App restarts randomly after 15-30 minutes when playing video (local streaming)

Plex Players Streaming Devices
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Server Version#: 1.25.6.5577
Player Version#: 8.30.2.31202 & 8.29.0.30173-nightly
Device: Philips 65OLED806 running Android TV 10 (2021 model, armeabi-v7a, latest firmware)

Hi! I haven’t had any issues with Plex up until this point, but when I tried to watch a UHD Remux of Chernobyl yesterday, the app seems to crash and restart after around 15 to 30 minutes of watching.

Before this, I mainly watched ordinary 1080p content, occasionally 2160p and HDR.
The Chernobyl videos are 2160p, HEVC, with Dolby Vision and a high bitrate (around 60 Mbps).
MediaInfo for the file:
mediainfo.txt (18.5 KB)

It starts playing just fine, and it’s directly streaming locally in original quality. Network speed of my TV is around 300 Mbps, so that should be fine.
However, after 15 to 30 minutes of watching, the following happens:

  • The image freezes, while the audio and subtitles continue
  • The orange loading spinner shows
  • After 5 to 10 seconds, the screen goes black, the splash screen shows, and I’m back at the Plex home screen

I could resume playing and it works, only to crash again after 15 to 30 minutes.
The Chernobyl episode crashed 3 times in total, which of course was very annoying.

I enabled network logging and studied the logs. It looks like it’s just playing normally, and then randomly, ExoPlayer fails and the app switches to transcoding, and then the app just restarts. Nothing special in the logs so it seems, it just writes “Hello, Plex for Android world” etc. suddenly.
log 8.30.2.31202.txt (426.0 KB)

I also tried the nightly version with the new demuxer, but it doesn’t make any difference.
log 8.29.0.30173-nightly.txt (273.8 KB)

It almost seems like the app is running out of memory or something. But wouldn’t it crash to the Android TV home screen then instead of restarting the app? I’m not sure.

For completeness sake, the server logs:
Plex Media Server Logs_2022-03-04_22-40-07.zip (655.4 KB)

Does anyone have any idea what might be going on?

Thanks in advance!

Android: New video demuxer for improved playback
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Did some further testing.

So the video I tried was of Chernobyl S01E01, 2160p, HEVC, with Dolby Vision, ~60 Mbps.
I was watching with external subtitles (SRT).

Because I read online that the subtitles might cause issues, I tried removing the SRT and using the embedded PGS, and also without subtitles enabled at all. All showed the same results.

Then I tried S01E02 of the same Remux: same issue.

Maybe it was Dolby Vision causing problems, so I sourced another Chernobyl Remux with 2160p, HEVC, ~60 Mbps, but without Dolby Vision – just plain HDR.
That worked! Even with external SRT subtitles.

Just to be able to rule out Dolby Vision being a cause in all cases, I sourced a Remux of Arrival, with 2160p, HEVC, ~52 Mbps, and Dolby Vision. Also external SRT subtitles.
It worked! I let it play two times in its entirety without any issues.

I think my Chernobyl DV Remux is just faulty. I’ll just watch the regular HDR version then.

Curiously enough, the DV Remuxes of Chernobyl and Arrival are both by FraMeSToR, though.

If anyone wants to try to reproduce this issue, you could try finding their Chernobyl UHD DV Remux (Chernobyl.S01.2160p.DTS-HD.MA.5.1.DV.HEVC.REMUX-FraMeSToR). Perhaps it would prevent similar issues from happening in the future with other video files.

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