Alexa Skill on Echo devices not playing m4a files

Plex Players Streaming Devices
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Server Version#: 1.30.2.6563
Player Version#: Alexa Skill

I recently noticed that the Alexa Plex skill will not play m4a files (purchased from iTunes) on some of my devices.

I am unsure if this is a recent development or if it has always been this way. If anyone has any insight into whether this could be a temporary issue on the Echo/Amazon side of things, or a bug with the skill, or just a permanent inconvenience, I would appreciate any info on this topic.

Echo 1st Gen - Plays fine
Echo Flex - Plays fine
Alexa Skill on Android phone - Plays fine

Echo 2nd Gen - Does not play (Alexa announces she is playing what I requested, but no playback begins and the Plex dashboard shows no playback)
Echo Dot 3rd Gen - Does not play, same as above
Echo Dot 5th Gen (newest generation of Echo devices) - Does not play, same as above

3 Likes
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I think I am running into the same issue (but it isn’t 100% consistent). I used to have no issues with this in the past, but starting this January I have had a lot of issues streaming m4a audio to my echo dots 3rd gen. I was able to get music playing on a newer echo, but since it too has been hit/miss.

I just tried unsuccessfully to stream a bunch of different music. Seeing your post, I instead tried an mp3 and it cued/played perfectly.

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Thanks for sharing your experience. I am sorry to hear it’s happening to you, but also glad to hear that it’s not just me.

It would be nice if the Plex team could share their thoughts on whether this is an Amazon-side thing, or an issue with the Plex skill, but I am not even sure if this skill is being actively worked on anymore…

1 Like
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I’m having the same issue. Some songs work just fine and when I request others, alexa says she is about to play the song and then it just silently fails and nothing shows in plex dashboard. I can’t find a pattern. Some are ripped, some purchased, some are matched, and get mixed results. Even songs on the same album some will work and others don’t.

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Any updates on this? The Alexa app on my Android phone plays m4a files without any issues. My Echo Dots will play mp3s just fine but fail to play any m4a audio files.

I tried using a custom device profile to force Plex to transcode but I couldn’t get that to work.

Alexa is able to find the some and say she is playing it but nothing actually plays.

Any chance of a fix or a way to force plex to transcode m4a files when streaming to an echo dot?

Plex console reports the following error.
Failed to stream media, client probably disconnected after 393216 bytes: 104 - Connection reset by peer

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Yes would be great if there was a solution to this as it’s very frustrating!!

How can the old device profile be configured as I don’t might getting my hands dirty creating a file to control the transcoding for Alexa devices

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I started encountering this in early- to mid-January as well. Very frustrating as we use our Echo devices to listen to our music a lot, and a lot of our library is m4a.

I detailed most of what I’ve found about it over here in this reddit thread. (I didn’t see this issue until now.)

TL;DR it seems like a bug that Amazon introduced in the Echo firmware, starting around version 828907XXXX.

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I have been experiencing a similar issue for several months. All of my Alexas worked perfectly with Plex, and then one day they didn’t. Can’t find any rhyme or reason. Sometimes it plays one song then stops. Most of the time it doesn’t play at all. All of my files are M4A. Some purchased from iTunes and others not, but this does not seem to matter as the issue happens regardless of that.

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I’ve also got the same issue. My M4A iTunes ripped CD’s stopped playing and it took me a while to figure out that was the issue as over recent times I’d switched to MP3, so it was older CD’s that I’d ripped that were not playing. Then MP3’s stopped playing too, and currently I can’t get Plex to play anything on any of my Echos/Echo Dots. My device(s) software version (as of 7-May-23) is 8960323972. It say “playing xxx” but nothing happens.

To be honest, it’s unusual to go more than a few months without something getting messed up with the Alexa/Plex combination, and this has been going on for a few years now. I’m running out of patience with it.

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It would be really cool if someone from Plex could help us out here.

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On a whim, I thought I would try it out today… and it’s working now.
Anyone else having good results?

Maybe there was an Echo firmware update recently that re-enabled this file format?

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Yep, same here. I saw your message and gave it a shot on a couple different Echo devices (different models) and it seems to be playing all my M4A tracks again. :tada:

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