Requests Explained

Hello everyone,

With requests stability starting to become steady I figured I’d give some insight into what happens when you request something and hopefully answer that burning question, “Why isn’t my request up yet?”

From the second you visit the requests landing page it’s communicating with all the other systems used to give you the user experience you know and love.

Firstly it will check for Plex to be up so you’ll know if you can watch what you’re going to request as soon as it’s ready. Note that even when Plex is down you can continue to request stuff.

Next when you start typing in a title to request it will narrow down as you type the shows you might be looking for and hopefully display the exact one you’d like to request.

As this occurs its accessing a cache of whats in the database to be searched for and what is already on Plex as well as a list of what’s on Netflix. Yes, you can see if what you’re requesting is on Netflix. Then you can see it as soon as you access your Netflix account however who needs Netflix when you’ve got Plex!

Once the show you’ve searched for has the request button click it zooms through a series of tubes through my network and registers the request as a wanted item.

Now the software on my end will search for the best quality of the request and fetch it if it qualifies based on a list of requirements set by me which include file size, quality, subtitle presence, audio, codecs, and more.

Lets say the request is for a yet to be aired/released series/movie. The system automatically searches on request but also maintains a running list of what is wanted and flags it when it’s found when the system scans 6 different sources and multiple internet backbones for the best and most readily available files.

If you see this…

Then your request is logged in the database and is actively being searched for. When found it will be published to the Plex Media Server for viewing.

Note: Just because your request isn’t marked as “Available” doesn’t mean that none of it is available for viewing on Plex already. Always check Plex for the latest. If nothing comes up when searched, we have yet to find any of the content. Likely for very new, very old, and special requests/foreign content/non-english content.

If you see this…

Your request is completed in full. Be it all episodes of a series or only past ones it’s all been found. Keeping in mind “complete” is relative to your requested parts. This also means that the content is ready for playback on Plex.

Note: You may have noticed your request not fully available on Plex but marked as complete/Available. This is due to manual cleanup of content requested that did not get found. Typically we will email you if the content requested could not be found. Otherwise raise an issue for the request.

That’s all for now!

As always, if you’re ever having any issues the best thing to do is shoot us an email so we can look into it.

LightSpeedTaco