Audio out of sync

Plex Players Streaming Devices
1

Hi,

My server is running 1.12.1.4885 and I play mostly through the roku app. Recently I have noticed that audio has gone out of sync by a very small amount. Still noticeable but not by more than half a second probably.

I think it is happening on files where the video is being transcoded but the audio is direct streaming.

Can anyone help me find the cause or confirm if it is this which is causing it?

I have attached the logs, if that helps.

Thanks,

Rich.

4 Likes
2

Following as Iā€™ve seen this too.

3

Roku has issues with keeping the lips and the sounds of the words living in the same zip code.
Transcoding of ANY part of the picmission exacerbates the problemā€¦ particularly where a lower powered server is involved - and sometimes on some units with some formats nothing seems to help - except Direct Play and on some units and formats thatā€™s also up for debate.

https://forums.roku.com/index.php
A quick trip down memory lane reveals much user dissatisfaction in this department and judging by the age of some of these complaints Roku isnā€™t any closer to nailing it down than they were years ago.

Everything was fine, up until the introduction of Rokuā€™s Failed Experiment - The Roku 4 - and itā€™s been an out of control train wreck ever since.

1 Like
4

Can confirm this only happens when the video is transcoded but audio is direct play, this needs fixing, itā€™s only started happening over the last month or two.

2 Likes
5

Same here but for me Iā€™ve used Chrome, Roku and Shield. I seem to only have the issue with live TV, transcoded or not.

6

I now use version 1.13.0.5023 and itā€™s still happening and, as said only when audio is direct stream but video is being transcoded. I believe it is something to do with not being able to marry it up, but then thatā€™s really obvious so the solution is probably very hard.

Plex Roku doesnā€™t allow manual overrides of audio sync so itā€™s getting really annoying.

Itā€™s not my server as thatā€™s more than capable of doing most things and the Roku itself is the latest (Streaming Stick+).

7

Same here, happens on the Ultra too. There was a new ROKU software release I got last night as well (ROKU, not PLEX client). My PMS is on a 4th gen i7 which is fully capable with Gb wired backbone so maybe they can skip blaming my wireless :slight_smile:

It seemed to get worse when they broke the HW transcoding feature awhile back but could be coincidence since they broke a lot at that time. BTW, HW transcoding is still broke in this release.

8

Any word on whether this is being looked at? Iā€™m running Plex (w/ Plex Pass obviously) v 1.13.8.5395 (installed on 9/25/2018) and just purchased a SiliconDust Connect Duo to give the DVR/LiveTV a try.

If I tune to a channel, it works (in sync) initially, but it seems to drift over time where the video stream is ahead of the audio. I would have thought the video would be behind if it is being transcoded, but I donā€™t have the transcode option enabled on the server.

As Iā€™ve been sitting here typing, Iā€™ve been watching the same channel on my computer web browser as well as via the plex app on my nVidia SHIELD and it seems the issue is only manifesting on the nVidia SHIELD. THe shield is doing DirectPlay (no transcoding that I can tell).

What can I look at to diagnose?

9

Iā€™m having the exact same issue with nVidia Shield TV as well. Starts pretty close to being in sync and then slowly drifts further, and further apart. PMS is a core i7 with 24GB of RAM.

1 Like
10

Iā€™m having the same issue.

11

Sane issue on Xbox One X and the Windows 10 app. V annoying!

2 Likes
12

Seems when playing movies in Original quality the audio gets out of sync,
selecting transcode to any quality fixes the issue.

Playing TV episodes havenā€™t I notices any problems with the audio, even playing episodes over 1 hour with no problems, so I donā€™t think that its an length issue??

Windows 10, 1 desktop and 2 different laptops

5 Likes
13

This audio out of synch on Roku is/was driving me nuts for a very specific scenario. I was encoding 1080i OTA with HDHomeRunExtend to Synology 218+ running Plex ( Version 1.14.1.5488) and then encoding the resulting .TS files to M4V via fast 1080p30 setting with Handbrake.

  • The .TS file had no audio synch issues. Played fine on Plex player and VLC on my Win 10 PC and on TV via Plex / Roku Streaming Stick 3800R.
  • The resulting .m4v file also had no audio synch issues when played on my Win 10 PC or phone on various apps.
  • However, the same .m4v file had about a 1-2 second audio synch delay only when played on my Roku stick. This happened with several files.

After several changes to Handbrake encoding, I found that the H.264 MKV 1080p30 encoding doesnā€™t result in a synch issue.

I donā€™t have this issue with 720p or 480p TS or encoded M4V files.

Hope this helps someone.

14

Google brought me to this post (and many, many other posts just like it) as I have been having the same issues. Oddly it is only happening on the Windows 10 app, Xbox One is fine (it is the X1X to be more specific) though. It happens whether itā€™s direct or transcoding, which that was what I initially assumed was the issue (transcoding). I really love the Windows app interface, but sadly now I just use it to find what I want to watch, and then just play it on my PC with Windows Media Player (the Windows 10 Movies & TV app doesnā€™t support a lot of codecs, but the older Media Player does, which in itself is sad, which is also why I wished the Plex app didnā€™t have this audio sync issue.

If I hit the ā€œgo back 10 secondsā€ rewind button, audio syncs back up, but after a a few minutes, it goes back to being out of sync, and gets worse as time goes on. It would be nice to know if Plex is looking into this, could acknowledge it, or maybe even fix it. Although I have a feeling it could be on MS end based off all the stellar Windows updates that we have had recently /s. However I have come across a lot of posts here, Reddit, and multiple other forums when doing my Google search for this issue, and some go back to '16, so it seems this has been an issue for some time, for some people that is.

5 Likes
16

i have the same issue when using the plex media server directly connected to my tv. If i use a streaming service ie: xbox plex app and or chromecast it plays fine. not sure if its the server or something on my computer.

17

See these threads, others are having issues similar to this

18

The go back 10 seconds fixes the audio sync issue for me for a bit then it gets out of sync again.

Is there any update on this from Plex?

I checked and the audio and video are direct play yet this is still happening.

My server is hardwired with a 2 gig connection to the network. Here are the specs, it shouldnā€™t be the issues correct?

Xeon E5-2650 2.6 Ghz 8 core 16 thread
16GB RAM
480GB Samsung enterprise class SSD for OS
16GB Ram

Storage is split between a 2TB internal drive and a 12TB Drobo FS on the network.

19

I use Rokus (Roci?) throughout the house. Two TVs, a stick and a Roku Ultra. The audio and video are out of sync on the ULTRA. I fixed it by disabling direct play but allowing direct stream. Now the video is copied and the audio is transcoded and its fine. I should mention this is a new problem and has never been a problem before yesterday and i have always had direct play on auto. Server is latest on plex pass and app is up to date. I should also mention no other app has this issue. The Plex server is running on Ubuntu Server.

4 Likes
20

I found the problem and it was nothing to do with Plex. All of the messing around Iā€™ve done to get this working and the issue was ā€˜Game modeā€™ on my TV!!! Changing to any other mode sorts the audio issue.

3 Likes
21

This worked for me too! I changed the color mode on my projector from ā€œbrightā€ to ā€œvividā€ and now the audio is staying in sync again. Pretty weird.