Hello,
I created a photo library recently which contains a mix of family photos and videos, intending to stream a slide show on my FireTV for a party. However, I was unable to stream any of the videos. Audio would stream fine, but the video was frozen. I tested on my Android phone (Pixel 3) and found I could not stream any of my videos on that device, either. However, I could stream the videos from the web browser on my same Android phone (Pixel 3) as well as on a Roku Stick+. So, I know the movies work as well as they can be properly streamed by my Android phone. I have since received several Android mobile player updates on my phone, and now instead of playing the Audio only the videos just state they are “unable to play”.
There is something about the player in the Android app that fails to stream these movies. I have other family photo libraries that have videos, and I can stream some of the other videos but not all of them. I looked at some of the metadata for a video I could stream and one that I could not, and the only difference I would see was one was H264 version 5.1 and another was H264 version 5.0 if I recall correctly. I don’t if that is at all related to why they are not playing on my Android devices.
I am a Plex Pass lifetime subscriber and hope to find a resolution. The software overall performs well, except for some of these issues. I’m attaching logs that might help diagnose what is going on.
I have another post open for this exact reason. You can get it working again if you downgrade the client and disable auto update in google play for plex.
If you download the APK on Player Version#: 8.27.2.29938.
They have messed up something with the photos library. Was your content 4k?
Good to hear I’m not the only one struggling with this.
I did confirm that the latest Android client is working on my Pixel 3, version 8.31.0.31215 (6f5d4f5e).
My FireTV Stick is not working yet, but it’s still in version 8.30.xxxxx. I assume/hope that once an update is made available there that things will start working again.
Just tested this again after updating my Plex Server to the latest release. My FireTV Stick still does not work with videos in photo albums. Original issue persists. Android app on my phone works now, though.
A temporary hack/workaround:
I have found that I can get video files to play on the FireTV Stick ONLY by manually converting them, one by one, to “Optimized for Mobile”. This is not necessary for other video files, for example my 1080p version of “Planet Earth”. This is only an issue for videos in a photos album.
EDIT:
I cleared the data and cache of the Plex app on the Firestick and then restarted the Plex server. Things are now working correctly with the latest versions.
