Audio Popping, Crackling and Static when using Plex with Chromecast

Plex Players Streaming Devices
21

Watched movies yesterday too.
Pressing the start button and the back button immediately to the “main-window”.
The film starts without any problems.

Think it’s weird …
The error is obviously the app. But do not understand how it fits together.
Is there anyone who can explain?

22

I have test with other server to see and I have always crackling sound only with flac.

I have found this bug on chromecast
https://code.google.com/p/google-cast-sdk/issues/detail?id=791

Please report into if you have the problem

23

Strange that I haven’t had this problem until recently (or it’s never been enough of a bother until now) but I’m starting to have the same thing on every video from Plex I play on the chromecast from the Plex app. Netflix works fine on the chromecast, just videos from the Plex app. I changed the Chromecast.xml settings to two audio channels and my PC is pretty beefy, i7-4770k with 16GB of Ram. Any solution to this yet? Seems this issue has persisted for over a year now.

24

I just started having the same issue. I’m on latest version of Plex for Android. It’s really annoying!

25

Removing AAC and MP3 and replacing it with AC3 fixed all my issues.
Before:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Client name="Chromecast">
  <!-- Author: Plex Inc. -->
  <TranscodeTargets>
    <VideoProfile protocol="http" container="mkv" codec="h264" audioCodec="aac,mp3" context="streaming" />
    <MusicProfile container="mkv" codec="opus" />
    <PhotoProfile container="jpeg" />
    <SubtitleProfile container="ass" codec="ass" />
  </TranscodeTargets>
  <CodecProfiles>
    <VideoCodec name="*">
      <Limitations>
        <UpperBound name="video.width" value="1920" isRequired="true" />
        <UpperBound name="video.height" value="1080" isRequired="true" />
      </Limitations>
    </VideoCodec>
    <VideoCodec name="h264">
      <Limitations>
        <UpperBound name="video.bitDepth" value="8" />
        <UpperBound name="video.level" value="42" />
      </Limitations>
    </VideoCodec>
    <VideoAudioCodec name="aac,mp3">
      <Limitations>
        <UpperBound name="audio.channels" value="2" />
      </Limitations>
    </VideoAudioCodec>
  </CodecProfiles>
</Client>

After:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Client name="Chromecast">
  <!-- Author: Plex Inc. -->
  <TranscodeTargets>
    <VideoProfile protocol="http" container="mkv" codec="h264" audioCodec="ac3" context="streaming" />
    <MusicProfile container="mkv" codec="opus" />
    <PhotoProfile container="jpeg" />
    <SubtitleProfile container="ass" codec="ass" />
  </TranscodeTargets>
  <CodecProfiles>
    <VideoCodec name="*">
      <Limitations>
        <UpperBound name="video.width" value="1920" isRequired="true" />
        <UpperBound name="video.height" value="1080" isRequired="true" />
      </Limitations>
    </VideoCodec>
    <VideoCodec name="h264">
      <Limitations>
        <UpperBound name="video.bitDepth" value="8" />
        <UpperBound name="video.level" value="42" />
      </Limitations>
    </VideoCodec>
    <VideoAudioCodec name="ac3">
      <Limitations>
        <UpperBound name="audio.channels" value="2" />
      </Limitations>
    </VideoAudioCodec>
  </CodecProfiles>
</Client>
26

@JySzE said:
Removing AAC and MP3 and replacing it with AC3 fixed all my issues.
Before:

This is the solution to my problems also. Massive kudos for the direction on where to look! Fixed the chirping problem on my iPod Touch playback. Thanks!

27

Thanks for this, it seems to have fixed my crackle and pop issues casting FLAC with android to a Chromecast audio device but still have crackles and pops when casting the same FLAC from the chrome browser extension.

Interestingly I still see Direct Play FLAC shown on the server, so I don’t see what the change to ac3 is doing here. Anyone else have the same issue and found a fix?

1 Like
28

Exact same issue here. Casting from Plex for Android to my Chromecast Audio works flawlessly. Casting from Chrome on Linux, has occasional pops.

29

Had same issue with crackling audio on my Roku and this fixed it as well. I went ahead and updated all my clients to use ac3 only (Chomecast, Web, iOS, Roku, PS4, Ps3, XBONE, X360, and Samsung).

30

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