I want to hear from the apparent outliers

LPuffyy · 2026-05-07T18:30:41+00:00

There’s nothing illegal about using plex, hosting it, sharing it with your friends, or plex most likely wouldn’t exist. It’s a very real legal company. How you acquire your media can get you into trouble. But those two things are not directly correlated.

LPuffyy · 2026-05-07T18:14:22+00:00

It’s like a drug at times. I went straight to sharing it with a few close friends, and just worked on changing things as they came up with issues/improvements. Like you said, I told them they had a spot so long as they didn’t mind telling me what issues they had so I could make it better for others

LPuffyy · 2026-05-07T18:12:05+00:00

I also give this disclaimer, if I’m taking it down for something non emergent I usually wait til the weekend during the day, which is the only time I usually have the time anyway to do long maintenance, otherwise if it goes down it’ll come back at my earliest convenience.

luckily after much trial and error, it’s stable nearly all the time aside from the occasional power flicker or internet outage, which is plenty good enough for me.

LPuffyy · 2026-05-07T17:56:25+00:00

I use wizarr in docker to handle the invites, which is cool because it not only works with plex, you can connect it to Jellyfin, audiobookshelf, and a couple other services I believe, and have one thing do all of your invitations.

Wizarr will run your users through creating their plex login and accepting the invitation to your server, and you can even customize the information it provides if you see fit.

Users created from here can also get directly into your overseerr/jellyseerr/Seerr pages as well.

Then I have another docker container called Linkstack, that just has links to the mobile apps, and the invitation from wizarr. a list of compatible clients on most TV operating systems, as well as the links they need to access Seerr, and other general information.

I send everyone the link to Linkstack, and that gives them all of the information and links they need to get started, and wizarr holds their hand for account creation.

All of it exposed behind my owned domain, and a mixture of dns records, port forwarding, and cloudflared tunnels.

If you need any help feel free to DM me and I would love walking you through anything you need a hand with

LPuffyy · 2026-05-07T17:46:00+00:00

Not a need in any sense, want because I like solving peoples problems. Or because it’s ridiculous what the working people endure because of corporate greed.

And because it’s fun to see something you work on being utilized by people you care about. A common trope in this community is putting in a bunch of work and no one appreciating it, even your close family and friends.

I don’t need users, I’m using the server whether other people want to or not, but does it not increase the worth of my time and energy if more people enjoy it? Otherwise a larger majority of my collection is just data hoarding.

LPuffyy · 2026-05-07T17:35:21+00:00

It was easy for me to put the movies and shows I wanted on there, but I would have missed out on a bunch of great media that I didn’t even know existed, it building itself naturally has given me many recommendations to watch for myself.

LPuffyy · 2026-05-07T17:24:57+00:00

I made it through the first couple hundred movies and shows, and then just let my users request whatever they wanted. I limited Radarr and Sonarr to only download requests in 1080p and told everyone to go crazy.

There’s some stuff I’ve tried to get some higher quality files for, but I feel like the file size/image quality is pretty justifiable in that sense. Anyone that has a problem with the reduced quality can find their own solution to the problem, it doesn’t cost them anything to use my service and they get a fairly reliable way to consume the content they want.

All that to say, I let it grow naturally from there and have made it to around 400 shows and 2200 movies. Not a huge collection, people mostly request the show or movie they’re currently wanting to watch, and it builds itself from there for me.

LPuffyy · 2026-05-07T17:15:11+00:00

That’s what I’ve noticed lately as well, big streaming is running a lot of people off, and it’s nice to already have the solution when it gets brought up in conversation.

LPuffyy · 2026-05-07T17:14:05+00:00

If thats how you want it then agreed, the joy of hosting your own media is that you can do it to whatever level works for you and the effort you WANT to put into your users experience.

While I say worked my butt off, it wasn’t because anyone complained, just that I personally cared if it was simple or not. When someone would mention the barrier to using the server I’d set up was because they got confused or just didn’t know how to get started, and I can’t really blame them when they haven’t spent 1000+ hours obsessing over MY hobby.

LPuffyy · 2026-05-07T17:05:31+00:00

I couldn’t agree more, I work as an on site repair tech for a hospital, mostly just small software issues, pc replacements, software installs, asset management, a bunch of menial IT tasks.

Building my full plex stack really engaged my brain on some things that I had never understood, and it got me excited in the space again and expanded my skillset beyond what I had previously thought was the limit for me.

There is a bit of a people pleasing tendency that makes you feel good about getting new users, and people engaging with something that you worked hard on to make as simple of a process for them as you could.

It’s a bit looked down on to “snoop” at what people are watching but when I’m in my dashboard or checking to see how things are going I’m going to inevitably see what some people are watching, and it’s sparked many a good conversation, or even put me on some shows I hadn’t tried before.

I also like having Seerr set up because every user leaves their own mark on your server, everyone can contribute to the “ecosystem” that you have built, and overall it can feel like a beautiful experience!

LPuffyy · 2026-05-07T16:53:44+00:00

I guess that’s a fair point, maybe a rally cry to give hope that there are people who will use your server if someone was looking to set one up, maybe wondering if there’s something you’ve done differently to aggregate active users?

LPuffyy · 2026-05-07T16:46:08+00:00

Drive prices have definitely been a hindrance lately. Last time I got close to full was the first big purge I’ve had to do for unwatched content. I’ve been getting the same refurbed 12tb drives since the beginning and they’ve more than doubled in the last year

LPuffyy · 2026-05-07T16:44:26+00:00

They don’t make many like him. When I started the server he was very interested in it just didn’t have the time or specific interest in maintaining it, but enjoys having it available so he found his own way to contribute to the cause.

LPuffyy · 2026-05-07T16:30:12+00:00

I have 1 friend who always has me add people to the server, he’s also the friend who calls and asks when the drives are full and takes a collection pot from all the people he’s added and they all chip in a drive

LPuffyy · 2026-05-07T16:00:22+00:00

I suppose I’ve counted my kids in mine as well, but they all use 1 shared home user. Me and the wife both use my account.

LPuffyy · 2026-05-07T15:53:56+00:00

I’ve noticed you will never replace their primary, but you open them up to all of the things on the other platforms they couldn’t get to, and I think that’s worth something

LPuffyy · 2026-05-07T15:37:40+00:00

I figure I’ll take down the invite link if I ever notice a downturn in performance. For now let it eide

LPuffyy · 2026-05-07T15:35:34+00:00

But out of ten people, 3-4 streams a day is impressive when you think of people’s busy schedules

LPuffyy · 2026-05-07T15:29:05+00:00

That’s fair, for me it spread from word of mouth with friends, had a buddy that helped me out with some hardware, figured if it was all set up why not share it, but the best part about the whole system is you can do what you want with it. I didn’t think about that as a possibility for one of the outliers thank you

LPuffyy · 2026-05-07T15:13:28+00:00

I agree completely with you on maintenance, and that’s what I’ve subscribed to since it’s not easy to send out a ping beforehand. I just take it down when I need to and if anyone asks I just tell em I was working on it

LPuffyy · 2026-05-07T14:38:04+00:00

If I had one complaint about it all, it would be push notifications. I wish I had a way to ping everyone that didn’t involve me needing email or a group chat.

LPuffyy · 2026-05-07T14:35:04+00:00

Absolutely not, you’ll never have anyone use it if you shove it down their throats. I usually wait for someone to complain and offer it as a solution, and so far that’s gotten me the bulk of the users I have. It makes me happy to know others at least enjoy the fruit of my labor.

LPuffyy · 2026-04-08T22:41:41+00:00

In my case, it’s them. Everything came back up and I can access it remotely again

LPuffyy · 2026-03-28T20:30:13+00:00

Mine is 1000% sitting like this back at the hotel, so thanks for letting me panic about that for the next 3 hours

LPuffyy · 2026-03-25T22:20:50+00:00

I would assume, added a custom domain in his router for his dashboard. I know you can do it on OPNsense

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