Apple-TV always throttles down to 320p when access remote media

General Discussions Plex Features
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My friend shared his plex library with me.

A few weeks ago I noticed that any videos I played from his library, using my Apple TV plex client, were throttled to 320p. There is no remote relay warning given.

Yesterday, using the plex client on my android phone via my home WiFi network, I got a warning, something about a remote relay. Today, I do not get this warning on the android plex client and if I look at playback settings for a 1080p movie, quality is “convert to 720p HD”. If I switch to a mobile network connection, playback for the same film is the same as for the WiFi playback.

Using the macos plex client, there is no “remote relay” warning, playback is throttled to 320p, and it seems the plex client settings are the same as the plex media server settings.

What conclusions can I draw from the above?

How do I go about fixing the 320p problem?

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https://support.plex.tv/articles/216766168-accessing-a-server-through-relay/

sounds like this is the issue. Check your router/port forwarding settings

https://support.plex.tv/articles/201543147-what-network-ports-do-i-need-to-allow-through-my-firewall/

1 Like
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I have revisited the troubleshooting.

Based on the findings below, it looks like it is a relay problem on my friend’s media server. Does that seem to be a reasonable conclusion?

I asked him 10 days ago and he said he had made no recent changes to his config.

What is irksome is that this problem only began comparatively recently. We have been sharing media for years and I have never seen this problem. Sometimes I would get the spinning thing in the centre of the screen, but no bandwidth throttling.

I don’t know if his connection to me is throttled.

On my internet-connected modem, I have a port forwarding rule (the rule has been present for a few years):

Protocol = TCP
External Host = *
Internal Host = IP of my iMac Plex Media Server
Internal Port = 32400
External Port = 32400

My iMac is my Plex Media Server and it has Plex Player installed.

If I use plex player on the AppleTV to play a movie from my friend’s server, resolution is forced to 320p. I noticed under “technical details” that there is only 720kbps available.

If I use plex player on my iMac to point to my friend’s media, it is throttled.

If I use plex player on Android phone to play one of my friend’s movies, I am throttled to 720p.

If I play a plex movie using all the above devices, I seem to get good picture quality.

I then changed the port forwarding rule so that

Internal Host = IP of my AppleTV

I repeated the tests above and it made no difference.

So I reverted the port forwarding change.

4

The port forwarding rule is for your own server. It has no influence whatsoever on your friend’s server (unless you are sharing an apartment with him).

Unfortunately, ISPs change stuff in their routing and filtering all the time. More often than not, it is they who are to blame for things like this.

You can try another thing: if your ATV allows you to put a custom “DNS Server” into its network configuration (I don’t know if that is possible, I don’t use such a device myself)
put 8.8.8.8 as DNS server. This one is operated by Google and known to operate well with Plex’s *.plex.direct domain names. (which are what is used to connect to private Plex servers).

If the ATV doesn’t allow custom DNS servers to be defined, you can try the same in the configuration of your router.

1 Like
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Setting 8.8.8.8 as my DNS router made no difference on the All Terrain Vehicle.

I’ll have to talk to my village co-habiter.

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