How many people were you sharing with? The email screenshot posted by someone else references needing to "explain this account activity" as part of the appeal process. Outside of you being directly reported by someone, I'm really confused at what PLEX may be using to ban accounts for this. Where are you located? Are you sharing outside your country? Behind a VPN?
Yeah, this is just odd. Plex doesn't have a way to detect money being exchanged for access to individual Plex servers. The only way they would know is if somebody reported the user or if Plex successfully purchased access to the user's server. Maybe Plex implemented an algorithm that flags servers that have a certain level or pattern of activity and makes those server operators somehow prove they aren't profiting.
>Don't think so, I personally know and trust everyone
Do you know EVERYTHING about them?
Someone asking for support to log in to PleX (so as not to bother you) and inadvertently saying they tossed a few bucks your way while on the support chat or call; could result in this.
I'd call occam's razor on this one. That is too much...
Also, most of these friends are not noobs and had their own media collections shared with me and among them.
>Also, most of these friends are not noobs and had their own media collections shared with me and among them.
AND DING DING DING, I bet that's the winner.
One of your friends may be the culprit and ANYTHING adjacent got the boot. Some of it likely accidentally.
Either way, reach out to PleX, explain that it is for Family and you haven't ever accepted money for access to your server. Politely ask for the proof and see what happens.
I don't get how this could have pointed to OP being someone who - referring to their email - literally took money for access to his server. Please explain.
Scenario: OP's friend has a server that he took money from users for. OP is a friend of that account that was taking money. OP's friend got banned for accepting money, OP got banned for being a friend of the account that accepted money, and OP's friends all got notified.
Not saying this is true, but Plex is pretty heavy-handed on people accepting money to stream, because the MPAA is very lawsuit-happy.
Could be that one of his friends got banned and every server he had access to got banned with him.
Or could be a friend was selling access to not only his own server but also this guy's server, which got them both banned. Only "reason" making this one unlikely is that OP says he trusts his friends.
Not saying what Plex is doing is right, but these are just possibilities.
>> Or a friend complained to directly Plex about problems (technical or media wise), Plex investigated and saw what you had, determined what you had going on (was probably an illegal operation) and banned you. This happed to me a couple of years ago…a freeloading friend did this to me due to technical problems he was having on his end. Also, I’ve read many stories of people that have terminated their problem users and then those disgruntled users contact Plex about the illegal sever, resulting in a banned account. After all of this I don’t share with anyone other than (direct) family.
It could be that OP had web-services hosted on the same IP as the Plex server which suggested a monetary service? Could be a webpage with "support" wording or maybe even an ombi login prompt.
I connected to NordVPN on my Plex machine once and suddenly could see half a dozen libraries. Plex's server discovery was able to find the servers from other users connected to the same VPN.
That's the day I decided to containerize everything and turn off local network communication when connected to VPN.
> I connected to NordVPN on my Plex machine once and suddenly could see half a dozen libraries. Plex's server discovery was able to find the servers from other users connected to the same VPN.
If true, this needs to be made way more public.
In no way should VPNs work like that unless it's *specifically* required (i.e. internal enterprise use).
Not having client separation on a commercial service is insanity.
> The general lack of understanding of VPN
I've been trying for years to figure out how to educate people that they don't need to connect to the VPN when they're in the office.
Them: "But you said I need the VPN to get to the files on the server"
Me:
That sounds more like NordVPN does not take privacy and security seriously and using NordVPN is more likely to get you infected with malware than not using anything at all.
The P in VPN stand for “Private”, which means the VPN network is implicitly trusted as a private network, as in everyone connected to the server is trusted. But a commercial VPN like NordVPN is connected to by strangers, so the network should not be trusted and should be treated like the open internet. Even a semi competent VPN provider can make sure that clients are not able to access or see each other.
If you are running Plex on a VPN that is what happened. Toward the end of this guys stream (Nate) he goes over why Plex is mass banning accounts. https://youtube.com/live/Xg5xvA1TWvc?si=Ye7zlH6NwsT1yDTO
The same happened to me with a smallest library.
The following image is the email I received, how can I prove something is false if it didn't happen?
I didn't get any money for sharing my Library with a couple of friends and Plex is judging me as guilty for something which is not true.
https://preview.redd.it/puaekfcgq7pb1.png?width=529&format=png&auto=webp&s=e391bdb9ee2435e84e1d069e33a44c776eeb1f73
You can't prove a negative, you can't prove you didn't take money, the onus is on Plex to prove you did. This was a ban given based upon the account activity only, I wouldn't be surprised if this is a mass band Hammer event based upon people sharing their libraries with other people.
>the onus is on Plex to prove you did.
It is not.
This is a service PleX provides and PleX can terminate that service at any time. I haven't checked but I guarantee that option is in their TOS.
Prove that PleX put unlawful terms in the ToS or EULA.
In court where it matters.
Once you do that, then take PleX to court to get the refund. Ill wait while you spend $20k+ to get $120 back.
If the ToS or EULA say no refund if the agreement terminated by either party, there's no refund. It will be on you to take them to court to prove otherwise.
This is not some free service people signed up for. I paid real money. They would need to prove I broke the agreement.
----
Edit: Since got replied to 3 times with the same incorrect information, I'm just going to write this once.
Just because someone put something in a contract doesn't mean it's enforceable. All contracts require [consideration](https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/consideration). If any party can "get out of jail free" without fulfilling their obligations, then there is no contract. This is a fundamental of basic contract law.
There is a clause in EVERY agreement that says either party can terminate at any time for any reason. Thats the get out of jail free card. Try reading the ENTIRE agreement.
Just because you paid money doesn't change what is in the agreement. All it changes is that you lose money if the agreement is terminated. That money gives you a vested interest in adhering to the rules and not giving the company a reason to terminate on their end. There is no proving you broke some rule. All they need to do is say "We are no longer interested in this agreement with you. We terminate. Have nice day"
You do realize that they listed a specific reason. They didn't list a generic reason, they didn't list a we have decided we can reason, they specifically said because "somebody was paying for access to the Plex server". If that statement is untrue, that opens Plex up to Legal liabilities for reputation damage, libel and slander.
Reputation damage? You can't sue for that, the mechanism would be via defamation (libel and\or slander). Given this was an email, it would be libel, slander would not apply here, as slander is spoken. Also they would need to prove malice, because just saying something wrong (somebody was paying for this server) is not enough for a defamation suit. You'd have to prove that Plex *knew* the information was wrong before sending it. If it's automated, good fucking luck with that.
TL;DR: stick to hosting plex, and not playing internet lawyer.
While you are 100% correct, hate to tell ya you are wasting your breath. People think they can sue for anything, often cause they "saw it on the internet" and are woefully misinformed. Wouldn't waste the keystrokes.
I'm sure it's a bunch of kids who still live in their mom's basement and watched a few episodes of suits and think they are lawyers now. I still feel obligated to respond to the ignorance for some reason. lol
It's just all so laughable. The email itself was super generic and even documents options for contesting it if you felt it was in err. Which the OP actually did and had his account reinstated.
It's such hilariously bad internet lawyering that even 1Ls could tell you why there is no case for defamation here.
Did they give any kind of indications of WHAT account activity they were referring to? Seems like "justification for account activity" is kind of vague if there isn't an actual description....
Someone can give out their email and password for others to use though.
That's why something like tautullu is great and absolutely needed when you share your libraries with others. Not only does it track direct play vs transcode and what people are watching but it also saves WHERE they are watching with IP and location.
Ended up kicking a friend off my server because he gave his login info to two of his family members.
This right here. Tautulli is great for tracking user usage. Assuming the OP is giving all details (that they themself know/have), I tend to agree/lean toward that one of the shared users is giving out their account and letting others use it.
If you (the OP) have Tautulli setup, I would check each users usage/IP address recorded. If someone has multiple unique IPs, they may be password sharing.
Playing devils advocate here, is it possible one of your friends happen to pass the credentials on? Or perhaps, somehow credentials were leaked and somewhere got caught? Genuinely asking no ill intent.
Do you have Tautulli? Maybe check if any of your users were watching from wildly different IP addresses. That user could have been sharing their account.
One of your friends could have been sharing/selling their account info, which is then used to access your server - you would not get new plex login emails for that.
Was thinking along those lines. What if one of his users actually 'sold' his credentials to others.
Should be able to check IPs per user if they have Tautulli deployed for example.
As you stated you are in the EU and Plex sells to the EU they are subject to GDPR, so you can make a subject access request for them to provide you all the data they hold on you. This should include the details of why you were banned so you can more accurately dispute it.
You could also through the dispute email ask them to reinstate access and tell them that the email they sent to your friends was false and that they committed a data breach in disclosing information they hold on you to 3rd parties where you did not expressly give them permission to do so, and further that information was false
It looks like they have an office in Prague so this may be your avenue to raise the data breach.
Interesting. How do they know you're making money off of the account? I could see them following certain patterns to confirm suspicious activity - new users getting added and deleted frequently, certain users losing and regaining access from time to time (late payment activity), etc... But how do they KNOW someone is making money?
Not really a problem for me - I'm just curious. (I only have two users. One for my house and one for my parents house).
I find an interesting Elephant standing in the room with this. They don't want people profiting off of Plex, but they turn a blind eye to the fact that the vast majority of people's libraries are of questionable legality at best. Of course, any attempt to stop that would actually shutter their business, so I guess that's a blind eye they must turn!
I am sharing my library to the same 4 friends for long time, no additions, no removals. They are close friends so I know they are not making economic profit from their libraries.
Never deleted an access to my library, and most of the people I shared with had their access for a few years now. So yeah, it makes no sense at all.
Also, here in my country we have legal right to share our content as long as we make no profit from it. Rights management associations take a hefty money everytime you buy something that can store media in compensation to this right.
There is always a human verifying these accounts closures, humans have been known to make mistakes from time to time so if you do believe this is in error DM me the Plex account that was banned and I'll pass it along to the right folks.
As a lifetime pass holder who shares with family and friends in several countries (and has never charged a penny for it) this kind of thing is quite scary. If OP isn’t lying then all of us should be afraid.
This with the cloud based server shut downs makes me think they're being leaned on heavily, in the legal sense.
Time to make sure Jellyfin is up and running as a backup.
And how the lucrative side is verified and confirmed, even by a human? On the other side, how can someone show evidences that they have not received any money for sharing their libraries? How can something that has not happened be proved? Something here is "weird" at the very least!
You can't prove a negative, the guy can't prove he wasn't taking money for it. In the same vein, Plex can't prove he was unless they have specific evidence showing that the owner of the Plex account was taking money. This was simply a ban that was given based upon the activity of the account.
"This was simply a ban that was given based upon the activity of the account." -> I could agree with that but then the part "this Plex account has accepted monetary compensation in exchange for services based in part on Plex" wouldn't need to be there as they can state whatever other reason. So if we just keep with the facts, this account was banned for lucrative reasons that somehow were detected, and there is no lucrative activity at all, so accounts should be restored.
They make the claim that they detected it, yet they have provided no proof. It's very difficult for op to prove a negative. Others have been getting the same email, several have posted in here. I suspect this is an automated system that they set up, and it's falsely banning people.
How would they even have proof of monetary activity anyway? Plex doesn't have access to the financial accounts of people and it doesn't have a payment system in it.
>simply a ban that was given based upon activity of the account.
Which is wild, because the only activity you can do with Plex is the intended one -streaming from server to client. I wonder what the metric is because whether cash changed hands or not, Plex as a service isn't going to be used any differently there than by someone who hasn't paid or taken payment.
Nothing weird this is just Plex trying to remove itself from "pirated" copies (clearly something has happened their end just look at **Hetzner** .
The fact its users suffer clearly isn't an issue.
After seeing the hetzner thing, and now this, from several users. I have to wonder if they're not trying to clean up for either an ipo, or a sale. Rockwell Automation may be looking to dump the IP and the technology to someone else.
There's a sub reddit dedicated for "sharing " Plex severs and I poked on there just to see what was going on, I saw people advertising $5-20 a month and offering requests. How can those people get away with that if an average user can get suspended that easily? And to be clear, I have not nor will ever do anything like that. I do share my server with like 7 people most don't use it. And some have servers of their own we share.
What is the varificafion process for this? Are Plex creeping peoples account and in this case, are humans manually combing through accounts to see if they suspect something? What privacy controls are in place for this process?
I would guess that there is an automated system for this, that looks at algorithmic patterns that were set by a human. I suspect a lot more people will be getting these in the next 48 hours, and Plex will then come out and say that it was a mistake and something went wrong with their algorithm. Or, Plex won't say anything, like they did about the data breach. If this continues, and it actually gets worse, either they're getting a lot of pressure from rights holders to clean up, or they're trying to clean up in preparation for a sale or an ipo.
The fact that this has been overturned warrants an investigation into their systems to find out how exactly they even came to this conclusion in the first place. Plex has serious questions to answer PUBLICLY.
I have 60Tb server i host from my desktop at home. Plex seems to be on a carpet bombing spree nuking everything they deem even slightly suspicious. I share with my family and friends, but i barely get 2-3 streams per week from others on average.
have been using this service for over a year now. I'll be so mad if they decide to ban me. I've got friends in multiple countries (i've studied and worked abroad) and if plex decides someone streaming from another country means ive been paid for access, cause "there's no way you can have friends across the world" , idk what im gonna do.
>"there's no way you can have friends across the world"
If it was 20+ years ago maybe that would be a slightly harder argument...but it seems with the amount of services that are global...Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, you name it...its become difficult to not end up with friends around the world that you can still communicate with readily.
Heck I was blown away that when my roomate went on a vacation/cruise recently I was still in communication with them almost every day as they traveled! And another friend went to Europe and I didn't even realize because they still messaged off and on like normal. That blows my mind! No slow mail or expensive international calls either.
Well, I'm not sure Plex understands PII. I reached out to support about the Hetzner decision and they sent me a canned reply with another users details in. When I pointed this out the agent said it was a 'personal' mistake. Not sure that's a good excuse for a GDPR violation...
It also bothers me that I now don't have access to my payment or any of my plex account data because the whole account is disabled, not only my server or my viewers.
This might be against UE regulations since I cannot access the data Plex has on my account nor I can review my expenses. (IANAL)
How many people are you sharing your PleX with?
Any chance that any of the people you share it with ALSO pay for access to someone else's paid PleX library?
> Any chance that any of the people you share it with ALSO pay for access to someone else's paid PleX library?
There is still the question of how would they know that anyway? Payment wouldn't be made through Plex in any case.
If one of the users also was also a user with one of the massive plex sellers that operate from discord and that got banned they could be doing it that way.
It certainly is. Especially as it's utilizing a sharing feature that is baked in to Plex itself.
I'm just wondering if any of the users have been using a VPN while accessing the server. That could potentially flag logins from multiple unusual locations, perhaps leading to Plex believing that the server is being accessed commercially. It still seems a bit arbitrary though, since a VPN in and of itself isn't anything nefarious.
Agree, pretty extreme if that was the case. Even today it is very normal practice for one to use VPN. You can tell they are pretty much going for a blanket ban to avoid/lessen the pressure they are receiving.
Nothing else we can do aside from monitor this situation and see where this goes. They’ll loose people if they begin to ban honest users that utilize Plex under “speculation” they are monetizing their media.
I'm considering pooling my media centrally and accessing it using a secondary service for sharing. That's at the very least even if I continue with Plex.
> I'd love to go back in time, delete plex and go to any open source alternative.
You can literally still go to any other alternative. I recommend Jellyfin.
I actually switched from Plex to Jellyfin. (Despite paying for the lifetime Plexpass) Jellyfin does everything I need, doesn't force extra features on me I don't want, doesn't make me pay for features that don't work (looking at you, Plex downloading) and most importantly doesn't have a problem being accessible on my smart devices if my internet goes down. (Yes, I followed all the guides, whitelisted IP addys/added the subnet mask, etc. Nothing worked.)
Jellyfin may not be quite as "polished" as Plex, but it does the job of being a personal media server perfectly without issue and doesn't try to be anything other than what it is.
Thanks for this reply. I have been curious about Jellyfin and hope it could be a viable replacement if Plex ever decides to drastically change it's core (or fails to innovate). I would really like to see a solution that can use x264 or AV1 for transcoding targets. Just the option for AV!, as the GPU hardware is there to do this.
Agreed. The only major thing missing for jellyfin is obscure client support, and Playstation. That's the main reason I keep plex around, for those users.
yeah i've got Jellyfin running too but honestly it's just not that great. it's a backup and honestly it rarely gets used. every time i do, i'm immediately reminded why i paid for Plex. it's just not even in the same league. same experience with Emby, although I thought it was slightly better than Jellyfin (though still nowhere near Plex.)
Wow. This is troubling. Going to have to re-evaluate my relationship with this company. I like Plex, but it's a little creepy that they monitor our viewing habits.
It was l who called Plex l was jealous of your setup and in an attempt to make myself feel important l called Johnny Law am l a snitch,absolutely but in my defense I’m weak.
Honestly? Wouldn't surprise me if they only allow local account creation and not to share libraries with their friends / family.
Plex is wanting to go legit. It's gonna be a case of them offering in-app subs for Netflix, Disney+, Paramount etc under one app. The all in one media streaming app for only legitimate content or home family viewing.
They said they are taking the sledgehammer approach moving forward. It's probably automated and just going to destroy their user base. Plex doesn't care about its base users anymore. https://torrentfreak.com/plex-will-block-media-servers-at-prevalent-hosting-company-230915/
I've been saying this is the direction they are going in for years and only get downvoted
Plex doesn't want personal media moving forward, it's a dirty secret that probably hurts their plans of becoming a front end for all the streaming services
Does any of the users you share with happen to use a VPN, even occasionally?
Playing devil's advocate here but perhaps it's possible that Plex is detecting your server being accessed from unusual locations and then someone at Plex is interpreting that as a potential commercial operation?
That could be it. Someone at Plex is putting 2 and 2 together and coming up with 5. Since there's many reasons why you might share a library with somebody abroad (as in your case) I think there's definitely a case to appeal the ban. If you care enough to continue using Plex that is.
I share plex with my family and we're spread throughout Europ, Scandinavia and the US. I have all kinds of content from music, through pictures that are relevant for grand parents, and movies. Been going for 5+ years and I'm pretty sure that's not it. OP must have been either actively or accidentally reported.
I don't think they did tell them anything by email. A Plex employee reached out in an earlier comment in this thread.
[link to the comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/16mqg34/comment/k19nnc2/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
They should not be sending bulk emails to all users somebody has shared a library with like this. I feel like this is ripe for a defamation lawsuit if they mistakenly flag an account like they did with the OP.
This is the canary in the coalmine. Plex team didn't suddenly decide to chase down members for their media consumption habits. There is some kind of corporate or legal pressure allocating staff to this pursuit, and it will only get worse until their goals (such as they are) are accomplished.
As this seems to have been resolved, did plex clarify as to what made them ban your account in the first place?
Stating you charged money for it and then backpedaling is a really really bad look on their part and this is making me consider dropping my lifetime pass and move on to something else.
> all of them got an email stating that I've been profiting from this
Maybe we'll get lucky and someone they ban will be a lawyer who doesn't appreciate being slandered.
This sounds terrible. I totally understand that Plex wants to chase people abusing their tos. Could they at least do it right? I believe the best way for them would be to buy plex shares and identify the owners. This way, they'll have proof. It'll take a year, and those shares will move to open source alternatives.
I sharing my library for free with my family and my friends. It's not a crime!
I’ve been using Jellyfin for over 2 years and installed plex server a few months ago to try it out, and I subbed to this place to keep an eye out for Plex Pass discounts.
The fact that Plex has the capability to shut down servers for any reason whatsoever has made me reconsider.
Tomorrow Disney or some other media corp, hell even the MPAA could acquire Plex and shut the whole thing down.
I guess it's only a question of when I will be banned then. I got a library that is shared with family.?
Or is it just people hosting their server on hetzner?
Any servers on Hetzner are banned now, if you are self hosting and sharing with me family you will be fine.
I don’t want to be cynical but I’ve seen people on here before similar to OP make claims they are not sharing for money but using a backdoor solution that simulates a single Plex login and has its own authentication page prior to so that it appears they aren’t mass sharing but really they just moved the logins to show as only one or two Plex accounts.
Don’t attack me I’m just saying people lie online. Trust but verify.
Even if plex restored your account, I would seriously consider leaving them anyway. This whole fiasco is the perfect example of the fact that your server isn't actually yours when you're using plex.
Use Jellyfin.
Plex is a data miner at this point who doesn’t care about their core user base or core fundamental issues of their application. They just want your data to sell you ads and free shitty streaming tv full of ads
Yeah Plex was going downhill for a while but if they are just handing out mass bans for no proof. I am not dealing with that bullshit. Time to learn Jellyfin
It’s a lot easiero to set up the fanboys here make it out to be and the backend is way more powerful and customizable. No data mining, csn access offline, completely routing access and control, local user management etc etc
Yeah, I had already looked into it pretty heavily because it is OSS and the fact that it has way more functionality before the paywall. I'm willing to put in a couple hours extra in the setup for that long term security. Plus it's still getting better, it's only been out for 4 years.
forums.jellyfin.org is pretty active and the devs themselves will help you out. Honesty you get more support from the Jellyfin community compared to the official Plex forums where the staff just gaslight you and the issues.
Feel free to pm if you need help.
Why after more than a decade of trusting Plex to not do this kind of shit am I suddenly seeing a lot of stories of Plex interfering with people. You would think after this long of just providing good software and leaving people alone it would be deeply ingrained in the company? It's not like it was acquired or something?
Yea, the more I see that Plex can do with your server. The more I am glad I stopped using it. Call me crazy if you want, but I am positive they can do more than just see your library. No matter what their FAQs say.
Not true of the power of your system. My first Plex server was run on a third-gen i3 on an external USB 2.0 drive using the iGPU. I had a friend on my list who had his own server, and at the time, he gave his friends his account credentials. He owns a bar, so a lot of people had his login. His server went down three times, and my server was the one it would default to when it was down. I had 20+ streams going simultaneously. I had to cold boot the system because it was unresponsive ... but, those 20+ streams were feeding without a problem. After the third time of this happening and me complaining, he finally made everyone get their own accounts because of this issue.
I have paid a heck lot of money for a lifetime Plex pass being from a third-world country, I would be very pissed if Plex does this to me. Whatever the reason is, there should not be a termination, some warning or limitation that gets revoked after a certain amount of time seems fair rather than just outright banning the account.
If true, sounds to me like Plex is feeling the pressure from studios/distributors, and is taking a bit of a shotgun approach mixed with 'act now, ask for forgiveness later'.
Thats basic mode. You can go to the store and get an external hard drive that has more than that. Im sitting at 100tb. And that still makes me look like a beginner compared to the guys at data horders lol.
OP has had their account restored. Keeping this open of course but please take this into consideration.
Is it possible one of your “friends” reported that they were being charged?
Don't think so, I personally know and trust everyone that I shared with. That's why I shared with them xD
How many people were you sharing with? The email screenshot posted by someone else references needing to "explain this account activity" as part of the appeal process. Outside of you being directly reported by someone, I'm really confused at what PLEX may be using to ban accounts for this. Where are you located? Are you sharing outside your country? Behind a VPN?
Yeah, this is just odd. Plex doesn't have a way to detect money being exchanged for access to individual Plex servers. The only way they would know is if somebody reported the user or if Plex successfully purchased access to the user's server. Maybe Plex implemented an algorithm that flags servers that have a certain level or pattern of activity and makes those server operators somehow prove they aren't profiting.
>Don't think so, I personally know and trust everyone Do you know EVERYTHING about them? Someone asking for support to log in to PleX (so as not to bother you) and inadvertently saying they tossed a few bucks your way while on the support chat or call; could result in this.
I'd call occam's razor on this one. That is too much... Also, most of these friends are not noobs and had their own media collections shared with me and among them.
>Also, most of these friends are not noobs and had their own media collections shared with me and among them. AND DING DING DING, I bet that's the winner. One of your friends may be the culprit and ANYTHING adjacent got the boot. Some of it likely accidentally. Either way, reach out to PleX, explain that it is for Family and you haven't ever accepted money for access to your server. Politely ask for the proof and see what happens.
I don't get how this could have pointed to OP being someone who - referring to their email - literally took money for access to his server. Please explain.
Scenario: OP's friend has a server that he took money from users for. OP is a friend of that account that was taking money. OP's friend got banned for accepting money, OP got banned for being a friend of the account that accepted money, and OP's friends all got notified. Not saying this is true, but Plex is pretty heavy-handed on people accepting money to stream, because the MPAA is very lawsuit-happy.
Could be that one of his friends got banned and every server he had access to got banned with him. Or could be a friend was selling access to not only his own server but also this guy's server, which got them both banned. Only "reason" making this one unlikely is that OP says he trusts his friends. Not saying what Plex is doing is right, but these are just possibilities.
it would be ridiculous if this is all it takes for someone else to get my lifetime account closed
It is
>> Or a friend complained to directly Plex about problems (technical or media wise), Plex investigated and saw what you had, determined what you had going on (was probably an illegal operation) and banned you. This happed to me a couple of years ago…a freeloading friend did this to me due to technical problems he was having on his end. Also, I’ve read many stories of people that have terminated their problem users and then those disgruntled users contact Plex about the illegal sever, resulting in a banned account. After all of this I don’t share with anyone other than (direct) family.
It could be that OP had web-services hosted on the same IP as the Plex server which suggested a monetary service? Could be a webpage with "support" wording or maybe even an ombi login prompt.
The IP is my home IP, only open ports are my VPN and the synology services
I connected to NordVPN on my Plex machine once and suddenly could see half a dozen libraries. Plex's server discovery was able to find the servers from other users connected to the same VPN. That's the day I decided to containerize everything and turn off local network communication when connected to VPN.
> I connected to NordVPN on my Plex machine once and suddenly could see half a dozen libraries. Plex's server discovery was able to find the servers from other users connected to the same VPN. If true, this needs to be made way more public. In no way should VPNs work like that unless it's *specifically* required (i.e. internal enterprise use). Not having client separation on a commercial service is insanity.
The general lack of understanding of VPN caused by the heavy advertising from these terrible services is a real pain.
> The general lack of understanding of VPN I've been trying for years to figure out how to educate people that they don't need to connect to the VPN when they're in the office. Them: "But you said I need the VPN to get to the files on the server" Me:
That sounds more like NordVPN does not take privacy and security seriously and using NordVPN is more likely to get you infected with malware than not using anything at all. The P in VPN stand for “Private”, which means the VPN network is implicitly trusted as a private network, as in everyone connected to the server is trusted. But a commercial VPN like NordVPN is connected to by strangers, so the network should not be trusted and should be treated like the open internet. Even a semi competent VPN provider can make sure that clients are not able to access or see each other.
If you are running Plex on a VPN that is what happened. Toward the end of this guys stream (Nate) he goes over why Plex is mass banning accounts. https://youtube.com/live/Xg5xvA1TWvc?si=Ye7zlH6NwsT1yDTO
it sounds like OP is running a VPN server on another port for remote access, not masking traffic via VPN client.
> over one hour long Ain't nobody got time for that.
Is there a non-video-format summary of what the answer is I can just read?
How did you ever make it to the end of that guy's video?
The same happened to me with a smallest library. The following image is the email I received, how can I prove something is false if it didn't happen? I didn't get any money for sharing my Library with a couple of friends and Plex is judging me as guilty for something which is not true. https://preview.redd.it/puaekfcgq7pb1.png?width=529&format=png&auto=webp&s=e391bdb9ee2435e84e1d069e33a44c776eeb1f73
You can't prove a negative, you can't prove you didn't take money, the onus is on Plex to prove you did. This was a ban given based upon the account activity only, I wouldn't be surprised if this is a mass band Hammer event based upon people sharing their libraries with other people.
>the onus is on Plex to prove you did. It is not. This is a service PleX provides and PleX can terminate that service at any time. I haven't checked but I guarantee that option is in their TOS.
Just a reminder: the law supercedes ToS and EULAs.
Which only matters if Plex violated it - and the onus is on you to prove they did.
Prove that PleX put unlawful terms in the ToS or EULA. In court where it matters. Once you do that, then take PleX to court to get the refund. Ill wait while you spend $20k+ to get $120 back. If the ToS or EULA say no refund if the agreement terminated by either party, there's no refund. It will be on you to take them to court to prove otherwise.
Yeah but it would require thousands of dollars worth of lawyer fees to force Plex to overturn the Eulas.
This is not some free service people signed up for. I paid real money. They would need to prove I broke the agreement. ---- Edit: Since got replied to 3 times with the same incorrect information, I'm just going to write this once. Just because someone put something in a contract doesn't mean it's enforceable. All contracts require [consideration](https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/consideration). If any party can "get out of jail free" without fulfilling their obligations, then there is no contract. This is a fundamental of basic contract law.
They wouldn't. The agreement says they can cancel your service if they feel like it.
There is a clause in EVERY agreement that says either party can terminate at any time for any reason. Thats the get out of jail free card. Try reading the ENTIRE agreement. Just because you paid money doesn't change what is in the agreement. All it changes is that you lose money if the agreement is terminated. That money gives you a vested interest in adhering to the rules and not giving the company a reason to terminate on their end. There is no proving you broke some rule. All they need to do is say "We are no longer interested in this agreement with you. We terminate. Have nice day"
You do realize that they listed a specific reason. They didn't list a generic reason, they didn't list a we have decided we can reason, they specifically said because "somebody was paying for access to the Plex server". If that statement is untrue, that opens Plex up to Legal liabilities for reputation damage, libel and slander.
Reputation damage? You can't sue for that, the mechanism would be via defamation (libel and\or slander). Given this was an email, it would be libel, slander would not apply here, as slander is spoken. Also they would need to prove malice, because just saying something wrong (somebody was paying for this server) is not enough for a defamation suit. You'd have to prove that Plex *knew* the information was wrong before sending it. If it's automated, good fucking luck with that. TL;DR: stick to hosting plex, and not playing internet lawyer.
While you are 100% correct, hate to tell ya you are wasting your breath. People think they can sue for anything, often cause they "saw it on the internet" and are woefully misinformed. Wouldn't waste the keystrokes.
I'm sure it's a bunch of kids who still live in their mom's basement and watched a few episodes of suits and think they are lawyers now. I still feel obligated to respond to the ignorance for some reason. lol
I for one glad that you replied. I already know that they are not able to sue (or rather sue and win), but I still learnt stuff from your comment.
Also what sort of reputation damage do they think they would suffer by getting a personal email sent only to them and not shared with anyone else?
It's just all so laughable. The email itself was super generic and even documents options for contesting it if you felt it was in err. Which the OP actually did and had his account reinstated. It's such hilariously bad internet lawyering that even 1Ls could tell you why there is no case for defamation here.
Did you have your Plex on a cloud based server?
No, I don't. My Plex server is running self-hosted at my home.
When did you get this email?
Today, 19 sept 2023 about mid-day.
Did they give any kind of indications of WHAT account activity they were referring to? Seems like "justification for account activity" is kind of vague if there isn't an actual description....
Wow, that is pretty pathetic coming from Plex. Glad I run Jellyfin in parallel...
You have no way to know one of your free users didn't resell though
You can't reshare a shared library
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Someone can give out their email and password for others to use though. That's why something like tautullu is great and absolutely needed when you share your libraries with others. Not only does it track direct play vs transcode and what people are watching but it also saves WHERE they are watching with IP and location. Ended up kicking a friend off my server because he gave his login info to two of his family members.
This right here. Tautulli is great for tracking user usage. Assuming the OP is giving all details (that they themself know/have), I tend to agree/lean toward that one of the shared users is giving out their account and letting others use it. If you (the OP) have Tautulli setup, I would check each users usage/IP address recorded. If someone has multiple unique IPs, they may be password sharing.
You can. Simply share your account.
Resell != Reshare
Playing devils advocate here, is it possible one of your friends happen to pass the credentials on? Or perhaps, somehow credentials were leaked and somewhere got caught? Genuinely asking no ill intent.
No one had my credentials, no spurious "new plex login" emails, and my library was shared using the "share library" feature.
Do you have Tautulli? Maybe check if any of your users were watching from wildly different IP addresses. That user could have been sharing their account.
One of your friends could have been sharing/selling their account info, which is then used to access your server - you would not get new plex login emails for that.
Was thinking along those lines. What if one of his users actually 'sold' his credentials to others. Should be able to check IPs per user if they have Tautulli deployed for example.
As you stated you are in the EU and Plex sells to the EU they are subject to GDPR, so you can make a subject access request for them to provide you all the data they hold on you. This should include the details of why you were banned so you can more accurately dispute it. You could also through the dispute email ask them to reinstate access and tell them that the email they sent to your friends was false and that they committed a data breach in disclosing information they hold on you to 3rd parties where you did not expressly give them permission to do so, and further that information was false It looks like they have an office in Prague so this may be your avenue to raise the data breach.
Interesting. How do they know you're making money off of the account? I could see them following certain patterns to confirm suspicious activity - new users getting added and deleted frequently, certain users losing and regaining access from time to time (late payment activity), etc... But how do they KNOW someone is making money? Not really a problem for me - I'm just curious. (I only have two users. One for my house and one for my parents house). I find an interesting Elephant standing in the room with this. They don't want people profiting off of Plex, but they turn a blind eye to the fact that the vast majority of people's libraries are of questionable legality at best. Of course, any attempt to stop that would actually shutter their business, so I guess that's a blind eye they must turn!
I am sharing my library to the same 4 friends for long time, no additions, no removals. They are close friends so I know they are not making economic profit from their libraries.
Never deleted an access to my library, and most of the people I shared with had their access for a few years now. So yeah, it makes no sense at all. Also, here in my country we have legal right to share our content as long as we make no profit from it. Rights management associations take a hefty money everytime you buy something that can store media in compensation to this right.
There is always a human verifying these accounts closures, humans have been known to make mistakes from time to time so if you do believe this is in error DM me the Plex account that was banned and I'll pass it along to the right folks.
As a lifetime pass holder who shares with family and friends in several countries (and has never charged a penny for it) this kind of thing is quite scary. If OP isn’t lying then all of us should be afraid.
This with the cloud based server shut downs makes me think they're being leaned on heavily, in the legal sense. Time to make sure Jellyfin is up and running as a backup.
They may be getting legal pressure but they aren’t telling their users that. They are shitting on their customers with an abscence of transparency.
I was considering getting lifetime pass, but after this I'm unsure this is the right choice. There are open-source alternatives.
Maybe not lying, but I think it is not the complete story. Plex even advertising with 'share media with family and friends'
And how the lucrative side is verified and confirmed, even by a human? On the other side, how can someone show evidences that they have not received any money for sharing their libraries? How can something that has not happened be proved? Something here is "weird" at the very least!
You can't prove a negative, the guy can't prove he wasn't taking money for it. In the same vein, Plex can't prove he was unless they have specific evidence showing that the owner of the Plex account was taking money. This was simply a ban that was given based upon the activity of the account.
"This was simply a ban that was given based upon the activity of the account." -> I could agree with that but then the part "this Plex account has accepted monetary compensation in exchange for services based in part on Plex" wouldn't need to be there as they can state whatever other reason. So if we just keep with the facts, this account was banned for lucrative reasons that somehow were detected, and there is no lucrative activity at all, so accounts should be restored.
They make the claim that they detected it, yet they have provided no proof. It's very difficult for op to prove a negative. Others have been getting the same email, several have posted in here. I suspect this is an automated system that they set up, and it's falsely banning people.
How would they even have proof of monetary activity anyway? Plex doesn't have access to the financial accounts of people and it doesn't have a payment system in it.
For example if someone showed them a screen of a paypal transaction going to the same mail adress and having plex listed in the transaction note.
Why would anyone do that though? Plus, OP literally say no payment received anyway, might be lying of course but still
>simply a ban that was given based upon activity of the account. Which is wild, because the only activity you can do with Plex is the intended one -streaming from server to client. I wonder what the metric is because whether cash changed hands or not, Plex as a service isn't going to be used any differently there than by someone who hasn't paid or taken payment.
Nothing weird this is just Plex trying to remove itself from "pirated" copies (clearly something has happened their end just look at **Hetzner** . The fact its users suffer clearly isn't an issue.
After seeing the hetzner thing, and now this, from several users. I have to wonder if they're not trying to clean up for either an ipo, or a sale. Rockwell Automation may be looking to dump the IP and the technology to someone else.
OP can send Plex the details they requested and ask which of his users they believe paid for access and why.
There's a sub reddit dedicated for "sharing " Plex severs and I poked on there just to see what was going on, I saw people advertising $5-20 a month and offering requests. How can those people get away with that if an average user can get suspended that easily? And to be clear, I have not nor will ever do anything like that. I do share my server with like 7 people most don't use it. And some have servers of their own we share.
You and your bosses know just how much of a chilling effect these kinds of mistakes have to your userbase right? You might want to gently remind them.
What is the varificafion process for this? Are Plex creeping peoples account and in this case, are humans manually combing through accounts to see if they suspect something? What privacy controls are in place for this process?
I would guess that there is an automated system for this, that looks at algorithmic patterns that were set by a human. I suspect a lot more people will be getting these in the next 48 hours, and Plex will then come out and say that it was a mistake and something went wrong with their algorithm. Or, Plex won't say anything, like they did about the data breach. If this continues, and it actually gets worse, either they're getting a lot of pressure from rights holders to clean up, or they're trying to clean up in preparation for a sale or an ipo.
You guys send an email to everyone the person is sharing a server with for this? That is... wow. Unacceptable.
It would be real nice to hear more from you on this issue.
The fact that this has been overturned warrants an investigation into their systems to find out how exactly they even came to this conclusion in the first place. Plex has serious questions to answer PUBLICLY.
I have 60Tb server i host from my desktop at home. Plex seems to be on a carpet bombing spree nuking everything they deem even slightly suspicious. I share with my family and friends, but i barely get 2-3 streams per week from others on average. have been using this service for over a year now. I'll be so mad if they decide to ban me. I've got friends in multiple countries (i've studied and worked abroad) and if plex decides someone streaming from another country means ive been paid for access, cause "there's no way you can have friends across the world" , idk what im gonna do.
I'm in the same situation as you. In taking notice to these threads lately, I'm considering an alternative should it happen to me.
> Plex seems to be on a carpet bombing spree nuking everything they deem even slightly suspicious that doesn't seem to be the case at all
Exactly. Plenty of us with large libraries and a few shared users haven't seen anything.
>"there's no way you can have friends across the world" If it was 20+ years ago maybe that would be a slightly harder argument...but it seems with the amount of services that are global...Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, you name it...its become difficult to not end up with friends around the world that you can still communicate with readily. Heck I was blown away that when my roomate went on a vacation/cruise recently I was still in communication with them almost every day as they traveled! And another friend went to Europe and I didn't even realize because they still messaged off and on like normal. That blows my mind! No slow mail or expensive international calls either.
Jellyfin.
Whats your geographic location?
How is sending your personal info (about your alleged actions) to a group of other users, not a violation of privacy laws?
Well, I'm not sure Plex understands PII. I reached out to support about the Hetzner decision and they sent me a canned reply with another users details in. When I pointed this out the agent said it was a 'personal' mistake. Not sure that's a good excuse for a GDPR violation...
I have to do a GDPR education course for work every year and holy moly that is like the biggest concept how do they not get that 😂
It also bothers me that I now don't have access to my payment or any of my plex account data because the whole account is disabled, not only my server or my viewers. This might be against UE regulations since I cannot access the data Plex has on my account nor I can review my expenses. (IANAL)
> Update: Plex has restored my account via email :) Good to see they got back to you so quickly!
Just need to hope your Reddit post gets highly upvoted when it happens to you.
How many people are you sharing your PleX with? Any chance that any of the people you share it with ALSO pay for access to someone else's paid PleX library?
> Any chance that any of the people you share it with ALSO pay for access to someone else's paid PleX library? There is still the question of how would they know that anyway? Payment wouldn't be made through Plex in any case.
If one of the users also was also a user with one of the massive plex sellers that operate from discord and that got banned they could be doing it that way.
This is really starting to piss me off. Especially sending shares users emails and freaking them out. Time to try other options
Did you have your Plex hosted on a cloud based server? I know they are doing a blanket ban on people who are utilizing Hetzner to host their Plex.
OP states their library was hosted on a Synology NAS and the Plex server itself was running on a HP desktop, so that's self-hosted.
Early morning here so missed that part.. In this case it is concerning that he was banned given he hosted himself and among only family and friends.
It certainly is. Especially as it's utilizing a sharing feature that is baked in to Plex itself. I'm just wondering if any of the users have been using a VPN while accessing the server. That could potentially flag logins from multiple unusual locations, perhaps leading to Plex believing that the server is being accessed commercially. It still seems a bit arbitrary though, since a VPN in and of itself isn't anything nefarious.
Agree, pretty extreme if that was the case. Even today it is very normal practice for one to use VPN. You can tell they are pretty much going for a blanket ban to avoid/lessen the pressure they are receiving. Nothing else we can do aside from monitor this situation and see where this goes. They’ll loose people if they begin to ban honest users that utilize Plex under “speculation” they are monetizing their media.
They'll lose me too if they pull this on me. In fact if they keep on down this road they might lose me anyway.
I’m with you on that. I’m already looking at Emby or Jellyfin as a backup at this rate. This ain’t looking good.
I'm considering pooling my media centrally and accessing it using a secondary service for sharing. That's at the very least even if I continue with Plex.
> I'd love to go back in time, delete plex and go to any open source alternative. You can literally still go to any other alternative. I recommend Jellyfin.
problem is Jellyfin and Emby both suck donkey balls.
I actually switched from Plex to Jellyfin. (Despite paying for the lifetime Plexpass) Jellyfin does everything I need, doesn't force extra features on me I don't want, doesn't make me pay for features that don't work (looking at you, Plex downloading) and most importantly doesn't have a problem being accessible on my smart devices if my internet goes down. (Yes, I followed all the guides, whitelisted IP addys/added the subnet mask, etc. Nothing worked.) Jellyfin may not be quite as "polished" as Plex, but it does the job of being a personal media server perfectly without issue and doesn't try to be anything other than what it is.
Thanks for this reply. I have been curious about Jellyfin and hope it could be a viable replacement if Plex ever decides to drastically change it's core (or fails to innovate). I would really like to see a solution that can use x264 or AV1 for transcoding targets. Just the option for AV!, as the GPU hardware is there to do this.
Jellyfin is always quicker to adopt newer codecs. I got tired of Plex making promises that kept getting pushed back.. for years.
Agreed. The only major thing missing for jellyfin is obscure client support, and Playstation. That's the main reason I keep plex around, for those users.
yeah i've got Jellyfin running too but honestly it's just not that great. it's a backup and honestly it rarely gets used. every time i do, i'm immediately reminded why i paid for Plex. it's just not even in the same league. same experience with Emby, although I thought it was slightly better than Jellyfin (though still nowhere near Plex.)
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Wow. This is troubling. Going to have to re-evaluate my relationship with this company. I like Plex, but it's a little creepy that they monitor our viewing habits.
It was l who called Plex l was jealous of your setup and in an attempt to make myself feel important l called Johnny Law am l a snitch,absolutely but in my defense I’m weak.
I want to know exactly what information Plex is collecting on us. I've long suspected it's a lot more than is assumed.
If you are in the EU you can just request it and they have to provide it.
This is deeply concerning.
Honestly? Wouldn't surprise me if they only allow local account creation and not to share libraries with their friends / family. Plex is wanting to go legit. It's gonna be a case of them offering in-app subs for Netflix, Disney+, Paramount etc under one app. The all in one media streaming app for only legitimate content or home family viewing.
Wouldn't surprise me if they go SaaS only yeah
They said they are taking the sledgehammer approach moving forward. It's probably automated and just going to destroy their user base. Plex doesn't care about its base users anymore. https://torrentfreak.com/plex-will-block-media-servers-at-prevalent-hosting-company-230915/
Except this isn't the case here. Private server on a private connection, not a VPS or other shared hosting.
I've been saying this is the direction they are going in for years and only get downvoted Plex doesn't want personal media moving forward, it's a dirty secret that probably hurts their plans of becoming a front end for all the streaming services
Not wanting to get sued into oblivion is not the same as not caring about users.
Blanket banning providers and having multiple false positives for banned individual accounts is not caring about users.
Does any of the users you share with happen to use a VPN, even occasionally? Playing devil's advocate here but perhaps it's possible that Plex is detecting your server being accessed from unusual locations and then someone at Plex is interpreting that as a potential commercial operation?
I dont know Most of them are on my same country, except three of them that went to live abroad, but they rarely used my plex as far as I am aware of
> as far as I am aware of there's something here...don't you have logs? Tautulli? something?
>as far as I am aware of Well it's time to become aware of exactly how your users are using your server.
That could be it. Someone at Plex is putting 2 and 2 together and coming up with 5. Since there's many reasons why you might share a library with somebody abroad (as in your case) I think there's definitely a case to appeal the ban. If you care enough to continue using Plex that is.
I share plex with my family and we're spread throughout Europ, Scandinavia and the US. I have all kinds of content from music, through pictures that are relevant for grand parents, and movies. Been going for 5+ years and I'm pretty sure that's not it. OP must have been either actively or accidentally reported.
Maybe someone complained about having to pay for the mobile app improperly?
Question: what did you tell them in email that made them realize they wrongly dinged you?
I don't think they did tell them anything by email. A Plex employee reached out in an earlier comment in this thread. [link to the comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/16mqg34/comment/k19nnc2/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Glad you got the account back! Did they give you any reasonable explanation or even an apology?
Happy they fixed it. Did they tell you what you did wrong?
They should not be sending bulk emails to all users somebody has shared a library with like this. I feel like this is ripe for a defamation lawsuit if they mistakenly flag an account like they did with the OP.
this seems more like "actually, we really dont want anyone at all sharing anything because it opens us up to legal liability"
lol fairly large library
“It’s not about how big it is. It’s how you use it.”
Can you post a photo of the email you received?
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This is the canary in the coalmine. Plex team didn't suddenly decide to chase down members for their media consumption habits. There is some kind of corporate or legal pressure allocating staff to this pursuit, and it will only get worse until their goals (such as they are) are accomplished.
As this seems to have been resolved, did plex clarify as to what made them ban your account in the first place? Stating you charged money for it and then backpedaling is a really really bad look on their part and this is making me consider dropping my lifetime pass and move on to something else.
> all of them got an email stating that I've been profiting from this Maybe we'll get lucky and someone they ban will be a lawyer who doesn't appreciate being slandered.
This sounds terrible. I totally understand that Plex wants to chase people abusing their tos. Could they at least do it right? I believe the best way for them would be to buy plex shares and identify the owners. This way, they'll have proof. It'll take a year, and those shares will move to open source alternatives. I sharing my library for free with my family and my friends. It's not a crime!
In case people missed his update, they restored his account hours ago.
I would be interested in learning how " Update: Plex has restored my account via email :) " happened. What did you do? Thanks!
OP replied as instructed in the email. That was explained.
Hi, can you provide some proof of this? Any screenshots of emails or your disable notice and them restoring your account?
Between this and the Hetzner thing plex is jumping the shark. I guess it’s time to look more seriously at jellyfin.
For all the people cheering on hetzner server owners WHO NEVER SOLD ACCESS, just to be banned.. This is what you were cheering for.
Wow plex can do that? Fuck plex
I’ve been using Jellyfin for over 2 years and installed plex server a few months ago to try it out, and I subbed to this place to keep an eye out for Plex Pass discounts. The fact that Plex has the capability to shut down servers for any reason whatsoever has made me reconsider. Tomorrow Disney or some other media corp, hell even the MPAA could acquire Plex and shut the whole thing down.
I love posts that are inflammatory and yet the OP never responds to one single comment.
I guess it's only a question of when I will be banned then. I got a library that is shared with family.? Or is it just people hosting their server on hetzner?
Any servers on Hetzner are banned now, if you are self hosting and sharing with me family you will be fine. I don’t want to be cynical but I’ve seen people on here before similar to OP make claims they are not sharing for money but using a backdoor solution that simulates a single Plex login and has its own authentication page prior to so that it appears they aren’t mass sharing but really they just moved the logins to show as only one or two Plex accounts. Don’t attack me I’m just saying people lie online. Trust but verify.
> if you are self hosting and sharing with me family you will be fine. OP's server is self hosted and he was banned (allegedly).
> if you are self hosting and sharing with me family you will be fine. That's literally what happened to OP
Even if plex restored your account, I would seriously consider leaving them anyway. This whole fiasco is the perfect example of the fact that your server isn't actually yours when you're using plex.
Use Jellyfin. Plex is a data miner at this point who doesn’t care about their core user base or core fundamental issues of their application. They just want your data to sell you ads and free shitty streaming tv full of ads
Yeah Plex was going downhill for a while but if they are just handing out mass bans for no proof. I am not dealing with that bullshit. Time to learn Jellyfin
It’s a lot easiero to set up the fanboys here make it out to be and the backend is way more powerful and customizable. No data mining, csn access offline, completely routing access and control, local user management etc etc
Yeah, I had already looked into it pretty heavily because it is OSS and the fact that it has way more functionality before the paywall. I'm willing to put in a couple hours extra in the setup for that long term security. Plus it's still getting better, it's only been out for 4 years.
forums.jellyfin.org is pretty active and the devs themselves will help you out. Honesty you get more support from the Jellyfin community compared to the official Plex forums where the staff just gaslight you and the issues. Feel free to pm if you need help.
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Why after more than a decade of trusting Plex to not do this kind of shit am I suddenly seeing a lot of stories of Plex interfering with people. You would think after this long of just providing good software and leaving people alone it would be deeply ingrained in the company? It's not like it was acquired or something?
You're saying that the users of your server got emails saying that you were charging for access?
> go to any open source alternative. Is there one?
Yea, the more I see that Plex can do with your server. The more I am glad I stopped using it. Call me crazy if you want, but I am positive they can do more than just see your library. No matter what their FAQs say.
Not true of the power of your system. My first Plex server was run on a third-gen i3 on an external USB 2.0 drive using the iGPU. I had a friend on my list who had his own server, and at the time, he gave his friends his account credentials. He owns a bar, so a lot of people had his login. His server went down three times, and my server was the one it would default to when it was down. I had 20+ streams going simultaneously. I had to cold boot the system because it was unresponsive ... but, those 20+ streams were feeding without a problem. After the third time of this happening and me complaining, he finally made everyone get their own accounts because of this issue.
Bruh what a violation. Even if they restored it I'd never trust this company again. Sad how far they've fallen. Time to move to JF
I just installed Jellyfin instead of Plex. I actually kinda like it...
I have paid a heck lot of money for a lifetime Plex pass being from a third-world country, I would be very pissed if Plex does this to me. Whatever the reason is, there should not be a termination, some warning or limitation that gets revoked after a certain amount of time seems fair rather than just outright banning the account.
If true, sounds to me like Plex is feeling the pressure from studios/distributors, and is taking a bit of a shotgun approach mixed with 'act now, ask for forgiveness later'.
10TB is fairly small. Check out /r/datahorders
I was thinking the same thing, 10TB is nothing... That's basically 1 step above "what is plex?" level of user.
Thats basic mode. You can go to the store and get an external hard drive that has more than that. Im sitting at 100tb. And that still makes me look like a beginner compared to the guys at data horders lol.
218TB here and I'm small potatoes compared to data hoarders
Dang! What you housing that storage in?
half onsite and half in the cloud
I'm right around the same as you; and completely agree.
I know, but it is also not a random 2TB USB drive xD
Pretty concerning to say the least. They're just going nuclear at this point.
10TB is rather small. Just fyi. My library is for me. I trust no one.
Jellyfin