Plex Media Center

Hey everyone! I’m James, one of the growing number of Plex developers. I’ve been using Plex since near the beginning of the project & started writing code a few months ago. Most of the new bits I’ve been working on are included in the Plex/Seven releases (background music, application launching, iTunes DRM playback, iPhoto and Aperture), and I’ve been helping out with a few more super-secret features due to be released soon.

One issue when using Plex, especially for new users, is how tricky it can be to diagnose problems when things go wrong or aren’t behaving as they should. The team are always happy to help out when we can, and there are plenty of helpful & experienced forum members ready to lend a hand, but there are so many features & configuration options now that it can sometimes take a long time to identify exactly what’s not working properly. Well, hopefully that’s now a thing of the past with the all-new Plex System Reporter!

Plex System Reporter is a simple application that gathers all the relevant information we need about your Plex configuration and allows you to easily send it to the team – it can’t get any easier than clicking one button, right? The report contains copies of your Plex settings, any custom settings you’ve added to the advanced settings file, a list of all your media sources and any content settings you’ve applied. It also includes information about all the files & folders contained in your video sources (currently supporting local folders, network volumes mounted using the Finder or Plex-only SMB shares). This allows us to reproduce your folder structure to help resolve media scanning problems.

If you’re concerned about privacy, don’t worry – the only personal information we gather is your forum username (so we can connect the reports to specific issues you’re having), your OS X username and your computer’s hostname (simply for labelling the reports). All passwords stored in your sources and settings are removed prior to sending the report. The reports will never be viewed by anyone other than members of the Plex team, and will only be used to help solve your problems.

You need to be a registered member of our forums to submit online reports. The forums are a great place for detailed discussion of problems, and are very helpful for the developers – we can easily see what problems are affecting users and try to identify any common causes. After sending us a report, we’ll be able to link it with your forum username and track down the cause of problems a lot quicker than before. If you’re already a member, you can download Plex System Reporter here (HTTP).

Finally, to make this an official Plex blog post, here’s the obligatory mascot photo! This is Brandy – unfortunately she’s not mine, my apartment building doesn’t allow pets, but we baby-sit (cat-sit?) her from time to time when her owners are away:

Anyway, I hope this ends up being useful! Feel free to contact me on the forum (user: Jam) if you have any trouble.

-James