Closes the Plex #9 backend backlog (frontend was the prior follow-up). Behavior-
neutral cleanup + two two-way-sync bug fixes; PW2 verified a non-bug.
fix(plex): watch-sync PW1 pagination + PW3 lost-update guard
- PW1 watch_history: the history is a GLOBAL cross-account feed read as a single
500-row page, then filtered to the owner — on a busy family server the owner's
recent views can sit past page 1 and be missed. Now paginate (desc) until the
since-cutoff, bounded by max_pages (daily reconcile is the backstop; logs if hit).
- PW3 push_state_to_plex: it flagged synced_to_plex=True unconditionally after a
push, so a local edit landing between the push and the flag-set was marked clean
and never pushed (lost update). Capture the row's freshest timestamp when the
push is scheduled (_push_watch) and only settle the flag if the row is unchanged.
- PW2 was flagged as "accountID hardcoded to 1" but is NOT a bug: on a PMS account 1
is reserved for the owner/admin and an owner link always holds the admin token —
added a clarifying comment so it isn't re-flagged.
chore(plex): backend dedup
- PC2 unified_library + facets shared a ~13-field filter Query signature + p-dict →
one LibraryFilters dataclass injected via Depends(); as_dict() feeds the builders.
- PS-C1 sync.py collection upsert dup (resync_collection ≈ _sync_collections) →
_upsert_collection().
- PS-C2 sync.py 8-field filterable-metadata block dup (_apply_item ≈ _sync_shows) →
_apply_facet_fields().
- PW-C1 _repush_dirty read duration from the mirrored PlexItem.duration_s instead of
a per-row plex.metadata() round-trip.
- PW-C2 rk→id map built inline in two places → _rk_to_id() helper.
stream.py enforced a hardcoded _MAX_SESSIONS = 4 and never read the
DB-overridable plex_max_transcodes ConfigSpec, so the Configuration → Plex →
"Max concurrent transcodes" knob was dead (same env-vs-DB drift class as the
Downloads/Admin fixes). _enforce_cap(cap) now takes the cap from
sysconfig.get_int(db, "plex_max_transcodes") (>=1 so playback can't be capped to
zero). Bumped the config default 1→4 so the effective default matches the old
hardcoded cap (no behavior change for non-overriders; the knob now works).
F6: coalesce whole-show/season Plex watch-pushes into ONE background task
(push_bulk_state_to_plex) that reuses a single DB session + keep-alive Plex
client, instead of scheduling one task (own session + HTTP client) per episode.
F8: cache a show's live Plex enrichment (metadata + related) per rating_key for
a short TTL and fetch the two calls in parallel; repeat opens skip the network.
Raw payloads are cached; per-user shaping stays out. An empty related list is not
cached (plex.related swallows a transient failure as [] — don't pin it for the TTL).
F10: remove dead code — the pre-unified /browse route + browse(), the /people
route + people() + _person_photo(), api.plexPeople, interface PlexPerson, and the
orphaned plex.people i18n block. DRY: appendPlexFilters() shared by plexLibrary +
plexFacets; one exported plexDetailUi.Filterable (was Fil + Filterable); PlexInfo
migrated onto the shared plexDetailUi hooks/menu (DetailCustomizeMenu gained
overlay + extra props; useDetailPrefs exposes savePref; PrefToggle exported).
Reviewed (high) → clean. F7 (facet aggregate collapse) deferred: self-exclusion
gives each sub-aggregate a distinct WHERE, and no measurement shows /facets slow.
Restructure TV browsing into show detail → seasons → season episodes → player, like
the Plex web app.
Backend: /show/{rk} now returns a rich show page — hero meta (rating/content_rating/
genres/studio + live IMDb), live Cast & Crew, Related shows (Plex 'related', mapped to
our mirrored shows so they're openable), and per-season cards with an aggregate
watch-state + on-deck episode, plus show-level resume (on-deck)/first(play-from-start)/
status rollup. New PlexClient.related(). New bulk-state endpoints POST /show/{rk}/state
and /season/{rk}/state mark every episode watched/unwatched for the user and mirror
each change to a linked Plex account in the background (best-effort, checked once).
Frontend: PlexShowView reworked into the show detail page (hero + Resume/Play-from-start/
Mark-show-watched/Add-to-playlist/[admin]Add-to-collection + season card grid + cast +
related strips); new PlexSeasonView season subpage (hero + Resume/Play/Mark-season/
Add-season-to-playlist + landscape episode grid). Both read the one cached ['plex-show']
payload (season page picks its season out of it — instant, no extra fetch). Player queue =
the whole show (from the show page) or the season (from the season page) so prev/next +
auto-advance follow order. New 'season' history subview; Backspace steps back one drill
level (grid←show←season, out of info/playlist) alongside browser/mouse Back. Season-level
'Add to collection' intentionally omitted (Plex collections hold whole shows, not seasons).
i18n plex.series.* (en/hu/de).
Give TV shows the same filterable metadata as movies so the TV grid can be
filtered/sorted, not just library+sort. Backend: migration 0052 adds
rating/content_rating/studio/originally_available_at/genres/directors/cast_names/
people_text to plex_shows (+ GIN/indexes, people_text folded into search_vector);
_sync_shows populates them cheaply from the show section listing (no per-item
calls). /browse show-branch gains the movie filter set (minus duration) plus an
aggregate per-user watch-state (a show rolls up its episodes: all watched=watched,
any progress=in_progress, none=new) with year/rating/release sorts; /facets returns
show facets. Frontend: PlexSidebar renders the metadata filters + watch-state for TV
libraries (duration stays movie-only); show cards show a watched/in-progress badge.
i18n plex.inProgress (en/hu/de). Needs a Plex re-sync to populate the new columns.
Completes the two-way watch-state sync with two scheduler jobs:
- plex_watch_sync (default 30m): pull recent Plex-side changes (watch history + on-deck, filtered
to the owner account) into Siftlode under last-write-wins (_pull_apply + a _same_state ping-pong
guard + skew tolerance), then re-push any still-unsynced local states.
- plex_watch_reconcile (default daily): full section rescan; uses synced_to_plex to settle what the
incremental feed can't — notably propagating a Plex-side un-watch (clear a previously-mirrored row
Plex no longer has) — while re-pushing never-synced local states and never touching hidden
(Siftlode-only) rows. Union-preserving.
PlexClient gains accounts/watch_history/on_deck; _scan_plex_states is factored out and shared with
the one-time import. Owner accountID is resolved once and cached on the link. Both jobs are
registered in the scheduler (pause-skip, activity tracking, run-now, admin-tunable intervals) with
trilingual (HU/EN/DE) labels + descriptions. New config default plex_watch_reconcile_interval_min.
Verified live against the real Plex server: read feeds, last-write-wins, dirty re-push, the
incremental job end-to-end, and a full reconcile that cleared exactly the one un-watched item with
zero collateral across 17976 scanned.
Mirror watched/unwatched/resume from Siftlode to a linked (owner) Plex account.
- PlexClient: scrobble / unscrobble / set_timeline (/:/scrobble, /:/unscrobble, /:/timeline).
- watch_sync: link_for_push() gates on owner + sync_enabled + initial_import_done; best-effort
push_state_to_plex() runs as a background task with its own session, never raises (Plex being
down must not break the user's action), and flips synced_to_plex on success so Phase C's pull
won't bounce it back.
- item_state / item_progress schedule the push: watched/unwatched immediately, resume only on a
"final" checkpoint (pause / pagehide / unmount) — not every 10s tick — so one watch doesn't spray
/:/timeline at the server. `hidden` is Siftlode-only and never touches Plex.
- Frontend: plexProgress / plexProgressBeacon carry a `final` flag; the periodic checkpoint is
non-final, pause/pagehide/leaving the player are final.
Verified live against the real Plex server (scrobble/unscrobble/timeline round-trip + restore;
link gating; synced_to_plex flip).
The Plex watch import inserted plex_states via per-row ORM add against a pre-read 'existing' set,
which is not safe when the enable call fires more than once while the multi-second import runs (the
toggle wasn't disabled during it): overlapping imports raced to INSERT the same (user_id, item_id)
rows and all but the first hit a UniqueViolation -> 500 (seen on prod). Rewrite the write path as a
chunked PostgreSQL UPSERT (on_conflict_do_update, rows de-duped by item_id) — idempotent and
concurrency-safe, Plex still wins on the intersection and Siftlode-only states are untouched.
Also disable the Settings toggle (and ignore its onChange) while a sync mutation is pending, so it
can't be fired repeatedly; adds a reusable 'disabled' prop to the Switch primitive.
Plex records watch state per Plex account; Siftlode per user in plex_states. A new plex_link table
maps a Siftlode user to a Plex account; for the owner (MVP) the row uses the server admin token
(uses_admin=True), so no separate Plex login. app/plex/watch_sync.py reads the owner account's
viewCount/viewOffset/lastViewedAt (already present in the catalog mirror's section listing) and
upserts them into the owner's plex_states — 'Plex is master' on this first import, but only where
Plex has a watch record (Siftlode-only states are preserved; union on the intersection). Idempotent.
Admin routes: GET/POST /api/plex/watch/link (status + enable/disable; first enable runs the import)
and POST /api/plex/watch/import (re-run). Migration 0051_plex_link. Two-way push (Phase B) and the
incremental Plex→Siftlode reconcile (Phase C) build on this in later ships.
- Multi-audio items now ship every audio track as an HLS rendition in one session
(stream.py var_stream_map -> master.m3u8), so hls.js switches audio CLIENT-SIDE with
no ffmpeg restart, same timeline, no gap/drift. /session gains ?multi=1 (forces HLS
even for direct-playable multi-audio files); K is probed from the video variant seg.
- Restore the selected audio track on AUDIO_TRACKS_UPDATED, not MANIFEST_PARSED (the
renditions aren't parsed yet on MANIFEST_PARSED, so the set was dropped -> after F5 the
UI showed the restored track but playback stayed on the default).
- Resume position now survives F5: a pagehide keepalive beacon (plexProgressBeacon)
saves the current position on reload/close/navigate, since React effect cleanup does
not run on a full reload; seekTo writes the target into absRef immediately so a save
right after a seek is accurate.
Streaming / subtitle sync (the core fix):
- stream.py: add -copyts so HLS segments carry the true absolute PTS, and measure
the real keyframe start K from seg_0 (ffprobe) -> return it as the session start.
Fixes the seconds-long subtitle lead caused by using the requested seek offset
instead of the keyframe ffmpeg actually lands on with video stream-copy.
- Add -noaccurate_seek so the re-encoded audio starts at the same keyframe as the
video (was starting (X-K)s later -> seconds of silence after each seek/audio switch).
- Compensate the fixed ~1.0s lag hls.js introduces for non-zero-start copyts streams,
folded into the session start so the clock, seeking and the subtitle shift are all
content-accurate.
- /subtitle gains an offset param; _shift_vtt shifts absolute cues onto the session's
zero-based clock and DROPS fully-past cue blocks (collapsing them to 0->0 made every
past cue active at currentTime 0 on resume -> a pile-up until playback advanced).
Audio:
- /session + stream.py gain an audio A/V-sync offset (-itsoffset, full +/-, second
input only when non-zero).
Player settings & personalization (per-account, persisted -> survive F5):
- storage.ts: useAccountPersistedObject (per-account JSON prefs blob).
- PlexPlayer: volume/mute, audio+subtitle language (index-based match, fixes the F5
audio-revert), sync offsets, seek steps, subtitle style, auto-hide, play intent.
- Hotkeys A (cycle audio) / S (cycle subtitle), mouse-wheel volume, Ctrl+arrow fine
seek, per-user plain/fine seek-step + auto-hide toggle.
- Subtitle appearance: size / colour / vertical position / background via ::cue + line.
- UI: split into a Tracks quick-menu + a tabbed gear panel (Sync | Playback | Subtitle);
both dismiss on outside-click; edge-aware control tooltips.
- i18n en/hu/de for all new strings.
Admins can curate Plex collections from a movie's info page ("Collections"
button → PlexCollectionEditor dialog): create a collection (seeded with the
movie), add/remove the movie to/from editable collections, delete a collection,
and "take over" an existing plain Plex collection (mark it editable). All writes
go to Plex (POST/PUT/DELETE via new PlexClient methods) and are reflected on
every client; a targeted single-collection re-sync (sync.resync_collection /
delete_collection_local) updates the local mirror without the full ~4-min sync.
Gating (per the design decisions): editing is ADMIN-ONLY (collections are shared
library-wide); only plain manual collections are editable — smart + external
auto-lists (IMDb/TMDb/…) are always read-only (can_edit = editable && !smart &&
source=="collection"). New admin endpoints under /api/plex/collections
(create/items add+remove/rename/delete/editable). Verified end-to-end incl. the
live Plex write API (create/add/rename/remove/delete all 200, self-cleaned) and
the editor UI (create + delete with confirm) on localdev.
Selecting a subtitle restarted the HLS session with `-map 0:s:{ord}`, assuming an
EMBEDDED stream. Films whose subs are external sidecar .srt files (Plex reports
them, but they aren't in the mkv) matched no stream; the master-playlist's
declared subtitle group then made ffmpeg fail → "Playback couldn't start".
Subtitles now go through a new GET /api/plex/subtitle/{rk}/{ord} → text/vtt
(external subs fetched from Plex via the stream key + SRT→VTT; embedded text subs
extracted with ffmpeg; image subs → 415), served as native <video><track> that
the browser overlays. So choosing/switching a subtitle is instant with NO session
restart, and stream.py drops all subtitle muxing (`-sn`, no master playlist).
Image-based subs (PGS/VobSub) are marked text=false and hidden in the picker.
Verified on prod's Nymphomaniac Vol. II: HU sidecar → 1693 WebVTT cues, no crash.
Posters/art were proxied at full resolution (many 1-7MB, some 9.5MB) into ≤176px
grid/info cells — heavy to fetch + decode, so fast scrolling lagged 1-2s even
with a warm cache (the cache removed the Plex round-trip, not the image weight).
Now PlexClient.image_bytes optionally hits Plex's /photo/:/transcode to resize
server-side; the /image endpoint requests thumb=400x600, art=1280x720 and keys
the cache by width (old full-size files orphaned, re-cached small). Measured:
a poster 5.5MB->50KB, art 8.1MB->137KB, at 400x600 (crisp on 2x DPR). Grid
scroll is near-instant and the disk cache shrinks ~8x.
Backend (migration 0047_plex_collections): a plex_collections table mirrors every Plex
collection (card metadata + smart flag + an editable flag reserved for Phase 2); membership
is stored as GIN-indexed collection_keys on member movies (plex_items) and shows (plex_shows).
The background sync (plex_sync) now fetches each library's collections + their children and
rebuilds membership — so ALL reads are local (Plex's dual-language collection queries are slow;
this trades a ~4-min background sync for instant reads). New /api/plex/collections endpoint;
/browse gains a combinable filter; item_detail returns the movie's collection
'strips' (sibling titles as playable cards, smallest/most-specific collection first) — all pure
local lookups.
Frontend: PlexSidebar gains a searchable Collection picker + an active-collection chip;
PlexInfo renders the collection strips (playable posters + 'Browse collection' → sets the
filter); the collection is part of PlexFilters (persisted). i18n en/hu/de.
Phase 2 (create/edit collections with write-back to Plex) is separate.
Backend (migration 0046_plex_people_search): a new people_text column (cast +
director names, de-duped) is folded into the generated search_vector at weight B,
so the top search box finds titles by an actor/director name and ranks them above
summary-only mentions. New /api/plex/people endpoint returns the cast/crew matching
the term (name prefix or word-start) with a film count + a headshot (pulled from one
representative film's live metadata; image bytes disk-cached).
Frontend: PlexBrowse shows matching people as virtual cards above the grid; clicking
one adds them to the actor/director filter (multi-value, from the C1 work) and clears
the search box so you land on exactly that person's films. Answers the 'why does
"drew" match Rambo?' confusion — it was matching the word in the synopsis; now names
are searchable. i18n en/hu/de.
⚠️ Prod needs a Plex re-sync after deploy to populate people_text (search_vector
regenerates automatically once the column has data).
Backend (migration 0045_plex_filter_meta): plex_items gains rating (audienceRating
~IMDb), content_rating, studio, originally_available_at, and GIN-indexed genres /
directors / cast_names — all mirrored from the cheap section listing (no per-item API
calls; they also seed a future watch-habit recommender). /browse gains genre / content-
rating / year / rating / duration / added-within / director / actor / studio filters
(@> containment, GIN) + sort by year|rating|duration|release; new /facets endpoint
returns available genres+ratings (with counts) and the year/rating/duration bounds. A
thin on-disk image cache (.plex-img-cache) serves posters/art/cast photos from local
disk after first fetch (~7-14x faster repeat loads).
Frontend: PlexSidebar grows the full filter set (facet-driven genre/age chips, rating
steps, year range inputs, duration buckets, added-within, active people/studio chips,
clear-all); filters persist per-account as one JSON blob. PlexInfo metadata (year,
genre, director, cast, studio, IMDb score) is clickable → sets the matching filter and
returns to the filtered grid (page variant only; the in-player overlay stays read-only
so a stray click can't stop playback). i18n en/hu/de.
Backend: item detail returns audio_streams + subtitle_streams (from Plex Part.Stream
ordinals). The HLS session accepts audio/subtitle stream ordinals — the selected audio
is mapped (transcoded to AAC), a selected subtitle is muxed in as a WebVTT rendition
via a MASTER playlist (-master_pl_name + -var_stream_map sgroup:subs) so ffmpeg keeps
it in sync per-session. Selecting a track forces the HLS path (even for direct files).
Generic /stream/{rk}/hls/{filename} endpoint serves the master/media/vtt/ts artifacts.
Frontend: gear menu lists real audio + subtitle tracks; changing one restarts the
session at the current position (seek-restart mechanism). hls.js subtitle enabled on
SUBTITLE_TRACKS_UPDATED (not just MANIFEST_PARSED, else the VTT is never fetched).
Cues auto-nudged to line 88% (the full-height <video> clips a default bottom-edge cue).
Controls no longer auto-hide while the menu is open. plex.player.* i18n en/hu/de.
Verified in a real browser (2 Broke Girls S1E1, 2 audio + 2 subs): menu shows the real
tracks, enabling English subtitles renders them correctly positioned; backend master
playlist + vtt segments validated over HTTP.
Validated end-to-end on a real remux file (h264+ac3 mkv). The riskiest part of the
Plex epic — on-the-fly playback from the local file — now proven.
- app/plex/stream.py: seek-restart HLS session model (one ffmpeg per item, restarted
at a seek offset via -ss). Video stream-COPY (I/O-bound, CPU-light — fine on the
GPU-less prod host) + audio→aac only when not already aac. Maps first video+audio,
drops subtitles (no VTT rendition clutter). Session cap + idle reaper.
- routes: POST /stream/{rk}/session?start= (direct→raw url, remux→HLS session,
transcode→501 P3), GET /stream/{rk}/file (206 range, direct), /index.m3u8, /seg_n.ts.
- KEY FINDINGS (hard-won): (1) ffmpeg -hls_playlist_type VOD does NOT write the
playlist mid-run (only at finalize) → use EVENT (append-only, appears immediately),
which suits the seek-restart model; (2) naive per-segment copy + keyframe-indexed
extraction are both unreliable (non-uniform/imprecise segments) — ffmpeg's own HLS
muxer is the only correct segmenter; (3) dev slowness was the Windows /downloads
bind-mount write + SMB read → PLEX_HLS_DIR env points scratch at fast container-local
/var/tmp on dev (prod keeps download_root, fast local disk).
- app/plex/sync.py: full reconcile of enabled movie/show sections into plex_*
(upsert by rating_key). Reuses Plex's own codec info to classify browser
playability (direct/remux/transcode) — no ffprobe. Movies + episodes become
playable leaves; shows/seasons mirrored for the drill-down.
- routes/plex.py: GET /libraries, /browse (FTS search + sort + paging, movie
leaves or show cards), /show/{rk} (seasons+episodes, per-user state), /image
(proxies Plex art, no duplication); admin POST /sync. All auth'd, demo-allowed.
- scheduler: plex_sync job (interval settings.plex_sync_interval_min).
- Verified against the real server: 2 libs, 3206 movies, 260 shows/961 seasons/
14768 episodes synced in 13s; FTS search + drill-down work. Playability:
~1% direct, 89% remux, 6% transcode (informs P2/P3).
