Auto Playback Failure on Adroid When Multiple Versions Present, But Manually Playing Version Works

Plex Players
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I recently freshly installed Plex Media Server on a new Windows 11 PC (I didn’t carry any program settings or folders over to the new machine - full fresh build). However, all Movie and TV Show media folders are exactly the same, and abide by Plex’s naming guidelines of folders and files.

With the new server, I’m now running into an issue on all Android TV and Android Phone devices when multiple versions of a Movie or Show are present. Basically, for any 4K HDR content, I also have a 1080p non-HDR version in the same folder. With the older server, my Android TV and Android devices had no problems immediately picking up the correct version to play. On the new server, the loading animation plays indefinitely for any Movie or TV show that has multiple versions. However, if there is only one file present it will play immediately. Also, the Movie or TV Show plays back just fine if I manually select “Play Version” and select the version I wish to play. Additionally, if I manually select “Play Version” on a TV Show, the next episode will not auto-play.

The strange thing is that this behavior only seems to occur on the Plex app of my Android devices:

Samsung Phone - GS22+ - Plex App
Nvidia Shield Pro - connected to 4K HDR TV - Plex App
Nvidia Shield - connected to 1080p non-HDR TV - Plex App

All other devices with other OSes work fine, where I don’t have to “Play Version” manually:

Windows 11 PC - Plex via Web Browser
Roku Stick - connected to 4K HDR TV - Plex App

I am the only user and I’m only trying to access Movies and TV while on my local network (the only content I access remotely is Music, which I’m having no problems with). I always play video at original/direct quality though the audio will sometimes be transcoded - I’m never transcoding video.

I have played around with just about every setting I can on the Android players and can’t resolve the issue. All players are set to play at original quality and always allow insecure connections. I have also emptied the trash on all libraries and have forced the library to Analyze and Refresh All Metadata a few times with no success.

Any thoughts on why this may be happening or any advice on troubleshooting next steps?

1 Like
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Do you have “switch refresh rate” enabled?

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Thanks for your response, pommesmatte. I have tried it both enabled and disabled but didn’t see a difference even after restarting the device. It’s currently disabled in the settings of my Android devices.

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