Server version: 1.18.0.19.13
Player version: 8.1.0.17967
Hi,
I just got my Nvidia Shield TV Pro yesterday and set up Plex. It does work but it takes about 40 seconds to start playing a file. Also, when forwarding or rewinding within the movie, this often also has 10-20 second delays.
I’m connected through 1 GB Ethernet cable. The movie files are located on a Synolgy NAS that’s also wired into the router.
I am sure this must be a setup issue but can’t see any relevant settings either on the Shield or within the Plex that have changed this.
I have updated to 1.19.3.2839. I updated through Google Play, so I am not sure how to update to 2852.
Unfortunately, this has not solved the problem. I tried playing a movie (just 1080p) on the Plex App on my iMac that connects to the PMS on my Shield and the same problem is present.
What do you recommend as the next steps in troubleshooting?
Do the drives in the Synology NAS go to sleep regularly? Waking them up causes a delay and maybe this irritates the shield and causes an even longer delay. Just guessing though.
Well, if the Shield Media Server is on the Shield and the iMac just runs the Plex App, isn’t it then the Plex Media Server on the Shield that would be the cause?
The reason I don’t use the Synology NAS is that I have tried that previously and that was very slow. So I was hoping to get a better result on the Shield.
I think you’re right that it might have something to do with how Plex on the Shield connects to the file on the NAS.
However, when I try to play the same file on the NAS through Infuse on Apple TV 4K, it starts instantly, so it doesn’t seem like it’s the NAS itself but rather the connection between the Shield or the Plex Server and the NAS.
It’s been more than a year since I used it, but I recall that it was buffering all the time so it was difficult to watch a movie and it seemed like the Plex Media Server required a lot of the CPU. The usage was in the 90s all the time .
The weird thing is that playing the same files from the NAS runs smoothly in Apple TV.
I just tried installing the Plex App on my Apple TV 4K. It has the same problem as the Plex App on Shield and on the iMac.
As the problem is not existing using Infuse on ATV4K, that reads the same file from the NAS, my best guess is that there’s something in the configuration that makes the Plex Server connection to the NAS very slow.
Another thing I noticed. When direct streaming the same movie on the Plex on ATV, it is streaming 9 Mbps according to the Plex web app. When streaming the movie on Plex on the Shield it’s only streaming 5 Mbps. I’ve set it to play original format.
Also, I tried to disable the new play to see if that would help. It didn’t. But one thing that did change, was that now it was possible for me to chose upscaling and use the slider. With the new player, I ma told that upscaling is not required no matter what file I play.
It turned out, that the NAS was indeed the issue. There was an system update from Synology and I changed the SMB settings to allow SMB 3 and after that, the Plex App on the Shield starts the movies after 2-3 seconds, which is just as I’d hoped.
It is very rare that I transcode, so I see your point.
However, there was also the issue with very high cpu usage on the Synology, just running the Plex Server and it doesn’t seem to be taxing the Shield very much. It may be, though, with the update of the Synology, that running the Plex Server on it is less taxing.
It’s hard to glean the information from this thread but if I understand this correctly you were experiencing the issue when:
The client was on the Shield and was direct playing
The Plex Media Server was running on the Shield
The Synology contains the media
The media was made accessible to the Shield via SMB (but not SMB 3)
Assuming that the above is true, then you may have encountered a bug in the kernel on the Shield. I thought they had fixed it but maybe it regressed (again). In case it helps to find the real issue, I’ll describe the old bug:
The bug manifested in that a single file opened multiple times would cause the second to not be able to read any data for a long period of time (on the order of 30s). This caused slow playback start because of how the client would play an MKV (similar occurs with MP4):
Client would read and parse the file from the beginning by making an HTTP request to read the file from beginning to the end
Client would parse the element mentioning the location in the file for the cue element (which is going to be at the end)
Client seeks to the end to read the cues which enable it to skip around in the file better. This seek is implemented by closing the previous HTTP connection (which hasn’t finished) and opening another with a range request to read these bytes
Client would then start reading the file from the point where it wanted to play
Server has one thread which is processing the first HTTP request (which hasn’t finished yet) when it gets a second (the range request) and that’s processed in another thread.
Second thread opens the file, seeks to the requested point, starts reading and sending what it read to the client
What the Shield was doing is at step (6), the call to read from the file would just hang for about 30s and then finally it would start actually reading the file. It was hanging in the kernel, specifically in the SMB code. A similar set of steps to the above occurs when you seek back (and forward if you seek forward far enough).
Interestingly, this above issue did not occur when the client was transcoding. This is because when transcoding, the Plex Media Server didn’t encounter the Shield SMB bug because it only ever opened the file on the NAS once instead of in response to each HTTP request it received.
It doesn’t matter if the Shield is the client or not. Any client that is direct playing from the Plex Media Server would reproduce the issue.
If the above accurately describes your situation, I’d like to know so it can be reported to Nvidea.
@gbooker02: Thanks for the detailed description of the bug.
It seems to fit what I was experiencing in most regards. The only thing I’m unsure about is that it also happened the first time I opened a file and the lag seemed to be more or less the same regardless of the size of the file.
