[BUG] Android 8.12.0 Cannot Play Videos with AAC 5.1 Audio On Fire TV Stick Lite (2020)

Plex Players Streaming Devices
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Server Version#: 1.21.1.3876 Windows
Player Version#: 8.12.0

I could watch all videos properly with Version 8.11 on the my Firestick. Now, videos that have AAC 5.1 which played perfectly in 8.11 (direct play), have random behaviour in 8.12

  • they won’t start
  • after long pause, starts in sort of a slow motion with audio distortion with lots of popping noises.

If I select 240p or 360p quality and force a transcode on the server, then it does play but, of course, the player is now only getting stereo.

The release notes for 8.12 say something about 5.1 AAC and Chromebook. Clearly, those changes have probably bled into normal playback.

These are not high bitrate videos that I’m talking about and like I said, they played perfectly yesterday with 8.11. They are 768 kbps HEVC on the video side and 384 kbps 5.1 AAC on audio. No subtitles. If you had a proper way to report bugs and I could have submitted the XML for the video privately, I would have done that.

Everything here is extremely standard – latest fire stick, windows server and very bland profile on the videos. Connected to AV receiver through hdmi. You should be able to reproduce.

Sorry, no logs. I have already gone back to 8.11 and reconfigured all settings and layouts. Not wasting my time doing that more times. There will be a separate post coming about my extreme dissatisfaction with the bug reporting process and the lack of a simple way to gather the logs within the Android app.

Not happy with the constant horrible android versions that are released, each time with new huge problems. Can’t watch live tv with 8.11 but at least I can watch my library videos.

3 Likes
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Can you reproduce and then provide me a log from the Android app.

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I’m getting this exact same issue, but on the Sony KDL-55W805C TV using the same Player Version: 8.12.0.

I get the same playback behaviour, as well as the 240p/360p forced conversion working.

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Sorry, no. I wasted over an hour on this yesterday. I have 8.11 installed now and I’m not going to waste another half hour installing the update, making an obvious thing happen that you should be able to reproduce and then lose all my configurations and UI customizations again when I uninstall and install 8.11 again just because PLEX has an insane bug reporting process.

We have to get your attention first so that we can later dm logs.

Also, we lose 10 minutes every time we have to reconfigure the app after uninstalling/installing.

Has no one ever thought to provide a way to save our configuration to a file so that we could restore it later?

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The PLEX article on how to get Android logs should be updated. Accordingly to the first part of the article, it is the logs that would be emailed that would provide the most info on player issues. However, people with TV sticks, TV boxes and Android TVs do not have email programs on their devices (at least, most wouldn’t). The 2nd network logs method probably won’t help because this is clearly a player problem. So it appears that we don’t even a sensible way to provide the logs that PLEX is always asking for.

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There is a separate section for " Android TV & Fire TV". Those are the instructions you should be following.

Edit - It’s the same as the network logging for mobile. To be clear, that just exposes a path to the app so you can grab the log over your network from another computer. That’s what I want.

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What a mess this has turned into. And it didn’t have to happen. I reported the problems before 8.12 was put on the stores.

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I have this same issue now on my TCL Android TV running Plex. Exactly as described

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Could you maybe post logs or DM them to MoveFan. I’ve already gone back to 8.11 and don’t have the time to upgrade make the problem to get logs and then revert back.

It’s so frustrating when Plex, after trying to help them, continues on their slow self-destructive path.

1 Like
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Having Same problems with AT&T Tv Box that runs Android Tv, all movies and shows that have AAC5.1 either will not play or have no sound. Worked fine last week on 8.11

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Has there been a workaround? I have the same problem, no audio for AAC encoded files, Audio is greyed out on Sony XBR65X950H. All other devices seem ok.

Bob

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