I couldn’t say as I don’t use pre-rolls, but I just thought it a good starting point.
So even with pre-rolls disabled, you still have to disable direct play to avoid SWOD?
Yes that is correct. Even without the preroll, if I able direct play, then the movie shows a SWOD.
This is a new behavior since the latest server upgrade. do you know of a way to back-rev the server to see if that restores the functionality?
What OS is the server?
On Windows, it stores recent versions, I’m not sure about other OS
If it is Windows read the second post here.
thank you , thank you ! Disabling Direct Play in the Apple TV settings is working, I’d just converted a ton of mkv files to m4v and thought my conversions were messed up and it turned out to be the Plex app…
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Direct Play being disabled works for me but why hasn’t this bug been fixed?
What the hell, my friends have the circle of death ONLY on movies on their AppleTV since my last server update. What are you doing plex???
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Whoa, what’s going on. Some new updates, not sure if player or server is the cause; when I scrub I get a spinning circle for a long long time before the video returns.
Can I roll back server to fix, or is it the AppleTV app and we have to wait for update?
Edit: must be AppleTV app. Instant scrubbing on iPad. Not using enchanted player on either.
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I have the same problem. For me it has made plex on apple tv unusable. 
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at this point it looks like it will never get fixed , better to tell your remote users to use a Roku if you want them to direct play
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For those just catching up on this thread I created almost a year ago - two solutions to this issue:
1 - Disable “Direct Play” in the ATV Plex App. This workaround puts minimal to no additional load on your server as it “Direct Streams” the content (only converts the file container itself). It’s not known why this works, but indeed solves the problem.
2 - If you’re a Plex Pass subscriber, enable the new “Beta/Experimental” player within the Plex app itself on ATV. This solves the problem completely, as it doesn’t rely on Apple’s built-in player (similar to other paid media players on ATV). All future development from Plex seems to be focused on this new player, and will general release at some point in the future.
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Unfortunately your solution didn’t work for me
@a5821b - you’ll need to be a bit more specific on what you’ve tried and what your symptoms are. The two solutions above solve the issue as described in beginning of this thread. Sounds like you’re experiencing another problem - and you’ll want to find a different corresponding thread or create new one. Also include logs for ATV client and PMS in your response, which details your issue to Plex staff.
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Thanks for the update and solution! Option 1 worked for me. Took lots of searching to find you, so thanks again!
there’s an issue with the current TV plex client and direct streaming that causes the spinning wheel when scrubbing/skipping (using AVPlayer). this is a new problem not related to the original post. disabling direct play isn’t the solution.
my post describing issue:
i think it’s isolated to TV tvOS plex client only using AVPlayer (not the enhanced player) and direct streaming. ios client not affected.
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I’ve been having the same problem recently since an update. I used to be able to scan far forward in a video by clicking and then swiping right and it would start playing immediately. Now I get the spinning wheel when I do that. The only work around its to hit the menu button and then start the video again. It will then start where I intended. It’s been really buggy when skipping 10 seconds too. It will freeze, audio will cut out, or I get the spinning wheel. Plex used be solid and work as intended on Apple TV. Netflix, Prime and all other apps scroll and scan properly. Every update this gets worse!!!
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How do you turn subtitles off in settings?
Agreed. It’s gotten so bad that I’ve had to use infuse for everything.
I finally gave in and got a Plex Pass to use the new player. The new player does solve all the problems. So it’s worth it until it’s released to the public.
I’ve been having the same problems. I basically can’t fast forward anymore and half the time it wont resume where I left off without the beachball of death. I really wish there were a way to like downgrade several version so I can go back to having a working solution.
This will be fixed in an upcoming release:
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