Apple TV 4k EAC3 no audio issue - can't find solution

Plex Players Streaming Devices
1

Server Version#: Version 4.76.1
Player Version#: 7.13 (22846)

I’ve got an issue that I don’t see coming up recently but do see mentioned previously however without any real fix. On my plex I’m running videos on my apple tv 4k and the audio works fine for the theme music for shows/movies/etc and for most of my content it runs fine as well and video and audio play.

Because of my servers strength (or lack thereof) I have everything set to play in original quality with no transcoding but I do see the settings say that doesn’t apply to audio transcoding.

However when playing videos with EAC3 audio, there’s no audio on those videos. Here are the troubleshooting steps I’ve tried:

  • Play Item on another device

    • Tried the same videos on iPhone and Web Browser and it works fine. If I mirror to the TV from my phone the audio works fine as well.

  • Restart the app, server, and apple tv 4k

    • No change

  • Switch to the “Old” app player in the plex app settings on the apple tv 4k

    • No change, still won’t play audio on that content.

I turned on Debug mode and played one of those videos and notice that for Audio it is showing something interesting and looks like this:

Audio:
Codec: eac3_at (eac3 (AudioToolbbox))
Bitrate: 640000
Channels: (null) ((null)) → (null) ((null))
Output driver: (null)

This only happens with EAC3 audio tracks, other content audio shows actual settings and audio and doesn’t have the “null” value.

Has anyone else run into this? Is there a known fix I’ve missed without needing to convert all this content?

2

Did some more digging on google and looked at help such as here and this one here but still not having any luck. Hoping someone in the community has some advice

3

How is your apple tv connected to the audio output device. is it only connected to a Tv. Do you have a receiver/sound bar? what are the audio settings of the apple tv itself?

4

The Apple TV is connected to HDMI to the TV, which has audio out to a soundbar via optical digital cable.

Netflix, HBO, Hulu, Youtube and some Plex shows and movies work fine with this set up.

Apple TV Audio Settings are:

Audio Output - TV Speakers
Audio Format - Auto
Reduce Loud Sounds - Off
Navigation Clicks - On
Sound Effects and Music - On
Audio Mode - 16 Bit
Audio Language - Default
Automatic Subtitles - On
Subtitle Language - English

5

Eac3 can’t go over optical. Optical can only take analog stereo, DTS and regular DolbyDigital.

Afaik need to set that Audio Format setting to Change format=On and then New format=Dolby Digital so it converts to go over optical.

6

Thanks for the response, I tried this and tried changing the apple TV settings (where I’m assuming you meant for this change to be made) and told it to change format to Dolby Digital 5.1 and when that didn’t work I tried in Stereo and that didn’t work either.

The enhanced Debug still shows the audio as Null, even with restarting the Plex app, the plex server and the apple tv. I double checked to ensure the settings stayed the same and hadn’t reverted back either and they were.

It’s just so weird it works on other devices but not here specifically. Any other help is appreciated.

7

Is it possible to get the apple tv logs and the server logs after trying to play one of the items with eac3.

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