[PLEX/API]: External (invited users) no longer supported.

[znhunter]

Is there an existing issue for this?

• I have searched for existing issues

Current Behavior

The container connects properly to the plex server. But will not update subtitles/audio language for shows. Getting an error in the log:

Expected Behavior

Should update the subtitles and the audio language but is not.

Steps To Reproduce

No response

Environment

- OS: Ubuntu 24.04.4
- Plex Auto Languages Version: 1.4.2
- Plex Version: 1.43.0.10492 
- Docker Install: 28.1.1
- Other Information:

Logs

2026-03-25 14:37:11,135 [INFO] Starting Plex Auto Languages - Version 1.4.2
2026-03-25 14:37:11,160 [INFO] Setting from Env: plex_url=http******************
2026-03-25 14:37:11,161 [INFO] Setting from Env: plex_token=TOKEN
2026-03-25 14:37:11,161 [INFO] The provided configuration has been successfully validated
2026-03-25 14:37:11,206 [INFO] Starting scheduler
2026-03-25 14:37:11,206 [INFO] Starting initialization phase...
2026-03-25 14:37:12,100 [INFO] Successfully connected as user 'SERVERNAME' (id: 1)
2026-03-25 14:37:12,187 [INFO] Starting alert listener
2026-03-25 14:37:12,244 [INFO] Application initialization completed successfully
2026-03-25 14:37:58,692 [WARNING] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' with cached token, refreshing token
2026-03-25 14:37:59,120 [ERROR] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' even with fresh token
2026-03-25 14:38:04,332 [WARNING] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' with cached token, refreshing token
2026-03-25 14:38:04,478 [ERROR] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' even with fresh token
2026-03-25 14:38:06,249 [WARNING] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' with cached token, refreshing token
2026-03-25 14:38:06,387 [ERROR] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' even with fresh token
2026-03-25 14:38:14,355 [WARNING] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' with cached token, refreshing token
2026-03-25 14:38:14,483 [ERROR] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' even with fresh token
2026-03-25 14:38:24,412 [WARNING] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' with cached token, refreshing token
2026-03-25 14:38:24,557 [ERROR] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' even with fresh token
2026-03-25 14:38:34,418 [WARNING] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' with cached token, refreshing token
2026-03-25 14:38:34,550 [ERROR] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' even with fresh token
2026-03-25 14:38:44,472 [WARNING] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' with cached token, refreshing token
2026-03-25 14:38:44,612 [ERROR] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' even with fresh token
2026-03-25 14:38:54,519 [WARNING] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' with cached token, refreshing token
2026-03-25 14:38:54,681 [ERROR] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' even with fresh token
2026-03-25 14:39:04,526 [WARNING] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' with cached token, refreshing token
2026-03-25 14:39:04,667 [ERROR] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' even with fresh token
2026-03-25 14:39:14,554 [WARNING] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' with cached token, refreshing token
2026-03-25 14:39:14,692 [ERROR] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' even with fresh token
2026-03-25 14:39:24,621 [WARNING] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' with cached token, refreshing token
2026-03-25 14:39:24,762 [ERROR] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' even with fresh token
2026-03-25 14:39:34,659 [WARNING] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' with cached token, refreshing token
2026-03-25 14:39:34,788 [ERROR] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' even with fresh token
2026-03-25 14:39:44,638 [WARNING] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' with cached token, refreshing token
2026-03-25 14:39:44,773 [ERROR] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' even with fresh token
2026-03-25 14:39:54,687 [WARNING] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' with cached token, refreshing token
2026-03-25 14:39:54,810 [ERROR] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' even with fresh token
2026-03-25 14:40:04,725 [WARNING] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' with cached token, refreshing token
2026-03-25 14:40:04,858 [ERROR] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' even with fresh token
2026-03-25 14:40:14,748 [WARNING] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' with cached token, refreshing token
2026-03-25 14:40:14,875 [ERROR] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' even with fresh token
2026-03-25 14:40:24,802 [WARNING] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' with cached token, refreshing token
2026-03-25 14:40:24,946 [ERROR] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' even with fresh token
2026-03-25 14:40:34,851 [WARNING] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' with cached token, refreshing token
2026-03-25 14:40:35,041 [ERROR] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' even with fresh token
2026-03-25 14:40:44,858 [WARNING] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' with cached token, refreshing token
2026-03-25 14:40:44,991 [ERROR] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' even with fresh token
2026-03-25 14:40:54,888 [WARNING] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' with cached token, refreshing token
2026-03-25 14:40:55,029 [ERROR] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' even with fresh token
2026-03-25 14:40:57,120 [WARNING] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' with cached token, refreshing token
2026-03-25 14:40:57,272 [ERROR] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' even with fresh token
2026-03-25 14:41:14,064 [WARNING] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' with cached token, refreshing token
2026-03-25 14:41:14,228 [ERROR] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' even with fresh token
2026-03-25 14:41:22,874 [WARNING] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' with cached token, refreshing token
2026-03-25 14:41:23,033 [ERROR] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' even with fresh token
2026-03-25 14:41:32,904 [WARNING] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' with cached token, refreshing token
2026-03-25 14:41:33,051 [ERROR] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' even with fresh token
2026-03-25 14:41:41,381 [WARNING] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' with cached token, refreshing token
2026-03-25 14:41:41,537 [ERROR] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' even with fresh token
2026-03-25 14:41:41,895 [WARNING] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' with cached token, refreshing token
2026-03-25 14:41:42,118 [ERROR] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' even with fresh token
2026-03-25 14:41:42,466 [WARNING] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' with cached token, refreshing token
2026-03-25 14:41:42,615 [ERROR] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' even with fresh token
2026-03-25 14:41:46,672 [WARNING] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' with cached token, refreshing token
2026-03-25 14:41:46,807 [ERROR] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' even with fresh token
2026-03-25 14:41:55,037 [WARNING] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' with cached token, refreshing token
2026-03-25 14:41:55,204 [ERROR] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Zachary' even with fresh token

Additional Information

The install was working perfectly fine as of yesterday and I have changed nothing in the configuration.

[JourneyOver]

I'll see if I can figure anything out, can't promise a whole lot right this moment but I'll at least say I'll at least try to figure out if something is going on.

By chance did you do any sort of updates between yesterday and when it stopped working? are you running :main or :latest? since I see you are on version 1.4.2 I can only guesstimate atm since I haven't pushed any -dev versioning info with the last 3 commits.

by chance could you possibly run with debug set to true for a bit and then upload the logs?

[znhunter]

Thanks for getting back so quick.

No updates since it was working. I am on :latest. See below for logs. Says no plex instance available, which makes no sense seeing as it's connected above.

2026-03-25 16:06:32,147 [INFO] Starting Plex Auto Languages - Version 1.4.2
2026-03-25 16:06:32,150 [INFO] Setting from Env: plex_url=http******************
2026-03-25 16:06:32,150 [INFO] Setting from Env: plex_token=zJ2c****************
2026-03-25 16:06:32,150 [INFO] Setting from Env: debug=true
2026-03-25 16:06:32,150 [INFO] The provided configuration has been successfully validated
2026-03-25 16:06:32,150 [DEBUG] Debug mode enabled
2026-03-25 16:06:32,153 [INFO] Starting scheduler
2026-03-25 16:06:32,154 [INFO] Starting initialization phase...
2026-03-25 16:06:32,694 [INFO] Successfully connected as user 'ZEUSMEDIASERVER' (id: 1)
2026-03-25 16:06:32,694 [DEBUG] [Cache] Attempting to load cache file
2026-03-25 16:06:32,705 [DEBUG] [Cache] Cache file loaded successfully
2026-03-25 16:06:32,707 [DEBUG] Starting alert processing thread
2026-03-25 16:06:32,707 [INFO] Starting alert listener
2026-03-25 16:06:32,708 [INFO] Application initialization completed successfully
2026-03-25 16:06:35,482 [DEBUG] Connection status cache expired, refreshing
2026-03-25 16:06:35,486 [DEBUG] Connection status: Connected
2026-03-25 16:06:37,394 [DEBUG] No Plex instance available
2026-03-25 16:06:37,394 [WARNING] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Boredom' with cached token, refreshing token
2026-03-25 16:06:37,586 [DEBUG] No Plex instance available
2026-03-25 16:06:37,586 [ERROR] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Boredom' even with fresh token
2026-03-25 16:06:45,678 [DEBUG] No Plex instance available
2026-03-25 16:06:45,678 [WARNING] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Boredom' with cached token, refreshing token
2026-03-25 16:06:45,811 [DEBUG] No Plex instance available
2026-03-25 16:06:45,812 [ERROR] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Boredom' even with fresh token
2026-03-25 16:06:55,811 [DEBUG] No Plex instance available
2026-03-25 16:06:55,812 [WARNING] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Boredom' with cached token, refreshing token
2026-03-25 16:06:55,944 [DEBUG] No Plex instance available
2026-03-25 16:06:55,944 [ERROR] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Boredom' even with fresh token
2026-03-25 16:07:05,537 [DEBUG] Using cached connection status: Connected (cache age: 30.1s)
2026-03-25 16:07:05,962 [DEBUG] No Plex instance available
2026-03-25 16:07:05,962 [WARNING] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Boredom' with cached token, refreshing token
2026-03-25 16:07:06,143 [DEBUG] No Plex instance available
2026-03-25 16:07:06,143 [ERROR] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Boredom' even with fresh token
2026-03-25 16:07:16,107 [DEBUG] No Plex instance available
2026-03-25 16:07:16,107 [WARNING] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Boredom' with cached token, refreshing token
2026-03-25 16:07:16,236 [DEBUG] No Plex instance available
2026-03-25 16:07:16,236 [ERROR] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Boredom' even with fresh token
2026-03-25 16:07:26,233 [DEBUG] No Plex instance available
2026-03-25 16:07:26,233 [WARNING] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Boredom' with cached token, refreshing token
2026-03-25 16:07:26,369 [DEBUG] No Plex instance available
2026-03-25 16:07:26,369 [ERROR] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Boredom' even with fresh token
2026-03-25 16:07:32,716 [DEBUG] Using cached connection status: Connected (cache age: 57.2s)
2026-03-25 16:07:35,595 [DEBUG] Using cached connection status: Connected (cache age: 60.1s)
2026-03-25 16:07:36,365 [DEBUG] No Plex instance available
2026-03-25 16:07:36,365 [WARNING] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Boredom' with cached token, refreshing token
2026-03-25 16:07:36,494 [DEBUG] No Plex instance available
2026-03-25 16:07:36,494 [ERROR] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Boredom' even with fresh token
2026-03-25 16:07:40,735 [DEBUG] [Status] The Plex server scanned the library
2026-03-25 16:07:40,735 [DEBUG] [Cache] Refreshing library cache
2026-03-25 16:07:51,892 [DEBUG] [Cache] Done refreshing library cache
2026-03-25 16:07:51,892 [DEBUG] [Cache] Saving server cache to file at /config/cache/1ee098937dd1dcce2e83fcfd411c0a58698dd306
2026-03-25 16:07:51,901 [DEBUG] [Cache] Server cache successfully saved
2026-03-25 16:07:52,203 [DEBUG] No Plex instance available
2026-03-25 16:07:52,203 [WARNING] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Boredom' with cached token, refreshing token
2026-03-25 16:07:52,327 [DEBUG] No Plex instance available
2026-03-25 16:07:52,327 [ERROR] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Boredom' even with fresh token
2026-03-25 16:07:56,645 [DEBUG] No Plex instance available
2026-03-25 16:07:56,646 [WARNING] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Boredom' with cached token, refreshing token
2026-03-25 16:07:56,788 [DEBUG] No Plex instance available
2026-03-25 16:07:56,788 [ERROR] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Boredom' even with fresh token
2026-03-25 16:08:05,644 [DEBUG] Using cached connection status: Connected (cache age: 90.2s)
2026-03-25 16:08:06,777 [DEBUG] No Plex instance available
2026-03-25 16:08:06,778 [WARNING] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Boredom' with cached token, refreshing token
2026-03-25 16:08:06,912 [DEBUG] No Plex instance available
2026-03-25 16:08:06,912 [ERROR] Connection to the Plex server failed for user 'Boredom' even with fresh token

[JourneyOver]

So I have been able to reproduce this (it wasn't happening until I restarted my PAL container funnily enough), and yea I'm honestly not sure yet on why it's returning a No Plex instance available atm, but I'm looking into this so just bear with me while I figure out what's going on and hopefully get a fix out.

[kratoz29]

Happening to me too, same version (Docker latest Synology NAS), but not a managed Plex user, it is a remote user (friend).

[znhunter]

Happening to me too, same version (Docker latest Synology NAS), but not a managed Plex user, it is a remote user (friend).

FWIW this is also happening for my remote users. I've also noticed that the user (remote or local) has to be actively watching something for the error to show up. If nobody is watching, then no error.

[kratoz29]

Happening to me too, same version (Docker latest Synology NAS), but not a managed Plex user, it is a remote user (friend).

FWIW this is also happening for my remote users. I've also noticed that the user (remote or local) has to be actively watching something for the error to show up. If nobody is watching, then no error.

Yes, finding the same, it seems to work fine for me (admin), locally or remotely.

[JourneyOver]

yes, at the current time it seems to only be happening when local/remote users other than admin are watching. I'm trying to narrow down what exactly changed that could be causing this problem to occur as well as testing a few things here and there on my side; I'll get a fix out as soon as I can figure everything out though.

[JourneyOver]

So I have some bad news and it's looking like what the root cause of this is; is that plex has finally shuttered getting shared tokens from remote users.. what does this mean exactly atm, I'm not 100% sure but reading into a bit it seems like PAL moving forward might no longer work for remote users (other than home users and admin).

so technically while this bit Multi-User Support: Perfect for households with diverse preferences. Each user gets their tracks automatically and independently selected may hold up still in a way, it's at least restricted a bit sadly now.

To summarize:

Admin account: Works perfectly, both locally and remotely.

Managed/Home users: Should be working, both locally and remotely.

Standard shared friends: Broken, both locally and remotely.

[JourneyOver]

I'm going to push a "fix" at least for now (here shortly) in that it'll at least stop spamming the connection failed stuff for every remote user watching stuff on the server. I'll also look more into this over the coming days and see exactly what I can do and if it'll be possible to get shared remote users working again.

I'm also going to be leaving this issue thread open until either I do get them working again or find out it just won't be possible anymore.

[znhunter]

Appreciated! However, the connection is still failing for managed users that aren't the admin. Not just remote.

[JourneyOver]

Hmm, tbh I took a wild guess at it possibly working for managed users that aren't admin just due to how things where worded in the posts I was reading about shutting down shared tokens eventually (the post was back in January but I guess they finally did it recently). I'm wondering then if shared tokens just affected everything that wasn't the admin.

[JourneyOver]

So I think for the time being as a temporary fix until I can figure out exactly how to move forward with all this, I'll be disabling both shared and managed users sadly so these errors don't continue to stockpile up in the logs, so until further notice PAL will only work with the main admin account.

I'll update the readme as well to state this for the time being. I am sorry that I don't have better news right now on getting an actual fix out (if it's going to actually be possible or not) but I will be looking into this more when I have free time.

I'll be pushing this out in the next hourish.

and I'll be keeping a track on pushingkarmaorg/python-plexapi#1598

[JourneyOver]

So I have actually found a fix for managed users, and will be pushing everything out in the next couple minutes or so (actual release not just a :main), as for shared users sadly as it stands for right now PAL will no longer be able to support shared users. If this changes in the near future who knows but at least for now this is how it's going to have to be.

Just for references: pushingkarmaorg/python-plexapi#1598 & https://forums.plex.tv/t/information-related-to-security-vulnerabilities/935164/24