Plex warns app no longer works properly on old smart TVs
Plex no longer works well on older smart TVs from the likes of Samsung, LG, Vizio, and Hisense. If manufacturers no longer carry out software updates, no secure connections to external media servers can be made. There is, however, a workaround possible.
Since the end of September, the expiration of a security certificate has prevented streaming service Plex from making a secure connection with Plex Media Servers on old smart TVs. Using external media servers on affected TVs will cause the app to show an error message. Users who use their own media server over a local network can still use outdated smart TVs.
Plex gives some workarounds in the accompanying blog post to solve the problem. Apart from purchasing a smart TV that is still supported, users can also allow an unsecured connection in the settings. The streaming service recommends setting the ‘secure connections’ option to ‘preferred’ in the server settings so that the application still makes a secure connection when possible. Alternatively, users can also choose to use an external receiver. The American company cites Google Chromecast, Roku Express, and the Amazon Fire TV Stick as examples.
Officially, Plex has not disclosed which expired security certificate is causing the current issues. The blog post’s publishing date, on the other hand, exactly matches the expiration of Let’s Encrypt’s popular root security certificate DST Root CA X3. The expiration of that certificate caused a worldwide outage in early October that affected millions of users.
| Plex for LG | webOS | All versions older than 5.0 | N/A |
| Plex for LG | NetCast | All versions | N/A |
| Plex for Samsung | Tizen | All versions | N/A |
| Plex for Opera TV | Opera TV Store | All versions | N/A |
| Plex for Smart TVs | netgem | All versions | N/A |
| Plex for TiVo | TiVo | All versions | N/A |
| Plex for VIDAA | VIDAA | N/A | All versions older than 5.0 |