PlexMusic.pak

NOTE: I highly recommend updating stock firmware to the latest update. I noticed greatly improved wifi stability on v1.1.1

Plex Pass is required for transcoding (which is set by default). If you do not have Plex Pass, you can change the quality presets to "Original" in Settings.

PlexMusic.pak is a music player for the TrimUI Brick that streams music from a Plex Media Server. It runs natively (SDL3, no interpreter), cross-compiled for ARM aarch64. Installed as a NextUI pak, it appears in the Apps->Tools menu.

Browsing

• Browse by Artists → Albums → Tracks or jump straight to a flat Albums view sorted by release year
• Album art displayed alongside every list
• Animated loading screen with instant B-button cancel on any in-progress load

Playback

• Streams MP3, FLAC, WAV, M4A, AAC, OGG, and Opus
• Set transcode quality for Opus conversions
• Progressive playback — audio starts within ~2–3 s; no waiting for the full track to download
• Scrobbles plays back to your Plex server

Offline

• Full offline mode: browse and play downloaded albums and favorites list without a network connection
• Set download quality targets (original or Opus transcode)
• Offline Artists and Albums views mirror the online experience
• Warning prompt if you try to switch to offline while a download is in progress

Favorites

• Press Y on any track (online or offline) to toggle it as a favorite — a ♥ appears in the track listing
• "Favorite Tracks" on the home menu shows all favorites; A queues the whole list, Y removes a track
• Press Y on "Favorite Tracks" in online mode to sync: missing tracks are downloaded, removed favorites are deleted from local storage
• Offline edits (add/remove favorites) are automatically picked up by the next online sync — no extra step needed

Auth & setup

• PIN-based Plex authentication (plex.tv/link, no password entry needed)
• Supports multiple Plex servers — pick one on first launch
• Auth and settings saved to SD card; no re-login needed after reboot

Quality of life

• Background playback — press B from Now Playing to return to browse while audio keeps playing
• Now Playing screen: shuffle (L2), repeat All/One/Off (R2), favorite (Y)
• D-pad left/right: tap = skip track, hold = seek ±5 s
• Queue auto-advances through an album during background playback
• Configurable screen sleep timeout
• MENU+SELECT wakes the screen from sleep when pocket lockout is enabled
• MENU+START quits from anywhere instantly
• Settings: switch server, sign out, change library, seek interval, transcode options

Tools/tg5040/PlexMusic.pak/
  launch.sh
  pak.json
  res/
    font.ttf
  bin/tg5040/
    plexmusic.elf
    libmsettings.so

1. Copy the above directory structure to your SD card under Tools/tg5040/.
2. The pak will appear in NextUI's Apps menu.

Browsing

Now Playing

Global

1. Launch PlexMusic.pak from the Apps menu.
2. A 4-character PIN is displayed. On another device, go to plex.tv/link and enter it.
3. After signing in, select your Plex server.
4. Browse your music library.

Auth config is saved to SD card — subsequent launches go straight to browse.

• Log: /mnt/SDCARD/.userdata/tg5040/logs/plexmusic.txt
• Config: /mnt/SDCARD/.userdata/shared/plexmusic/config.json
  • Contains token, server URL, stream quality setting
• Favorites: /mnt/SDCARD/.userdata/shared/plexmusic/favorites.json
• Downloads: /mnt/SDCARD/.userdata/shared/plexmusic/downloads/
• Art cache: /mnt/SDCARD/.userdata/shared/plexmusic/art/

To sign out or switch servers, delete config.json.

Requires the ghcr.io/loveretro/tg5040-toolchain Docker image (run via Podman).

# Build libmsettings.so (once)
podman run --rm \
  -v /path/to/repo:/path/to/repo \
  ghcr.io/loveretro/tg5040-toolchain:latest \
  sh -c 'cd /path/to/repo/NextUI/workspace/tg5040/libmsettings && \
    ${CROSS_COMPILE}gcc -c -fpic msettings.c && \
    ${CROSS_COMPILE}gcc -shared -o libmsettings.so msettings.o -ltinyalsa -ldl -lrt && \
    cp libmsettings.so /path/to/repo/git/paks/PlexMusic/bin/tg5040/'

# Build the ELF
podman run --rm \
  -v /path/to/repo:/path/to/repo \
  ghcr.io/loveretro/tg5040-toolchain:latest \
  sh -c 'cd /path/to/repo/git/paks/PlexMusic/src && make 2>&1'

Output: bin/tg5040/plexmusic.elf

This code was written with good vibes only (i.e Claude). I'm not a fullstack dev, just a person who wanted to listen to Plex on his TrimUI Brick.