[Bug] Plex app hard crash on Chromecast Google TV on specific position in video

Plex Players Player Betas
1

I updated to the latest via Google Play store 8.11.0.22186 (a1b8a7fb) and I’m having a hard-crash on a certain HECV-file. This is reproducable and not occuring when playing the same file through web-browser or the Plex app running on my Samsung UHD TV (which I use now for “fallback”)

On the PMS-side, I’m running 1.21.0.3711 on Synology 918+

I’ve cleaned the logs, activated “Debug” logging and went to the video-file around the time-mark the crash always occurs. With or without (Dutch) subtitles, does not matter.

On the media-side, the XML-info shows following
(nothing really exciting)

Media

  • Duration 55:35
  • Bitrate 1409 kbps
  • Width 1920
  • Height 1080
  • Aspect Ratio 1.78
  • Video Resolution 1080p
  • Container MKV
  • Video Frame Rate PAL
  • Video Profile main 10
  • Overlay

Part

  • Duration 55:35

  • File The Crown S01E05 HEVC.mkv

  • Size 560.03 MB

  • Container MKV

  • Video Profile main 10

  • Codec HEVC

  • Bitrate 1409 kbps

  • Bit Depth 10

  • Chroma Subsampling 4:2:0

  • Coded Height 1080

  • Coded Width 1920

  • Color Primaries bt709

  • Color Range tv

  • Color Space bt709

  • Color Trc bt709

  • Frame Rate 25 fps

  • Height 1080

  • Level 4.0

  • Profile main 10

  • Ref Frames 1

  • Width 1920

  • Display Title 1080p (HEVC Main 10)

  • Extended Display Title 1080p (HEVC Main 10)

  • Codec EAC3

  • Channels 6

  • Language English

  • Audio Channel Layout 5.1(side)

  • Sampling Rate 48000 Hz

  • Display Title English (EAC3 5.1)

  • Extended Display Title English (EAC3 5.1)

  • Codec SRT

  • Language Nederlands

  • Display Title Nederlands (SRT)

  • Extended Display Title Nederlands (SRT)

Below some excerpts from the PMS-logging. Due to “hls” transcoding is a fact

Dec 16, 2020 21:14:10.699 [0x7f1a355cb700] DEBUG - [Transcode] TranscodeUniversalRequest: using augmented profile Android
Dec 16, 2020 21:14:10.699 [0x7f1a355cb700] DEBUG - [Transcode] Downloading document http://127.0.0.1:32400/library/metadata/85427?includeBandwidths=1&offset=-1&X-Plex-Incomplete-Segments=1&X-Plex-Session-Identifier=570da7ce4d4b2166-com-plexapp-android
Dec 16, 2020 21:14:10.699 [0x7f1a355cb700] DEBUG - [Transcode] Auth: authenticated user 1 as **********************
Dec 16, 2020 21:14:10.704 [0x7f1a355cb700] DEBUG - [Transcode] We’re going to try to auto-select an audio stream for account 1.
Dec 16, 2020 21:14:10.704 [0x7f1a355cb700] DEBUG - [Transcode] Selecting best audio stream for part ID 94049 (autoselect: 1 language: en)
Dec 16, 2020 21:14:10.704 [0x7f1a355cb700] DEBUG - [Transcode] Audio Stream: 74121, Subtitle Stream: 74122
Dec 16, 2020 21:14:10.705 [0x7f1a355cb700] DEBUG - [Transcode] MDE: Selected protocol hls; container: mkv
Dec 16, 2020 21:14:10.705 [0x7f1a355cb700] DEBUG - [Transcode] MDE: analyzing media item 93731
Dec 16, 2020 21:14:10.705 [0x7f1a355cb700] DEBUG - [Transcode] MDE: E5 - Episode 5: Direct Play is disabled
Dec 16, 2020 21:14:10.705 [0x7f1a355cb700] DEBUG - [Transcode] MDE: E5 - Episode 5: media must be transcoded in order to use the hls protocol
Dec 16, 2020 21:14:10.705 [0x7f1a355cb700] DEBUG - [Transcode] MDE: E5 - Episode 5: no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/hevc
Dec 16, 2020 21:14:10.705 [0x7f1a355cb700] DEBUG - [Transcode] MDE: E5 - Episode 5: no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/hevc/eac3
Dec 16, 2020 21:14:10.705 [0x7f1a355cb700] DEBUG - [Transcode] MDE: Cannot direct stream audio stream due to codec eac3 when profile only allows aac
Dec 16, 2020 21:14:10.706 [0x7f1a355cb700] DEBUG - [Transcode] MDE: The Crown 2016 - S1 E5 - Episode 5: selected media 0 / 93731

So OK, transcoding then…

Dec 16, 2020 21:14:11.584 [0x7f1a37fff700] DEBUG - [Transcode] Found session GUID of 570da7ce4d4b2166-com-plexapp-android in session start.
Dec 16, 2020 21:14:11.584 [0x7f1a37fff700] DEBUG - [Transcode] Starting a transcode session 570da7ce4d4b2166-com-plexapp-android at offset -1.0 (state=3)
Dec 16, 2020 21:14:11.585 [0x7f1a37fff700] DEBUG - [Transcode] TPU: hardware transcoding: enabled, but no hardware decode accelerator found

This I don’t get ? My 918+ can do HW-accelerated transcoding ? Or perhaps not for this format ?

Dec 16, 2020 21:14:59.416 [0x7f1a3d729700] DEBUG - Removed transcode data consumer, active count 1 => 0
Dec 16, 2020 21:14:59.522 [0x7f1a355cb700] DEBUG - Request: [172.29.45.22:55480 (Allowed Network (Subnet))] GET /video/:/transcode/universal/session/570da7ce4d4b2166-com-plexapp-android/base/00333.ts (6 live) TLS Signed-in
Dec 16, 2020 21:14:59.522 [0x7f1a355cb700] DEBUG - [Transcode/570da7ce4d4b2166-com-plexapp-android] Asked for segment 333 from session.
Dec 16, 2020 21:14:59.522 [0x7f1a355cb700] WARN - [Transcode/570da7ce4d4b2166-com-plexapp-android] Transcode runner appears to have died.
Dec 16, 2020 21:14:59.622 [0x7f1a355cb700] DEBUG - [Transcode/570da7ce4d4b2166-com-plexapp-android] Sending back blank segment for 333, we overestimated the number of segments.
Dec 16, 2020 21:14:59.622 [0x7f1a355cb700] DEBUG - [Transcode/570da7ce4d4b2166-com-plexapp-android] Returning segment 333 from session
Dec 16, 2020 21:14:59.623 [0x7f1a355cb700] DEBUG - Content-Length of /volume1/@appstore/Plex Media Server/Resources/empty is 0 (of total: 0).
Dec 16, 2020 21:14:59.623 [0x7f1a355cb700] DEBUG - Completed: [172.29.45.22:55480] 200 GET /video/:/transcode/universal/session/570da7ce4d4b2166-com-plexapp-android/base/00333.ts (6 live) TLS 100ms 0 bytes (pipelined: 25)

But basically I don’t see any reason in the PMS.log … perhaps the Chromcast-crash is so abrubt from PMS perspective the client is just gone ?

How to troubleshoot this on the Chromecast side ?
Active “Network Logging” that I see in the menu ?

(in the logs attached, 172.29.45.22 = Chromecast) any other are probably my web-session on a PC or something.

(File removed)

2

Yes. after turning that on there will be a URL on the bottom right of the settings page. go to that URL in the browser on your computer that is on same network.

that will actually be logs for a long while before so what I do is. open the page, scroll all the way to the bottom and copy the time stamp on the last log line. Then reproduce the issue, refresh the page and find that timestamp again and you will now everything after that is from the session trying to reproduce.

3

Ok, so I performed this action. First I activated the Network Logging, then I selected the HEVC-file to continue to play and then reversed for about 90 seconds and let the thing run.
I let it run for some minuted and when I checked I was again on the Google start screen, so the Plex app crashed.

I’ve copied all the content to a text-file, here in attach. Not sure what I should look for. Perhap you guys spot something out of the ordinary ?

Chromecast_Exoplayer_Debug.txt (1.2 MB)

4

I’m having the same problem. Until 4 days ago, everything worked perfectly and now the application restarts when opening 4k movies. Did you find the solution?

5

Nope, Plex still crashes with that specific MKV-file. In general I don’t have many issues with the Chromecast (Android) Plex client, so for me its not that dramatic. There is always KODI as fallback :wink:

6

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