Plex Server Alerts in Telegram Using Node Red

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could receive a notification in telegram when a movie starts playing in you plex server?

In this Article, We will learn how to setup a bot and make it send notifications when a movie starts playing in plex.

Before you Start

Before you start you would need the following…

• PLEX Server : You will need a plex server running in any of your home servers.

Plex gives you one place to find and access all the media that matters to you. From personal media on your own server, to free and on-demand Movies & Shows, live TV, podcasts, and web shows, to streaming music, you can enjoy it all in one app, on any device.

• Node-RED Server : You will also need a Node-RED server running in any of your home server.

Node-RED is a programming tool for wiring together hardware devices, APIs and online services in new and interesting ways. It provides a browser-based editor that makes it easy to wire together flows using the wide range of nodes in the palette that can be deployed to its runtime in a single-click.

• Pre-Configured Telegram Bot : If you don’t know how to create a Telegram Bot, Please refer to my other medium article which explains the details of creating a bot — link

Telegram bots are small programs that can embed in Telegram chats or public channels and perform a specific function. They can offer customised keyboards, produce cat memes on demand, or even accept payments and act as a digital storefront.

PLEX Node-RED Palette

Firstly, you will need to install the Plex Node-RED palette in your Node-RED instance. Open Palettes and search for node-red-contrib-plex-ws and install it.

This palette has the ability to talk to plex server and receive notifications.

To Configure the plex palette you you need the plex token

Finding the PLEX Token

1. Sign in to your Plex account in Plex Web App
2. Browse to a library item and view the XML for it

3. Click the XML link at the bottom of the Media Info window.

4. Look in the URL and find the token as the X-Plex-Token value

5. Copy this token and save it, We will have to use this token in the next steps.

Setup Plex Palette

Once you have got your plex token, It is now time to setup your Plex Palette in Node-RED. Drag and Drop the Plex Playing Node to the Flow

and, Double Click on the Node to Open up the node Settings, In the Server Section, Click to add a new Server. Fill in the host (ip of your plex server), port and the plex token.

Setting up the Node-RED Flow

Create a flow as below

rbe node is added just to make sure that there are no duplicate notifications

In the Functions node, Add the following code

var messageContent = "";

if(msg.payload.includes ("playing")) {
    messageContent = "Now Playing on PLEX: " + msg.session.title + " (" + msg.session.year + ")";
} else if(msg.payload.includes ("stopped")) {
    messageContent = "Stopped Playing on PLEX: " + msg.session.title + " (" + msg.session.year + ")";
}


if(msg.payload.includes ("playing")) {
    
    var id = msg.session.guid;
    id = id.replace("com.plexapp.agents.imdb://", "");
    id = id.replace("?lang=en", "");
    msg.payload = {
        chatId :"<YOUR_CHAT_ID>",
        type : "photo",
        content : "https://m.imdb.com/title/"+id+"/mediaviewer/",
        caption : messageContent
    }
    
    return msg;
} else if(msg.payload.includes ("stopped")) {
    msg.payload = {
        chatId :"<YOUR_CHAT_ID>",
        type : "message",
        content : messageContent
    }
    return msg;
} else {
    return "";
}

This JavaScript code will fetch the movie images from IMDB and send it via Telegram.

Setup Telegram in Node-RED

You will need to configure the Telegram Bot to receive the Notifications, Please refer to the following links to setup a Telegram Bot inside Node-RED

• Create a Bot — link
• Add the Bot inside Node-RED — link

Thats it, You are all done!