Audio from Plex continues playing after returning to Live TV app on Kaon Android TV STBs

Plex Players Streaming Devices
1

Description:
On our Kaon Android TV set-top boxes (two models running Android TV 8 and 10), when launching a Plex channel from within our custom Live TV guide app, Plex starts and plays video/audio fine. However, when returning to the TV app, Plex continues playing audio in the background, causing two overlapping audio streams — one from Plex and one from Live TV.

This does not occur with Pluto TV channels or other streaming apps on the same boxes, so it appears to be Plex-specific.

Devices:

Kaon STB Model KSTB2020 → Android TV 8

Kaon STB Model KSTB2100 → Android TV 10

Plex App Version(s) Tested:

Latest from Google Play (10.30.4.4092)

Older stable build (9.21.1 from APKMirror)

Result: Issue occurs on all tested Plex versions.

Other Apps Tested: Pluto TV (works fine — audio stops correctly).

Steps to Reproduce:

Open the Live TV app on Kaon STB.

Select a Plex channel → Plex app launches and begins playing video/audio.

Press Guide to return to the Live TV guide app.

Expected behavior: Plex should stop playback and release audio focus.

Actual behavior: Plex continues playing audio in the background while Live TV also plays, resulting in dual audio streams.

Troubleshooting Performed:

Tried multiple Plex app versions (old + latest) → Issue persists.

Tested on multiple Kaon STBs (Android TV 8 + 10) → Issue persists.

Cleared Plex cache and data → Fixes temporarily.

Verified Pluto TV works properly → Indicates Kaon STB firmware handles audio focus correctly.

Confirmed no “Allow background playback” or “Audio in background” option exists in STB settings.

Hypothesis:
This appears to be a Plex MediaSession / Audio Focus handling issue on Kaon operator STBs. Since Pluto TV and other apps properly abandon audio focus when switching back to the TV app, this may require Plex to better integrate with Kaon’s operator audio APIs.

Request:

Please confirm if this is a known issue with Plex on Kaon Android TV STBs.

If possible, provide a beta Plex build or operator-optimized APK that properly releases audio focus when switching apps.

2

Update from our TiVo Provider:

Here are what we observed on the KAON 2020:

  • This issue happens intermittently, it seems there is a timing-related issue

  • From the logs, we can see when issue doesn’t happen, the plex app was successfully stopped and its player instance was released. For example, we can see these logs:

09-15 13:01:22.892 I/ExoPlayerImpl(17091): Release 2001c8f [ExoPlayerLib/2.18.7] [KSTB2020, KSTB2020, KaonMedia, 26] [goog.exo.core, goog.exo.mediasession, goog.exo.exoplayer, goog.exo.decoder, goog.exo.hls, goog.exo.okhttp, goog.exo.datasource, goog.exo.extractor]

or this:

2025-09-16 13:02:24.136 Avrcp                 sendPlayPosNotificationRsp: Not registered or requesting.
2025-09-16 13:02:24.138 Avrcp                 ActiveSession: MediaController (com.plexapp.android@708a838) null
2025-09-16 13:02:24.138 NowPlayingListener    MediaController {packageName = com.plexapp.android, state = null}
2025-09-16 13:02:24.138 Avrcp                 playState object null, sending STOPPED

  • When issue didn’t happen, we didn’t see Plex app released its player and it kept updating the NowPlayingListener in playing state. This indicates the Plex was still streaming in the backgound.

  • We couldn’t find a Plex log which can help us identify why Plex was not stopped when it was in background state.
    This will need Plex’s engineer look into their app.