the server (not accurate at this time)
  • activeSessionsCount - the number of clients actively streaming content from the server

Plex Media Client Device States
  • clientConnectionStatus - the current state of the client -- Connected, Not Connected, Paused or Playing
  • currentUser - the name of the current user logged in via the client
  • currentlyPlayingTitle - the title of the currently playing media (title of the movie or "Series : Episode Title" for TV shows)
  • currentlyPlayingSummary - the summary/description provided for the currently playing media
  • currentlyPlayingArtUrl - the relative URL that may be used to display the currently playing media's artwork
  • currentlyPlayingThumbnailUrl - the relative URL that may be used to display the currently playing media's thumbnail artwork
  • currentlyPlayingMediaType - the type of media currently being played -- Clip, Movie, Playlist Clip, Trailer, TV Episode or Unknown
  • currentlPlayingTitleYear - the release year of the currently playing title
  • currentlyPlayingStarRating - the "star rating" of the currently playing media
  • currentlyPlayingContentRating - the "content rating" of the currently playing media -- such as G, PG, PG-13, etc.
  • currentlyPlayingContentResolution - the resolution of the currently playing media - such as 720 or 1080
  • currentlyPlayingContentLengthMS - the length, in milliseconds, of the currently playing media
  • currentlyPlayingContentLengthOffset - the current position of the client within the currently playing media
  • currentlyPlayingContentPercentComplete - the current position of the client as a percentage complete
  • playerDeviceTitle - the name of the device which is playing this media (e.g. Roku 2 XS)

Available Actions

  • Download Currently Playing Art / Download Currently Playing Art for Slot - this allows you to download the various artwork associated with the currently playing media file of a client and, optionally, define a "no artwork available" image to use when none is found (or the client is disconnected). Use with the standard configuration dialog for a description of the fields, or it may be executed via script:
    Image

    via scripting:
    Code: Select all
    plexMediaServerManager = indigo.server.getPlugin("com.duncanware.plexMediaServerManager")
    plexMediaServerManager.executeAction("downloadCurrentlyPlayingArt", <YOUR_DEVICE_ID>, props={"artElement":"art", "saveToFilename":"/Users/aashe/Pictures/CurrentlyPlayingArt.png", "noArtworkFilename":"/Users/aashe/Pictures/NoArtworkAvailablePlaceholder.png"})
    artElement may be one of art, thumb, parentThumb, grandparentArt, grandparentThumb. Generally speaking "art" refers to the movie or episode; parent and grandparent refer to the season and series art for TV Shows. Note that the thumbnail version is often NOT just a small image of the primary art - it is generally different (often a still from the video).

Posted on
Fri Aug 28, 2015 8:43 pm
RogueProeliator offline
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Posts: 2501
Joined: Nov 13, 2012
Location: Baton Rouge, LA

Re: Plex Media Server Manager - Installation and Configurati

v0.8.17 Released
Plex Media Server Manager has been upgraded to v0.8.17, with the following changes:

  • Support for secure access via HTTPS (requires Plex Media Server v0.9.12.3)
  • Support for authentication! You no longer need to turn off authentication on the local network
  • A new device type for the "unnamed" clients
  • Unicode support throughout the plugin
  • Friendlier error messages and debug options

Known Issues
The new Plex Media Client Slot device type does not show up as a valid target for the download art device. This will be remedied shortly as it may have to be a new action.

Posted on
Fri Oct 02, 2015 9:45 pm
RogueProeliator offline
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Posts: 2501
Joined: Nov 13, 2012
Location: Baton Rouge, LA

Re: Plex Media Server Manager - Installation and Configurati

v1.0.17 Released
Plex Media Server Manager has been upgraded to v1.0.17, with the following changes:

  • Fixed bug causing grandparent art url to not clear itself when a client disconnected after playing a TV show
  • Added "Currently Playing Summary" state for tracking the description/summary of the currently playing title
  • Added a "Device Title" state to show the name of the client which is connected
  • Added an art download action for "Slot" type devices

Posted on
Wed May 04, 2016 9:59 pm
RogueProeliator offline
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Posts: 2501
Joined: Nov 13, 2012
Location: Baton Rouge, LA

Re: Plex Media Server Manager - Installation and Configurati

v1.1.1 Released
Plex Media Server Manager has been upgraded to v1.1.1; the download link has changed and may be downloaded here. Future updates may be downloaded at this link or via the Check For Updates option in the Plugins menu. This version is released with the following changes:

  • Changes updater to use GitHub (thanks jheddings)
  • Logging level changes as per Indigo's recommendations to eliminate extraneous logging from 3rd party libraries
The logging fix is the most important / recognizable fix... this successfully shut down the HTTP Connection notifications on my system, let me know if you still see any after this update!

Posted on
Mon Jul 11, 2016 11:31 pm
RogueProeliator offline
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Posts: 2501
Joined: Nov 13, 2012
Location: Baton Rouge, LA

Re: Plex Media Server Manager - Installation and Configurati

v1.1.2 Released
Plex Media Server Manager has been upgraded to v1.1.2; the download link has changed and may be downloaded here. Future updates may be downloaded at this link or via the Check For Updates option in the Plugins menu. This version is released with the following changes:

  • Added Buffering status as a valid client state
  • Documentation in initial post and on GitHub updated

Posted on
Wed Aug 24, 2016 10:27 pm
RogueProeliator offline
User avatar
Posts: 2501
Joined: Nov 13, 2012
Location: Baton Rouge, LA

Re: Plex Media Server Manager - Installation and Configurati

v1.2.1 Released
Plex Media Server Manager has been upgraded to v1.2.1; the download link has changed and may be downloaded here. Future updates may be downloaded at this link or via the Check For Updates option in the Plugins menu. This version is released with the following changes:

  • Added two states for better display of Content Length and Current Position for displaying in H:MM:SS format:
    currentlyPlayingContentLengthDisplay
    currentlyPlayingContentLengthOffsetDisplay
  • Bug fix causing an error calculating percentage complete at times

Posted on
Sat Nov 12, 2016 11:34 pm
RogueProeliator offline
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Posts: 2501
Joined: Nov 13, 2012
Location: Baton Rouge, LA

Re: Plex Media Server Manager - Installation and Configurati

v2.0.2 Released
Plex Media Server Manager has been upgraded to v2.0.2; the download link has changed and may be downloaded here. This version is released with the following changes:

  • Updated to full Indigo 7 support
  • Significantly faster updates when clients are found, reduced CPU usage during updates
  • Added ability to control connected clients from the plugin
  • Indigo 7 is now required for this and all future plugin versions

Posted on
Sun Oct 15, 2017 10:50 pm
RogueProeliator offline
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Posts: 2501
Joined: Nov 13, 2012
Location: Baton Rouge, LA

Re: Plex Media Server Manager - Installation and Configurati

v2.0.4 Released
Plex Media Server Manager has been upgraded to v2.0.4 and may be downloaded here or via the plugin menu within Indigo. This version is a minor update and released with the following changes:

  • Minor UI Updates
  • Migrated Actions to the Device Actions sub menu
  • Fixed bug that failed to log the detailed error messages on some command failures

Posted on
Thu Jul 05, 2018 10:48 pm
RogueProeliator offline
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Posts: 2501
Joined: Nov 13, 2012
Location: Baton Rouge, LA

Re: Plex Media Server Manager - Installation and Configurati

v2.2.0 Released
Plex Media Server Manager has been upgraded to v2.2.0 and may be downloaded via the Plugin Store. The following changes are included:

  • Removed the non-functioning version check that was tied to GitHub
  • Added genre information for media (new state)

Posted on
Mon Dec 03, 2018 10:13 pm
RogueProeliator offline
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Posts: 2501
Joined: Nov 13, 2012
Location: Baton Rouge, LA

Re: Plex Media Server Manager - Installation and Configurati

v2.3.4 Released
Plex Media Server Manager has been upgraded to v2.3.4 and may be downloaded via the Plugin Store. The following changes are included:

  • Fixed issue causing error when streaming live TV on a Homerun style device
  • Added buffering and "other" state to client and slot devices Status
  • Added "stopped" state for clients
  • Added update check functionality against the Plugin Store version

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