4K HDR Buffering in Xbox Plex App with Direct Play, but not in Movies and TV App using DLNA

[Chan]

Server Version#: 1.31.1.6782
Player Version#: 10.0.22621.3680

Title pretty much sums it up - Just about any 4K HDR movie I stream through the Plex app on my Series X eventually runs into buffering issues.

The issue does not appear if I
-Play the same file through the Plex player for Windows
-Play the file on the Series X through Microsoft’s “Movies and TV” using Plex’s DLNA server

All of the files I’ve tested are using Direct Play for both the video and audio tracks to both the Xbox and the PC. Xbox is using passthrough audio to a receiver that can handle the audio tracks. The TV is 4K HDR capable.

The Xbox, Windows machine, and Synology NAS hosting the Plex server are all hardwired - gigabit for the Xbox and Windows PC, and 2Gbps (via link aggregation) on the NAS/Plex server.

When the buffering happens, it causes the audio to desync from the video. The longer the buffering happens, the farther they desync. Pausing, rewinding any amount, and playback stop/start all resync the audio to the video again. In extreme cases, the buffering happens for 10+ seconds causing the video to stop/start playback automatically, but will fall back to the next audio track (usually 5.1 AAC).

I’m trying to recreate the issue and generate a server log file for a fairly severe buffering event, but given the somewhat random nature, it seems to refuse to happen while trying to observe it.

Just putting this out there to see if this is a known issue or setting tweak.

[Chan]

The issue finally had a major buffering event. The film stopped and looped audio, then started playing with severely distorted audio. I had to stop/start to fix. The server log is attached.

It’s somewhat long as we were a solid 1.5 hours into a movie when it happened, but it was around this line:

Mar 25, 2023 20:46:42.322 [0x7f776230d0] DEBUG - [Req#1198] Client [n3hdardx9gv3ex76o6m9bswg] reporting timeline state buffering, progress of 3483086/12061823ms for guid=, playbackTime=0ms ratingKey=2032 url=, key=/library/metadata/2032, containerKey=, metadataId=2032, source=

Plex Media Server(1).log (2.2 MB)

Clearly the video file can play fairly well given the network and hardware to get almost 2 hours into the movie. Here’s hoping we can find some resolution to why it has these hiccups.

[Chan]

Ah, I see this is a known issue from this other post: Xbox occasional stuttering

So I’ll echo the last comment from November: any updates on fixing this? It’s like the only bug in Plex on the XSX that I run into, and it’s very obnoxious.