(2025 Jan) iOS app transcoding on cellular data limited to 2mbps/480p

Plex Players Mobile Devices
1

This is a well documented bug that has existed for years.

Post history:

2020 Feb: iOS media transcoding on cellular

2020 July: iOS media transcoding on cellular data only up to 2mbps

2021 April: iOS Remote transcoding options limited to 720p 2mbps or 4K original when using cellular data

2022 April: Bug Report: Transcoding capped at 2Mbps / 480p on iOS app

2022 July: iOS Plex app won't give transcode options above 480p

2023 Jan: Cellular data is limited even if it's not selected - Know Bug in iOS

What is the latest status on it and is this officially “wont fix”?

2

Same issue on new Phone. Everything works like charm on my galaxy s23 u. now with my magic v3 its capped at 480p. if i choose auto quality it aborts and im unable to play.

3

I’m not sure what I’m doing differently, but I can configure through 1080p through to 4k if I want. Here are some screen shots, Apple iPhone running 18.3.1 with latest Plex Server and Client.

Plex Server config to ensure remote stream bitrate is correct (I typically set this to 1080p 12Mbps)

image
image1219Ă—410 50.7 KB

iPhone client settings for Quality

IMG_8818.PNG
IMG_8818.PNG480Ă—1041 44.6 KB

Playback worked just fine with 4k

IMG_8819.PNG
IMG_8819.PNG1041Ă—480 52.1 KB

4

Thanks for sharing. But the scope of the bug isn’t that everyone with an iPhone will run into it.

My personal experience is that sometimes it will work fine. In most other times it won’t.

I have multiple apple device, multiple phones, pads. Up until Jan 2025, only one device, one of my iPad, works fine, like yours.

Then one day it also goes into the the error state and now none of my apple device shows the full menu when transcoding via mobile data.

I don’t know what triggers this.