# TiVo Bolt Plex Search Problem



## bcurran3 (Apr 21, 2008)

I was VERY excited when TiVo added Plex support. I had been requesting it for years in the surveys (as well as better Android support which finally came and the suggestion of rebuilding TiVo on top of Android to solve lack of apps  using Opera is not pleasant). Unfortunately, Roamios were painfully slow launching and using Plex. 

I bought two new Bolts back in April. I bought them SPECIFICALLY for faster Plex menus. After solving access problems due to having encryption turned on (Im an IT guy, I turn all security on that I can by default.) Im still stuck with one big problem: I cannot get SEARCH to work in Plex on my TiVos. Whenever I use the search in Plex on my TiVo, I am able to enter 3 letters and then it breaks. This has occurred through about 10 Plex updates and 2 or so TiVo updates. Ive attached pictures for you to see. 

Plex search function works 100% fine from 4 Windows clients, multiple browser clients, 2 Android phones, 4 Android tablets, and 2 Android TVs. The problem only occurs on TiVo.

Im hoping someone has seen this before and knows the answer how to fix it!


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## OmeneX (Jul 2, 2016)

Sorry - I can't reproduce this issue on my end. Do you have a large library? One test I would try is creating a testing profile if you have Plex Pass (I assume you do) and let that profile have access to a smaller library. Say 5 movies. Search with that profile and see if it fails.

Since it's failing after 3 letters or so but also has no issue on other devices - it's seems the Tivo Plex client is having issues with extended search strings accessing a large database. So _shrink_ the database size it has access to, and test. (I'm not entirely sure how Plex handles this)

I have around 3 + TB of media but don't have this problem and also have a plethora of devices connected to Plex. I too have had some issues here and there with my TiVo plex client (mostly the 1080p playback variety). But your problem is one I've never experienced. I checked if my search was broken this morning before going to work myself. (IT too)

The client side program needs some serious TLC updating soon.

Agreed Opera is painful. :up:

Just a guess. Sorry man.


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## bcurran3 (Apr 21, 2008)

Thanks for the suggestion.

It's a worthwhile test to investigate.

Yes on PlexPass.

Yes on large library - I'm checking the properties of my root VIDEOS directory right now and it's at 9,000 videos and counting, doesn't include my music.  I'm running 24TB dedicated video storage (I just moved offline 5TB to free up space the other day!).

I think I'll setup a temp 2nd Plex server on my main PC and just point it to a small folder and see what happens that way.

I'll update here as soon as I have time to do it.


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## OmeneX (Jul 2, 2016)

bcurran3 said:


> I'm checking the properties of my root VIDEOS directory right now and it's at 9,000 videos and counting,












Haha! I just had to post that bcurran! Was way to awesome to pass up.

But anyways, 24TB! Yeah that's a lot! Impressed man. Hope to see your results. It wouldn't surprise me if large databases have an effect. Not absolutely sure that it will prove much, except that size does matter.

Lol, ok I'll stop.

Good luck.


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## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

My Plex server is currently at about 56TB and 18,000 videos. But they are across multiple directories by show and season.

Search works fine. The delay is only a second or two.


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## bcurran3 (Apr 21, 2008)

jcthorne said:


> My Plex server is currently at about 56TB and 18,000 videos. But they are across multiple directories by show and season.
> 
> Search works fine. The delay is only a second or two.


I work from home. Yeah, my server has 6x4TB in RAID5. My drobopro has 8x4TB in RAID5. Then there's three ReadyNASes with 4x2TB, 4x3TB, and 4x4TB. :up: Um, about 85GB is actually work. LOL!

OK, enough showing off.

Guess what?

*The experiment worked.* (Thanks so much for the suggestion!) I installed PlexServer on my workstation and pointed it to a small video directory of about 100 vids or less. I then went to one of my Bolts and choose the new test server. I did a search and and it worked fine, no eff up.

This experiment seems to prove the hypothesis that the TiVo Bolt has problems with my large library.

I'm surprised that is has this problem though. I would think that:

The Bolt is just passing on the type-in characters to the Plex server and that the Plex server would be then doing the lookup. In this scenario, as long as the Plex server can process it, the Plex server should be passing along the info to the Bolt which shouldn't have to do any processing at all and there shouldn't be a problem. Yet, there is.

If the Bolt IS doing processing the variable declaration should be changed to allow for possible higher values. Assuming it's written in C/C++ an int value (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_data_types) value should provide up to 32767 records and an unsigned int would be double. I doubt I have over 65,534 videos but I guess I should check. 
My Nexus Players only have a 1.8 GHz quad-core Intel Atom Z3560 processor with 1GB of RAM and it works fine with them. I'm fairly certain this problem on the Bolt is a program methodology problem and not a hardware problem, but I could be wrong. 

The big question now is how do I go about opening up a bug report with TiVo? Guess I still need to do some digging.


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## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

bcurran3 said:


> I work from home. Yeah, my server has 6x4TB in RAID5. My drobopro has 8x4TB in RAID5. Then there's three ReadyNASes with 4x2TB, 4x3TB, and 4x4TB. :up: Um, about 85GB is actually work. LOL!
> 
> OK, enough showing off.
> 
> ...


You don't. its not a tivo issue. The plex client for the tivo is by Plex. Open a bug report at plex. Using the plex forums sometimes works too. Be advised that the tivo plex client is shared with all other opera based smart tvs and seems to get little to no development attention.


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## OmeneX (Jul 2, 2016)

bcurran3 said:


> *The experiment worked.* (Thanks so much for the suggestion!) I installed PlexServer on my workstation and pointed it to a small video directory of about 100 vids or less. I then went to one of my Bolts and choose the new test server. I did a search and and it worked fine, no eff up.
> 
> This experiment seems to prove the hypothesis that the TiVo Bolt has problems with my large library.
> 
> ...


--------------------------------------

This is great news bcurran3! *Progress!*

I concur that contacting Plex support is the better option - I surmise that Plex support will *possibly* assume *or not* an encoding format, compatibility or that a performance/bottleneck problem exist first - other then a Plex client app issue. Since this is a problem that doesn't seem to be obvious and as you say doesn't make a lot of immediate programming sense. Nor does it seem to occur with other large server sized users, like jcthorne. (though who really knows how many TiVo Plex users have large libraries, using a particular combination of hardware+software, and formats?) Maybe more users on the Plex forums?

What I can say is the Plex app is finicky when used with TiVo for me also. (1080p issue) Not that saying such helps much. I don't have a super large server *yet* - but I'll help with what I can over on my end.

_Speaking of which ...... I guess I can't be left behind. Thanks too you two braggarts (*JK!*) - making me feel inadequate (lol) - I spent the last two weekends socking in more drives to bring my server up to 10TB. _ 

Keep us in the loop bcurran3 with random updates. I would like to see Plex update the TiVo app more often, and if this bug helps that along, great!


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## bcurran3 (Apr 21, 2008)

Server expansion - yeah!
BTW: The new Plex Cloud looks interesting (announced today) - unlimited storage using Amazon Cloud Drive)

I just cross posted all this in the Plex forum.

I don't have much hope. When I logged in I saw my old request for help for an issue on how to deal with multiple NICs in Plex Server. The post was THREE AND A HALF YEARS OLD with NO REPLIES. The actual problem resolved itself sometime later when the option to choose which IP address to bind to was available. So I post that it's been resolved. I'm a good guy, I followed up. Some guy almost immediately posted thanks for the update.


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## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

bcurran3 said:


> Server expansion - yeah!
> BTW: The new Plex Cloud looks interesting (announced today) - unlimited storage using Amazon Cloud Drive)
> 
> I just cross posted all this in the Plex forum.
> ...


I too look forward to the expansion into the Amazon Cloud sever. Has great possibilities and intend to give it a try.


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## bcurran3 (Apr 21, 2008)

jcthorne said:


> My Plex server is currently at about 56TB and 18,000 videos. But they are across multiple directories by show and season.
> 
> Search works fine. The delay is only a second or two.


Somehow I missed this. 
(I replied to the post above and this one got sandwiched in-between two lengthier posts.)

If you're library is bigger. I wonder why it works for you but not for me?

Off the top of my head differences between my Plex server and the temp one I setup.

Permanent server:
VM
Windows Server 2012 R2 
16GB of RAM
Also running StreamBaby, pyTivo, Comic Rack, Ubooquity, Logitech Media Server.
Large library
Nested directories, but only about 3 deep at most.
Plex data dir configured to non-default location.

Temp Plex server:
PM
Windows 10 Anniversary Edition
32GB of RAM.
Running mainly Chrome and Outlook.
Small library
No nested directories
Plex data dir configured to default location.

I can't see any of these being the issue as they only have problem with the TiVo Plex client.

I already uninstalled the temp Plex server. I might set it up again using my full video library and see if it duplicates the problem. Have to time it right as creating all the metadata afterwards is going to take a looooooooong time.


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