yes but you need a Plex pass right now to use enhanced player
Yes I know. Sad
Iāve got a bit more info on this issueā¦ Essentially I think Plex Server is getting confused when the files are on a remote drive from the server. See below for details.
I have two servers, one has the problem with Direct Play of some files, while the other has no troubles.
No Problem Server: Running on Mac A: Files are hosted on an external usb-c connected drive.
Wheel of Death Server: Running on Mac B: Files are hosted still on Mac A, connected via gigabit ethernet.
Iāve ruled out all networking issues. Files play fine direct playing to Infuse from that Wheel of Death Server. Files play fine when forcing transcoding (in AppleTV, on the video page, under Settings, select any other quality rather than original).
So my network is blazing fast, low latency, even when transcoding the problem files start almost instantly.
However, they simply wonāt direct play. I can watch the video buffer for a few seconds at 60megaBYTES per second across my network, but it just wonāt play. The Server downloads hundreds of megabytes from the remote drive, but never uploads any to the ATV Plex Client.
EXCEPT they do Direct Play fine if I copy the files to Mac B. Same file, same server, just taking out the remote drive component.
The videos that have trouble Direct Playing across my wired network play fine when they are copied locally to Wheel of Death Server.
Seems like the bug in the handoff of the data stream somewhere. Maybe Plex Server is making assumptions about the location of the file? Some check accidentally failing or an assumption being missed which is making it so it doesnāt even TRY to upload to the client?
Weird because the server is downloading several hundred megabytes of the movie, itās just not passing any along to the client.
Hi everyone. Not sure if this is the right place for this, but I am having a problem playing movies via the Plex App on my Apple TV 4. Here are the details:
- Apple TV 4th generation
- Free Plex Client (I do not pay for the Plex Pass)
- Connecting to my friends server.
- I am able to play MKV files just fine, but MP4s do not play, just give me spinning wheel of death.
- I tested the Mp4s on my iphone 7 via the free Plex app, and on my Macbook pro via the Plex Web page and they play just fine.
- So, I am assuming there is something going on with the Apple TV Plex app that is not letting me play Mp4 files from my friends server. As I stated before, MKV files play just fine on the Apple TV Plex app.
Is this happening to anyone else? Any idea what might be causing this?
Thanks!
I developed this issue with an Apple TV 4 just this morning. No changes to anything lately, but it suddenly gives me a circle of death on some titles on the Apple TV. Played same titles on the very dumb Visio TV Plex app. Apple TV not looking so smart today.
I will try to disable direct play, however I cannot fathom what changed between last night and this morning to make things work differently now.
I rebooted everything and no change; everything is up to date as well.
Thatās a pretty clever find! It helps me identify the problem I had, almost the same as yours. When I tried try to direct play remotely the files hosted on my macbook internal drive, wheel of Death. But the files hosted on my MacBook external USB drive start and play fine. It gives me headache for months, I didnāt understand why some of the files plays fine and other donāt, as it came from the same server, the same computer, through the same networkā¦ I even web optimized all my videos just in case, but it didnāt help. Itās when I read your post I realize the videos that refused to play was my DVR recordings (internal drive, all h264 aac 2channels).
Apple TV failed me so many times that I always let Direct Play disable now. Direct Stream is much more reliable. Fortunately the enhanced new player is a great improvement
It plays MKV just fine because MKV need to be remuxed, which deactivate direct play and rely on direct stream instead. Its been a solid workaround for years, and its the first thing Plex employee suggest when they tried to help us: āHave you tried disabling direct play and see if it works?ā
I too am having this problem. Iāve tried to disable Direct Play to see if that fixes my problem, however I canāt find how to do that. Additionally, it appears from other threads that disabling direct play is no longer an option. Am I able to disable direct play, and if so, how do I do that?
Never mind, the setting is in the app on the Apple TV not in the server or web client
Just started happening to me too. Everything worked perfectly until today. Now the Apple TV shows the spinning wheel of death for any video, television program or movie. Music plays. The web and desktop clients all function normally. Disabling Direct Play has no effect on the problem.
PS - all video on my server is saved as .mp4
Problem solved with a plex client update! Found it in app store - was expecting a notification when an update was available but never received one.
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Are you using a ATV 4K? What client and server version are you running now - would be good for others to be able to confirm this as well.
Of course the new enhanced player is ultimately the fix, but until formally released to everyone would be great to have this issue resolved.
Server is agnostic - have both a linux server and a MacOSX one. Old client was misbehaving with both for .mp4 videos. Client device is an ATV4K - figuring out how to update the client took a little experimentation - have to go to to the plex app in app store to find out an update is even available!
Updated client is 2.5.1 (12901)
This is very interesting. All of my stuff is hosted on a NAS and I get the SWOD if I try to play anything with Direct Play enabled. Iāve even taken out Plex Pass and the Enhanced Player also suffers.
My new NAS (a Synology unit) will be arriving today and my plan is to run Plex directly on it, so Iāll hopefully be able to test this a bit more by the weekend.
Same problem here, disabling direct play was the solution. I have āplay at original qualityā checked to play all files without transcoding.
Make sure Beta HDR enabled player is also enabled.
This is a working combination.
I am also having the SWOD issue on Apple TV. It seemed to start happening after the latest server upgrade to Version 1.16.4.1469. Playing on the web browser and my iPad works fine
If I disable the direct play on the Apple TV App then the Preroll videos abort after 1 second and then retry over and over. Enabling the enhanced player on the Apple TV app seems to have no effect.
I am still a bit new to Plex so I may have something misconfigured on either the server or the AppleTV. Is there any setup guide to verify the recommended configuration for the server and the AppleTV?
As a test have you tried disabling the pre-rolls temporarily.
Good suggestion. I should have done that.
Yes, disabling the preroll and disabling direct play permits the movie to play.
Enhanced player setting works either way as long as direct player is OFF.
Re-enabling the preroll still plays for a moment then quits. Do you have any suggestions for that?
Is disabling the direct play a temporary workaround for a bug in the player or server?
