[5.11.x/6.1.x-6.6.x] Ignores Settings (can't disable direct play)

Plex Players Player Betas
1

Pay attention

Ignore this whole starting text below this line, the root issue is, that Plex for Android beginning of version 5.11.x up to current (on time writing this, it is 6.6.x) always forces a direct play, even if in the settings direct play got disabled. The only issue is, that Plex for Android should send to Plex Media Server, that direct play is disabled - nothing else!

See my last comment for further informations.

And now, if someone is interested, the…

old post

I’m using the following Android.xml Profile in plex media server v1.7.2.3878, which leads to transcode of every AC3 Audio instead of direct playing (as Plex for Android on my Philips 55pus7101/12 is unable to play videos with these type of audio - it leads to a black screen / screen freeze after some seconds of play time as reported here and in many other threads).

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Client name="Android">
  <!-- Author: Plex Inc. -->
  <TranscodeTargets>
    <VideoProfile protocol="hls" container="mpegts" codec="h264" audioCodec="aac" context="streaming" />
    <VideoProfile container="mp4" codec="h264" audioCodec="aac" context="static" />
    <MusicProfile container="mp3" codec="mp3" id="StereoMusicTranscodeProfile" />
    <PhotoProfile container="jpeg" />
  </TranscodeTargets>
  <DirectPlayProfiles>
    <VideoProfile container="mp4" codec="h264,mpeg4" audioCodec="aac" />
    <MusicProfile container="mp4" codec="aac" />
    <MusicProfile container="mp3" codec="mp3" />
    <MusicProfile container="flac" codec="flac" />
    <MusicProfile container="ogg" codec="vorbis" />
    <PhotoProfile container="jpeg,gif,bmp,png" />
  </DirectPlayProfiles>
  <ContainerProfiles>
    <VideoContainer name="mp4">
      <Limitations>
        <Match name="part.optimizedForStreaming" value="1" />
      </Limitations>
    </VideoContainer>
  </ContainerProfiles>
  <CodecProfiles>
    <VideoCodec name="*">
      <Limitations>
        <UpperBound name="video.width" value="1920" isRequired="true" />
        <UpperBound name="video.height" value="1080" isRequired="true" />
        <NotMatch name="video.anamorphic" value="1" />
      </Limitations>
    </VideoCodec>
    <VideoCodec name="h264">
      <Limitations>
        <Match name="video.profile" list="baseline|main|high" />
      </Limitations>
    </VideoCodec>
    <VideoAudioCodec name="aac">
      <Limitations>
        <UpperBound name="audio.channels" value="2" />
      </Limitations>
    </VideoAudioCodec>
    <VideoAudioCodec name="ac3">                                         
      <Limitations>                                                      
        <UpperBound name="audio.bitrate" value="1" />                   
      </Limitations>                                                     
    </VideoAudioCodec> 
  </CodecProfiles>
</Client>

(Only the line starting from <VideoAudioCodec name="ac3"> differs from the original Android.xml).

I’ve disabled Direct Play in the settings of Plex for Android, but since the update to 5.11.0.xxx plays an video with AC3 directly instead of transcoding the audio track.

Here’s a small snippet of the plex media server log, on playing an video with ac3 sound.

Jun 09, 2017 18:41:04.083 [0x7ffb46ffe700] DEBUG - Auth: We found auth token (xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx), enabling token-based authentication.
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:04.083 [0x7ffb46ffe700] DEBUG - Auth: authenticated user 1 as drmonty
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:04.083 [0x7ffb46ffe700] DEBUG - Auth: Came in with a super-token, authorization succeeded.
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:04.084 [0x7ffb36e21700] DEBUG - Request: [192.168.0.197:49419 (Subnet)] GET /:/timeline?bandwidth=2480&bufferedTime=98&containerKey=%2FplayQueues%2F1329&duration=2586976&guid=com.plexapp.agents.thetvdb%3A%2F%2F248837%2F1%2F1%3Flang%3Dde&key=%2Flibrary%2Fmetadata%2F9564&machineIdentifier=053ab531dd6776f35bb108776910bd8e743a0587&playQueueItemID=13621&ratingKey=9564&state=playing&time=5977 (6 live) TLS GZIP Signed-in Token (drmonty)
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:04.086 [0x7ffb36e21700] DEBUG - Client [c8b492eb121c1faf-com-plexapp-android] reporting timeline state playing, progress of 5977/2586976ms for guid=com.plexapp.agents.thetvdb://248837/1/1?lang=de, ratingKey=9564 url=, key=/library/metadata/9564, containerKey=/playQueues/1329, metadataId=9564
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:04.086 [0x7ffb36e21700] DEBUG - [Now] User is drmonty (ID: 1)
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:04.087 [0x7ffb36e21700] DEBUG - [Now] Device is Android (4K Ultra Slim LED TV powered by Android).
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:04.088 [0x7ffb36e21700] DEBUG - [Now] Profile is Android
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:04.088 [0x7ffb36e21700] DEBUG - [Now] Updated play state for /library/metadata/9564.
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:04.089 [0x7ffb36e21700] DEBUG - Statistics: (c8b492eb121c1faf-com-plexapp-android) Reporting active playback in state 0 of type 4 (scrobble: 0) for account 1
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:04.096 [0x7ffb477ff700] DEBUG - Completed: [192.168.0.197:49419] 200 GET /:/timeline?bandwidth=2480&bufferedTime=98&containerKey=%2FplayQueues%2F1329&duration=2586976&guid=com.plexapp.agents.thetvdb%3A%2F%2F248837%2F1%2F1%3Flang%3Dde&key=%2Flibrary%2Fmetadata%2F9564&machineIdentifier=053ab531dd6776f35bb108776910bd8e743a0587&playQueueItemID=13621&ratingKey=9564&state=playing&time=5977 (6 live) TLS GZIP 12ms 450 bytes (pipelined: 11)
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:12.635 [0x7ffb46ffe700] DEBUG - Auth: We found auth token (xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx), enabling token-based authentication.
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:12.635 [0x7ffb46ffe700] DEBUG - Auth: authenticated user 1 as drmonty
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:12.635 [0x7ffb46ffe700] DEBUG - Auth: Came in with a super-token, authorization succeeded.
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:12.636 [0x7ffb3361a700] DEBUG - Request: [192.168.0.197:56337 (Subnet)] GET /:/timeline?bandwidth=2480&bufferedTime=124&containerKey=%2FplayQueues%2F1329&duration=2586976&guid=com.plexapp.agents.thetvdb%3A%2F%2F248837%2F1%2F1%3Flang%3Dde&key=%2Flibrary%2Fmetadata%2F9564&machineIdentifier=053ab531dd6776f35bb108776910bd8e743a0587&playQueueItemID=13621&ratingKey=9564&state=playing&time=5977 (6 live) TLS GZIP Signed-in Token (drmonty)
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:12.638 [0x7ffb3361a700] DEBUG - Client [c8b492eb121c1faf-com-plexapp-android] reporting timeline state playing, progress of 5977/2586976ms for guid=com.plexapp.agents.thetvdb://248837/1/1?lang=de, ratingKey=9564 url=, key=/library/metadata/9564, containerKey=/playQueues/1329, metadataId=9564
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:12.638 [0x7ffb3361a700] DEBUG - [Now] User is drmonty (ID: 1)
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:12.639 [0x7ffb3361a700] DEBUG - [Now] Device is Android (4K Ultra Slim LED TV powered by Android).
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:12.640 [0x7ffb3361a700] DEBUG - [Now] Profile is Android
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:12.640 [0x7ffb3361a700] DEBUG - [Now] Updated play state for /library/metadata/9564.
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:12.641 [0x7ffb3361a700] DEBUG - Statistics: (c8b492eb121c1faf-com-plexapp-android) Reporting active playback in state 0 of type 4 (scrobble: 0) for account 1
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:12.648 [0x7ffb477ff700] DEBUG - Completed: [192.168.0.197:56337] 200 GET /:/timeline?bandwidth=2480&bufferedTime=124&containerKey=%2FplayQueues%2F1329&duration=2586976&guid=com.plexapp.agents.thetvdb%3A%2F%2F248837%2F1%2F1%3Flang%3Dde&key=%2Flibrary%2Fmetadata%2F9564&machineIdentifier=053ab531dd6776f35bb108776910bd8e743a0587&playQueueItemID=13621&ratingKey=9564&state=playing&time=5977 (6 live) TLS GZIP 12ms 450 bytes (pipelined: 21)
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:18.978 [0x7ffb46ffe700] DEBUG - Auth: We found auth token (xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx), enabling token-based authentication.
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:18.978 [0x7ffb46ffe700] DEBUG - Auth: authenticated user 1 as drmonty
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:18.978 [0x7ffb46ffe700] DEBUG - Auth: Came in with a super-token, authorization succeeded.
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:18.979 [0x7ffb36e21700] DEBUG - Request: [192.168.0.197:33520 (Subnet)] GET /video/:/transcode/universal/stop?autoAdjustQuality=1&hasMDE=1&location=lan&mediaBufferSize=74944&session=c8b492eb121c1faf-com-plexapp-android (6 live) TLS GZIP Signed-in Token (drmonty)
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:18.981 [0x7ffb46ffe700] DEBUG - Completed after connection close: [192.168.0.197:33520] 200 GET /video/:/transcode/universal/stop?autoAdjustQuality=1&hasMDE=1&location=lan&mediaBufferSize=74944&session=c8b492eb121c1faf-com-plexapp-android (6 live) TLS GZIP 2ms 0 bytes (pipelined: 9)
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:18.981 [0x7ffb263f8700] DEBUG - Found session GUID of c8b492eb121c1faf-com-plexapp-android in session start.
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:18.982 [0x7ffb263f8700] WARN - Got a request to stop a transcode session without a session GUID (or with an invalid one).
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:19.036 [0x7ffb477ff700] DEBUG - Auth: We found auth token (xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx), enabling token-based authentication.
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:19.036 [0x7ffb477ff700] DEBUG - Auth: authenticated user 1 as drmonty
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:19.036 [0x7ffb477ff700] DEBUG - Auth: Came in with a super-token, authorization succeeded.
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:19.037 [0x7ffb3361a700] DEBUG - Request: [192.168.0.197:34067 (Subnet)] GET /video/:/transcode/universal/stop?autoAdjustQuality=1&hasMDE=1&location=lan&mediaBufferSize=74944&session=c8b492eb121c1faf-com-plexapp-android (6 live) TLS GZIP Signed-in Token (drmonty)
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:19.039 [0x7ffb263f8700] DEBUG - Found session GUID of c8b492eb121c1faf-com-plexapp-android in session start.
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:19.039 [0x7ffb263f8700] WARN - Got a request to stop a transcode session without a session GUID (or with an invalid one).
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:19.042 [0x7ffb46ffe700] DEBUG - Completed: [192.168.0.197:34067] 200 GET /video/:/transcode/universal/stop?autoAdjustQuality=1&hasMDE=1&location=lan&mediaBufferSize=74944&session=c8b492eb121c1faf-com-plexapp-android (6 live) TLS GZIP 5ms 195 bytes (pipelined: 1)
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:19.126 [0x7ffb46ffe700] DEBUG - Auth: We found auth token (xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx), enabling token-based authentication.
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:19.126 [0x7ffb46ffe700] DEBUG - Auth: authenticated user 1 as drmonty
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:19.126 [0x7ffb46ffe700] DEBUG - Auth: Came in with a super-token, authorization succeeded.
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:19.127 [0x7ffb36e21700] DEBUG - Request: [192.168.0.197:49419 (Subnet)] GET /video/:/transcode/universal/decision?audioBoost=100&autoAdjustQuality=1&directPlay=0&directStream=0&directStreamAudio=0&fastSeek=1&hasMDE=1&location=lan&maxVideoBitrate=200000&mediaBufferSize=16384&mediaIndex=0&partIndex=0&path=%2Flibrary%2Fmetadata%2F9564&protocol=*&session=c8b492eb121c1faf-com-plexapp-android&subtitleSize=100&videoBitrate=200000&videoQuality=100&videoResolution=3840x2160 (6 live) TLS GZIP Signed-in Token (drmonty)
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:19.128 [0x7ffb36e21700] DEBUG - Found session GUID of c8b492eb121c1faf-com-plexapp-android in session start.
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:19.131 [0x7ffb36e21700] DEBUG - TranscodeUniversalRequest: using augmented profile Android
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:19.133 [0x7ffb36e21700] DEBUG - Downloading document http://127.0.0.1:32400/library/metadata/9564?includeBandwidths=1&X-Plex-Session-Identifier=c8b492eb121c1faf-com-plexapp-android
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:19.134 [0x7ffb36e21700] DEBUG - Auth: We found auth token (xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx), enabling token-based authentication.
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:19.134 [0x7ffb36e21700] DEBUG - Auth: authenticated user 1 as drmonty
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:19.135 [0x7ffb36e21700] DEBUG - Auth: Came in with a super-token, authorization succeeded.
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:19.154 [0x7ffb36e21700] DEBUG - We're going to try to auto-select an audio stream for account 1.
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:19.154 [0x7ffb36e21700] DEBUG - Selecting best audio stream for part ID 17249 (autoselect: 1 language: de)
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:19.155 [0x7ffb36e21700] DEBUG - Audio Stream: 37857, Subtitle Stream: -1
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:19.158 [0x7ffb36e21700] DEBUG - Scaled up video bitrate to 6046Kbps based on 1.500000x fudge factor.
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:19.524 [0x7ffb36e21700] DEBUG - MDE: received PLEX_PROTOCOL_ANY from client, selected protocol hls
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:19.525 [0x7ffb36e21700] DEBUG - MDE: analyzing media item 17237
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:19.525 [0x7ffb36e21700] DEBUG - MDE: E1 - Vergeltung: Direct Play is disabled
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:19.525 [0x7ffb36e21700] DEBUG - MDE: E1 - Vergeltung: media must be transcoded in order to use the hls protocol
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:19.525 [0x7ffb36e21700] DEBUG - MDE: E1 - Vergeltung: no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/h264
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:19.526 [0x7ffb36e21700] DEBUG - MDE: E1 - Vergeltung: no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/h264/ac3
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:19.526 [0x7ffb36e21700] DEBUG - MDE: E1 - Vergeltung: no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/h264/ac3
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:19.526 [0x7ffb36e21700] DEBUG - Vergeltung - audio.bitrate limitation applies: 384 > 1
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:19.527 [0x7ffb36e21700] DEBUG - MDE: E1 - Vergeltung: Direct Streaming is disabled, so video stream will be transcoded
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:19.527 [0x7ffb36e21700] DEBUG - MDE: E1 - Vergeltung: no remuxable profile found, so video stream will be transcoded
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:19.527 [0x7ffb36e21700] DEBUG - Scaled up video bitrate to 6046Kbps based on 1.500000x fudge factor.
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:19.528 [0x7ffb36e21700] DEBUG - MDE: E1 - Vergeltung: Audio Direct Streaming is disabled, so video's audio stream will be transcoded
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:19.528 [0x7ffb36e21700] DEBUG - MDE: Revenge - S1 E1 - Vergeltung: selected media 0 / 17237
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:19.534 [0x7ffb36e21700] DEBUG - Streaming Resource: Session 0x7ffb30141660:c8b492eb121c1faf-com-plexapp-android changed transcode slot usage to used.  Used slots is now 1
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:19.534 [0x7ffb36e21700] DEBUG - Streaming Resource: Reached Decision id=9564 codes=(General=1001,Direct play not available; Conversion OK. Direct Play=3000,App cannot direct play this item. Direct play is disabled. Transcode=1001,Direct play not available; Conversion OK.) media=(id=17237 part=(id=17249 decision=transcode container=mpegts protocol=hls streams=(Video=(id=37856 decision=transcode bitrate=6046 encoder=libx264 width=1280 height=720) Audio=(id=37857 decision=transcode bitrate=774 encoder=aac channels=6 rate=48000))))
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:19.541 [0x7ffb46ffe700] DEBUG - Completed: [192.168.0.197:49419] 200 GET /video/:/transcode/universal/decision?audioBoost=100&autoAdjustQuality=1&directPlay=0&directStream=0&directStreamAudio=0&fastSeek=1&hasMDE=1&location=lan&maxVideoBitrate=200000&mediaBufferSize=16384&mediaIndex=0&partIndex=0&path=%2Flibrary%2Fmetadata%2F9564&protocol=*&session=c8b492eb121c1faf-com-plexapp-android&subtitleSize=100&videoBitrate=200000&videoQuality=100&videoResolution=3840x2160 (6 live) TLS GZIP 414ms 1666 bytes (pipelined: 12)
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:19.685 [0x7ffb477ff700] DEBUG - Auth: We found auth token (xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx), enabling token-based authentication.
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:19.686 [0x7ffb477ff700] DEBUG - Auth: authenticated user 1 as drmonty
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:19.686 [0x7ffb477ff700] DEBUG - Auth: Came in with a super-token, authorization succeeded.
Jun 09, 2017 18:41:19.686 [0x7ffb3361a700] DEBUG - Request: [192.168.0.197:53728 (Subnet)] GET /video/:/transcode/universal/start.m3u8?audioBoost=100&autoAdjustQuality=1&directPlay=0&directStream=0&directStreamAudio=0&fastSeek=1&hasMDE=1&includeCodecs=1&location=lan&maxVideoBitrate=200000&mediaBufferSize=16384&offset=5&partIndex=0&path=%2Flibrary%2Fmetadata%2F9564&protocol=hls&session=c8b492eb121c1faf-com-plexapp-android&subtitleSize=100&videoBitrate=200000&videoQuality=100&videoResolution=3840x2160 (7 live) TLS GZIP Signed-in Token (drmonty)

As you may can see, plex media server reported, that the audio track should get transcoded, as the profile defines it (also plex for android reported it App cannot direct play this item. Direct play is disabled), but plex for android still direct play the audio and video (which lead to black screen / freeze after a few seconds of playback).

Switching back to stable 5.10.3 restores the wanted behavior.

Thanks :)!

2

According to your log neither the video nor the audio is direct streaming:

Jun 09, 2017 18:41:21.082 [0x7ffb36e21700] DEBUG - Job running: EAE_ROOT=‘/tmp/pms-807d2483-d116-482b-87f2-2a6061b1362f/EasyAudioEncoder’ FFMPEG_EXTERNAL_LIBS=‘/volume1/Plex/Library/Plex\ Media\ Server/Codecs/18f9bcf-1233-linux-ubuntu-x86_64/’ XDG_CACHE_HOME=‘/volume1/Plex/Library/Plex Media Server/Cache/’ XDG_DATA_HOME=‘/volume1/.@plugins/AppCentral/plexmediaserver/plexmediaserver/Resources/’ X_PLEX_TOKEN=‘xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx’ ‘/volume1/.@plugins/AppCentral/plexmediaserver/plexmediaserver/Plex Transcoder’ ‘-codec:0’ ‘h264’ ‘-codec:1’ ‘ac3’ ‘-ss’ ‘5’ ‘-i’ ‘/volume1/Media/Serien/Revenge/Season 01/Revenge - S01E01.mkv’ ‘-filter_complex’ ‘[0:0]scale=w=1280:h=720,format=pix_fmts=yuv420p|nv12[0]’ ‘-map’ ‘[0]’ ‘-metadata:s:0’ ‘language=ger’ ‘-codec:0’ ‘libx264’ ‘-crf:0’ ‘16’ ‘-maxrate:0’ ‘6046k’ ‘-bufsize:0’ ‘12092k’ ‘-r:0’ ‘23.975999999999999’ ‘-preset:0’ ‘veryfast’ ‘-level:0’ ‘5.1’ ‘-x264opts:0’ ‘subme=0:me_range=4:rc_lookahead=10:me=dia:no_chroma_me:8x8dct=0:partitions=none’ ‘-force_key_frames:0’ ‘expr:gte(t,3+n_forced*3)’ ‘-map’ ‘0:1’ ‘-metadata:s:1’ ‘language=ger’ ‘-codec:1’ ‘aac’ ‘-ar:1’ ‘48000’ ‘-channel_layout:1’ ‘5.1’ ‘-strict:1’ ‘experimental’ ‘-aac_coder:1’

Plex Transcoder' '-codec:0' 'h264' '-codec:1' 'ac3' '-ss' '5' '-i'
That section reports what the original file was before input

-map' '[0]' '-metadata:s:0' 'language=ger' '-codec:0' 'libx264'
That section shows that codec 0 (The video) is using libx264 and not copying.

'-map' '0:1' '-metadata:s:1' 'language=ger' '-codec:1' 'aac' '-ar:1' '48000' '-channel_layout:1' '5.1'
That section shows that the audio is being converted to 5.1 AAC

But with your log snippet ending there we can’t see anything else happening after the transcoder is started.

3

Thanks for your reply @jmckee :),

hm, this is really strange… alright I’ve updated again to 5.11.0.455 and played once again a video with ac3-sound (direct play got disabled in the settings).

Plex for Android displayed this during the playback on the screen:

This is the Plex Media Server.log from start until the playback starts: https://gist.github.com/mrohnstock/eaba67ae8c0f5da40c17af4aab9fae77

I can’t find there a line with EasyAudioEncoder. I think, last time I took the snippet of the logfile, where I forced to transcode the video/audio through Plex for Android (I’ve forced the transcode after the playback didn’t work), not at the time, I tried to play it without forcing the transcode - sorry :sweat: .

And here’s a picture of the settings in Plex for Android, to confirm the settings:

(Direktes Abspielen → Direct Play, Deaktiviert → Disabled).

Thanks :slight_smile:

4

Why have you modified the default profile and plex settings? If there’s an issue with the settings with your configuration, you need to report it, not modify it to make it work.

Direct play and direct stream should never be disabled unless you want to force transcode every codec in existence.

5

Do you have passthrough enabled?

I was told that with passthrough enabled the server will send the AC3 as is to TV app, but with it disabled the TV should be requesting transcoded audio (which we arn’t seeing). So the recommended test case would be to disable passthrough in the app.

6

Sorry for the double post.

I spoke with another employee who has reported that Phillips TV’s do report they can play the AC3 audio but can’t (As you have seen). He told me has filed this issue internally, but beyond that I myself can’t track it. But I can tell you that it did definitely get another bump today from the questions.

7

@danjames92 said:
Why have you modified the default profile and plex settings? If there’s an issue with the settings with your configuration, you need to report it, not modify it to make it work.

Direct play and direct stream should never be disabled unless you want to force transcode every codec in existence.

well, this issue is already known since one or two years (?) (not only my philips tv has problems with this kind of sound, i.e. Mi Box 4 has the same issue), with a handful of threads and some responses from the devs, so this issue is already reported and known for sure.

@jmckee said:
Do you have passthrough enabled?

I was told that with passthrough enabled the server will send the AC3 as is to TV app, but with it disabled the TV should be requesting transcoded audio (which we arn’t seeing). So the recommended test case would be to disable passthrough in the app.

No, passthrough was always disabled (last picture Durchschleifen → Passthrough, Deaktiviert → Disabled).

@jmckee said:
Sorry for the double post.

I spoke with another employee who has reported that Phillips TV’s do report they can play the AC3 audio but can’t (As you have seen). He told me has filed this issue internally, but beyond that I myself can’t track it. But I can tell you that it did definitely get another bump today from the questions.

Philips TVs are able to play AC3 sound for sure, but the video will stop playing after a few seconds of playback, where the sound continues to play as usual. It’s really weird and I don’t know how sound can influence the video playback, but it do :neutral:.

Thanks for all your replies :)!

8

@drmonty said:

@danjames92 said:
Why have you modified the default profile and plex settings? If there’s an issue with the settings with your configuration, you need to report it, not modify it to make it work.

Direct play and direct stream should never be disabled unless you want to force transcode every codec in existence.

well, this issue is already known since one or two years (?) (not only my philips tv has problems with this kind of sound, i.e. Mi Box 4 has the same issue), with a handful of threads and some responses from the devs, so this issue is already reported and known for sure.

@jmckee said:
Do you have passthrough enabled?

I was told that with passthrough enabled the server will send the AC3 as is to TV app, but with it disabled the TV should be requesting transcoded audio (which we arn’t seeing). So the recommended test case would be to disable passthrough in the app.

No, passthrough was always disabled (last picture Durchschleifen → Passthrough, Deaktiviert → Disabled).

@jmckee said:
Sorry for the double post.

I spoke with another employee who has reported that Phillips TV’s do report they can play the AC3 audio but can’t (As you have seen). He told me has filed this issue internally, but beyond that I myself can’t track it. But I can tell you that it did definitely get another bump today from the questions.

Philips TVs are able to play AC3 sound for sure, but the video will stop playing after a few seconds of playback, where the sound continues to play as usual. It’s really weird and I don’t know how sound can influence the video playback, but it do :neutral:.

Thanks for all your replies :)!

Yeah but this is about as basic as it gets, AC3 audio isn’t exactly hard to passthrough so my advice would be to revert to defaults, drop the local quality so it’s not on original which will force a transcode. Then see if a Android TV dev @sixones @ManuelPG or @cayars can get someone to look at it again.

9

@danjames92 said:
Yeah but this is about as basic as it gets, AC3 audio isn’t exactly hard to passthrough so my advice would be to revert to defaults, drop the local quality so it’s not on original which will force a transcode. Then see if a Android TV dev @sixones @ManuelPG or @cayars can get someone to look at it again.

Sorry @danjames92, but I’ve problems to understand the second part of your first sentence. I should revert the changes made in Android.xml and enable Direct Play, but what do you mean with drop the local quality so it's not on original which will force a transcode?

10

@drmonty said:

@danjames92 said:
Yeah but this is about as basic as it gets, AC3 audio isn’t exactly hard to passthrough so my advice would be to revert to defaults, drop the local quality so it’s not on original which will force a transcode. Then see if a Android TV dev @sixones @ManuelPG or @cayars can get someone to look at it again.

Sorry @danjames92, but I’ve problems to understand the second part of your first sentence. I should revert the changes made in Android.xml and enable Direct Play, but what do you mean with drop the local quality so it's not on original which will force a transcode?

There are local and remote qualities in the settings of plex. Drop it so it’s lower than the source material and it will force a transcode.

11

@danjames92 said:
There are local and remote qualities in the settings of plex. Drop it so it’s lower than the source material and it will force a transcode.

ah, yes that would be an other way to have a working playback, but there is one problem: On this way the audio and video would get transcoded. The change made in Android.xml leads to only audio transcode, the video would get passed through directly - at least this is what happend until 5.10.0.xxx.

My NAS is not fast enough to transcode 720p/1080p video, so it would start to stutter.

Disabling direct play in the settings of plex for android didn’t prevent direct playing. If there’s a video, with a known working audio (i.e. AAC) and codec it get’s played directly, too - at least until 5.10.0.xxx. Only setting direct play to Automatic wouldn’t lead to transcode the audio, I don’t know, if this isn’t a bug for itself?

12

I do have the same problem. I meanwhile tried every setting combination and also every modification to Android.xml recommended in this forums, parallelly inspecting the logs… Nothing helps. Transcoding is not an option, because it transcodes your 1080p down to something 576p … you don’t wanna watch that.

Solution: Use VLC until this issue is solved (it can access your plex library through DLNA). I am not happy with thati either, still the best you can get at the moment… but maybe in ~two years, you can use plex again… who knows.

13

@unistyler said:
I do have the same problem. I meanwhile tried every setting combination and also every modification to Android.xml recommended in this forums, parallelly inspecting the logs… Nothing helps. Transcoding is not an option, because it transcodes your 1080p down to something 576p … you don’t wanna watch that.

Solution: Use VLC until this issue is solved (it can access your plex library through DLNA). I am not happy with thati either, still the best you can get at the moment… but maybe in ~two years, you can use plex again… who knows.

It’s still working with yesterdays released Plex for Android v6.0.1, only the current beta (v5.11.0.xxx) is the issue - at least for me.

14

Well I guess, your server is at 1.7 while mine is still at 1.5 although the plex on my tv received the update to 6.0.1 - still not working for me.

15

hm, it was working with 1.5 and is working with 1.7, the only thing I had to do was to modify the Android.xml-Profile as described above, restart the plex media server after the modification and disable direct play in plex for android - that’s all.

16

@drmonty said:

Philips TVs are able to play AC3 sound for sure, but the video will stop playing after a few seconds of playback, where the sound continues to play as usual. It’s really weird and I don’t know how sound can influence the video playback, but it do :neutral:.

Philips TV is capable of AC3, via official API’s only 5.1 up to 448Kbit/s, if bitrate is higher, it will fail.
It is a known firmware bug on these 2016 TV sets and reported to Philips multiple times, still no fix from manufacturer.

Bundled internal player uses some odd Workarounds to get AC3 and DTS passtrough working.

Unless we get separate profile for AndroidTV’s there is no way, we can fix it by ourselves as modifying default Android profile, will screw up playback on other Android devices, which don’t have ac3 support.

17

@drmonty said:

It’s still working with yesterdays released Plex for Android v6.0.1, only the current beta (v5.11.0.xxx) is the issue - at least for me.

With on 19th june released v6.1.0 (or today released v6.1.1) of Plex for Android the Profile / disabling direct play get’s also ignored with stable :cry:. Now I’ve to install the previous release manually, until this get’s fixed.

18

@roflharrison / @antoniolg could you please take a look, if the plex on android client really send to pms, that direct play should be disabled, if it got disabled in the settings? I think, it simply ignores the settings and always forces a direct play since v5.11 :cry:

19

Hey @drmonty , you can force transcoding content from within the video player screen. When you play the content you want to transcode, you can access to video player’s settings and select item’s video quality. Any of the “Converto to …” options should force transcoding it.

20

@jesusMc thanks for your reply :), yes, that will actually force transcode of audio AND video. My NAS is not fast enough to transcode a 1080p movie, so the used Android.xml-profile in PMS forces only to transcode the audio - the video stays “as-is” without transcode.

This worked perfect until 5.10.x, since 5.11.x, up to 6.2.x Plex for Android always forces a direct play, even if direct play got disabled in the settings - that is the only issue I have.

In the logfile you can find lines where Android for Plex sends to PMS, that directPlay is enabled:

Jun 10, 2017 08:15:12.561 [0x7f1be5bff700] DEBUG - Request: [192.168.0.197:60447 (Subnet)] GET /video/:/transcode/universal/decision?audioBoost=100&autoAdjustQuality=0&directPlay=1&directStream=1&directStreamAudio=1&fastSeek=1&hasMDE=1&location=lan&maxVideoBitrate=200000&mediaBufferSize=74944&mediaIndex=0&partIndex=0&path=%2Flibrary%2Fmetadata%2F9564&protocol=*&session=c8b492eb121c1faf-com-plexapp-android&subtitleSize=100&videoBitrate=200000&videoQuality=100&videoResolution=3840x2160 (6 live) TLS GZIP Signed-in Token (drmonty)

directPlay=1, this should be directPlay=0 - at least 5.10.x sends an directPlay=0, when direct play got disabled in the settings.

Don’t you think, that there is something wrong?