I had been running PMS on Ubuntu 12.04 for years with zero issues, streaming to my Chromecast. Then I updated to a clean install of 16.04 not long ago and ever since then streaming to the chromecast v1 is more or less broken or studdering to the point that its unwatchable. Somehow I made it through an entire movie last night with only a few video hiccups and audio blackouts, but most movies show issues from the very beginning. I’ve never had the “freezing at 30-40 mins” problem, just an overall inability to even use the system via the Chromecast. I’ve never had to worry about what file type I had downloaded, or how good the quality was, Plex just worked.
I’ll have to run through the server logs and see if anything turns up.
PMS Version 1.7.5.4035
Chromecast Version 1.25.90308
Same here. It used to be great. Did a fresh install and ever since that moment it starts freezing when I turn on subs… No issues even when audio and video are transcoding, but turning on subs… Always issues
Looked a bit more into this. Even went over to Reddit r/plex and saw that someone who was experiencing similar issues suggested forcing the local quality to 20 Mbps 1080p:
Settings> plex/web> player > streaming quality> local quality set this to 20 Mbps, 1080p
My original setting was at least 8 Mbps 1080p (at least I think it was, I never changed it since the OS upgrade to Ubuntu 16.04 so it was most likely a default “local quality” setting), but upping it to 20 Mbps appears to have alleviated “most” of the issues but not all of them. Some minor slow down still occurs at random but it appears to be very rare.
I don’t remember what my settings were on my 12.04 install so I could have set it really high like this a long time ago and then never touched it again.
Didn’t believe this initially (if we set it to 20mb it will transcode, so how could this alleviate the transcoding issue…).
However I did this with a series with subs which was having buffering issues. When I set it to the max (in this case 4mb), but not to direct, buffering issues disappeared. will need to monitor that the coming days with other series/movies and will report back as well
Just an FYI - the Chromecast issue that caused excessive buffering and eventual crashing with files containing multitrack audio has been resolved with Firmware 1.27.96538. AAC now works fine, and Direct Play of multi track files works fine.
@asjmcguireplex said:
Just an FYI - the Chromecast issue that caused excessive buffering and eventual crashing with files containing multitrack audio has been resolved with Firmware 1.27.96538. AAC now works fine, and Direct Play of multi track files works fine.
Overkill home setup and Samsung TV has been buffering for over the entire year I’ve had it. EVERY TIME. I’ll start a movie and give up 10 minutes in and then finish it on another TV with 0 issues. Any client in my home works, the Samsung TV does not. I can’t find any obscene network traffic, I can’t find any resource hogs. I can’t find a reason that I can’t watch this on a Samsung TV like a lot of other folks.
App: Using the Samsung TV app
TV: Samsung UN55KU6290 WIRED connection
Server: Dual Xeon E5-2699 v3 / 384 GiB DD4 RAM / 40Gbps burstable, 1Gbps sustainable
Home internet: Gigabit
Hi all,
I hope someone can help with my issue because I did not find any useful info on the net leading me toward solution.
All problem happened when I had to change my old 8 years old full HD TV to a new one (LG 4K).
I used to use and still using the same chromecast with the same server on same network. What was working like charm now doing minor to heavy buffering making movies unwatchable. And sometimes ignore showing subtitles as well. The buffering usually comes when fast paced action scenes are on.
The exact same issues are when I try to use the telly’s Plex app however watching the movie through the tv’s DLNA connection everything works fine!
As a side note but maybe important the exact same content what causing problem on the 4K tv has no issues at all on the other TV in the other room (what is again a full HD tv with chromecast).
Can it be that the 4K tv tries to request transcoded to 4K content and the WIFI throughput is not enough? Although the TV uses the 5GHz channel so might be not the case.
What is really drives me crazy only the TV has been changed and other devices on the same network and server setup works well!
If I don’t go to the stream settings after I hit “play” to cast to my CC2, and set the play quality to “Original”, I almost always have buffering issues. After changing from the default selected “Convert to 1080p, HD (High), 20 Mbps” to “Play Original Quality 1080p, HD (High), 20 Mbps” no issues at all, for almost every file (let alone 4K content, or formats incompatible with CC2 - rare cases).
@OPNsensei said:
If I don’t go to the stream settings after I hit “play” to cast to my CC2, and set the play quality to “Original”, I almost always have buffering issues. After changing from the default selected “Convert to 1080p, HD (High), 20 Mbps” to “Play Original Quality 1080p, HD (High), 20 Mbps” no issues at all, for almost every file (let alone 4K content, or formats incompatible with CC2 - rare cases).
I have the same issue with iOS + Chromecast.
The devs are aware but they dont seem to fix it.
I have tried it seems everything on earth to get Live TV to not stutter when viewing remotely, even dropping the quality down to the lowest and it still stops, sputters. However there are** no issues viewing recorded content already on the server** at max resolution all the way down to lowest quality. Issue appears to be with Live TV only!
Problematic Playback devices: Android Phone (latest apk and all previous), Nvidia Shield (latest apk and all previous)
Tuner: HDHomerun Quatro, latest firmware
(Tried the Connect and Extend too)
Running latest PMS version 1.11.3.4803 and tried all the betas & publics before it.
Plex Server is installed on a dedicated Win 10 machine, i7-3770 @ 3.40 GHz, 16GB ram. I don’t use it for anything other than Plex. While playing back, overall CPU hovers around 10% and CPU also about 10%.
C Drive (OS and apps only) uses Samsung SSD Drive
D Drive (Transcoder only uses Samsung SSD Drive
It seems that playback via a Web browser (Version 3.37.2 at the moment) (Chrome) remotely is flawless.
But on my Android phone or Nvidia Shield is sputterville!
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE help me figure this out. Superduper frustrating!
Do you still have this issue ? Cause I have the same exact problem! Also viewing remotly, everything is working fine except for LiveTV on Android phones and FireTV. I tried via a Web browser and an Apple TV and its working perfectly! The issue seems to be on the Android apps… I can’t figure this out… Please if anyone has any idea…
I also have issues with Chromecast. After 10 minutes or so, the video bufferes extremely and is unwatchable. when I watch via the web (without Chromecast) it works perfectly.
Chromecast firmware is 1.29. I see that 1.30 is in beta… maybe it will be resolved in that firmware version…
My friend watching episodes through his Chromecast… Every 20-25 minutes it starts buffering a lot and he has to disconnect and reconnect to the Chromecast from his laptop…
@greentrancer said:
My friend watching episodes through his Chromecast… Every 20-25 minutes it starts buffering a lot and he has to disconnect and reconnect to the Chromecast from his laptop…
He does not have this problem anywhere but on Chromecast.
It’s been mentioned a bunch, but stands repeating, the problem usually can be rectified with disabling secure connections. I’m a little confused why Plex doesn’t fix this. Obviously this shouldn’t be considered a “fix” but it would be cool if that could be addressed.
I kinda thought the new platform would’ve addressed it, but no.
Anyways, try disabling for troubleshooting’s sake.
@greentrancer said:
My friend watching episodes through his Chromecast… Every 20-25 minutes it starts buffering a lot and he has to disconnect and reconnect to the Chromecast from his laptop…
He does not have this problem anywhere but on Chromecast.
It’s been mentioned a bunch, but stands repeating, the problem usually can be rectified with disabling secure connections. I’m a little confused why Plex doesn’t fix this. Obviously this shouldn’t be considered a “fix” but it would be cool if that could be addressed.
I kinda thought the new platform would’ve addressed it, but no.
Anyways, try disabling for troubleshooting’s sake.
The secure connection from the server? I will try.
They probably do not fix it as they are busy working on useless features like VR and etc. Better to add many gimmicks than fix the current issues.
@greentrancer said:
My friend watching episodes through his Chromecast… Every 20-25 minutes it starts buffering a lot and he has to disconnect and reconnect to the Chromecast from his laptop…
He does not have this problem anywhere but on Chromecast.
It’s been mentioned a bunch, but stands repeating, the problem usually can be rectified with disabling secure connections. I’m a little confused why Plex doesn’t fix this. Obviously this shouldn’t be considered a “fix” but it would be cool if that could be addressed.
I kinda thought the new platform would’ve addressed it, but no.
Anyways, try disabling for troubleshooting’s sake.
I have disabled ‘secure’ connection from the server and he still has this problem. I also checked his 2.4GHz bandwidth and changed it from 40 MHz to 20/40, but the problem is still there.
It seem that it always happens after 23 minutes of watching an episode… Most of the series that he is watching is in H.265 8/10 bits and my NAS is transcoding for the Chromecast.
I am also looking in Plex Media Server.log, but not too sure what I am looking for.
@greentrancer said:
My friend watching episodes through his Chromecast… Every 20-25 minutes it starts buffering a lot and he has to disconnect and reconnect to the Chromecast from his laptop…
He does not have this problem anywhere but on Chromecast.
It’s been mentioned a bunch, but stands repeating, the problem usually can be rectified with disabling secure connections. I’m a little confused why Plex doesn’t fix this. Obviously this shouldn’t be considered a “fix” but it would be cool if that could be addressed.
I kinda thought the new platform would’ve addressed it, but no.
Anyways, try disabling for troubleshooting’s sake.
I have disabled ‘secure’ connection from the server and he still has this problem. I also checked his 2.4GHz bandwidth and changed it from 40 MHz to 20/40, but the problem is still there.
It seem that it always happens after 23 minutes of watching an episode… Most of the series that he is watching is in H.265 8/10 bits and my NAS is transcoding for the Chromecast.
I am also looking in Plex Media Server.log, but not too sure what I am looking for.
Damn, that’s a bummer. But after reading a bit more, I also recall a bug that would cut off the end of transcodes. Does the symptom occur on Direct Stream or Direct Play? If not, there’s a Transcode setting called Buffer Throttle or something. Make that 1. Only for testing. See what happens?
I don’t know if I’m sending you down another worthless time suck, but that solved a problem before…now, they fixed it (mine is back up high and no problems) but maybe that’s related?
@greentrancer said:
My friend watching episodes through his Chromecast… Every 20-25 minutes it starts buffering a lot and he has to disconnect and reconnect to the Chromecast from his laptop…
He does not have this problem anywhere but on Chromecast.
It’s been mentioned a bunch, but stands repeating, the problem usually can be rectified with disabling secure connections. I’m a little confused why Plex doesn’t fix this. Obviously this shouldn’t be considered a “fix” but it would be cool if that could be addressed.
I kinda thought the new platform would’ve addressed it, but no.
Anyways, try disabling for troubleshooting’s sake.
I have disabled ‘secure’ connection from the server and he still has this problem. I also checked his 2.4GHz bandwidth and changed it from 40 MHz to 20/40, but the problem is still there.
It seem that it always happens after 23 minutes of watching an episode… Most of the series that he is watching is in H.265 8/10 bits and my NAS is transcoding for the Chromecast.
I am also looking in Plex Media Server.log, but not too sure what I am looking for.
Damn, that’s a bummer. But after reading a bit more, I also recall a bug that would cut off the end of transcodes. Does the symptom occur on Direct Stream or Direct Play? If not, there’s a Transcode setting called Buffer Throttle or something. Make that 1. Only for testing. See what happens?
I don’t know if I’m sending you down another worthless time suck, but that solved a problem before…now, they fixed it (mine is back up high and no problems) but maybe that’s related?
Good luck buddy…these wild goose chases suck.
So I changed ‘Transcoder default throttle buffer’ to 1, but he still has exactly the same issue. I noticed that this only happens when the server transcodes, and not for H.264 files that he is able to play directly.
So yeah, I am kind of chasing a wild goose… Do not know what else to try. Damn Chromecast.
