Can't play ANY video on PS3 or PS4 using PLEX app

Plex Players Gaming Consoles
1

I have a Plex Pass and I updated again (3rd time in past week or so) to version 0.9.16.2.1827. I STILL cannot play ANY video (.mkv or .mp4) on my PS3 or PS4 using the PLEX app. Streaming to the PLEX app on my Apple TV or any iOS device works fine. When I try to play .mp3 audio files, I get an error message stating “the video file cannot be transcoded.” Currently, I can only play .m4a audio files on either PlayStation. I’m running Plex Server on a Synology NAS (DS115; DSM 5.2-5644 Update 5).

For testing purposes, I tried to downgrade to public version 0.9.15.6.1714. The Synology package center would not let me downgrade. I don’t want to do an uninstall as I fear this will delete all my metadata and I have a very large music collection in Plex.

The PS3 has a built-in DLNA client. Why is it that I can stream and VIEW videos from PLEX server to PS3 via DLNA (using PS3 built-in client) but I cannot view the exact same videos inside the PLEX PS3 app? Are we sure this is just a server issue? It also feels like a PLEX client/app issue as well. There is appears to be something wrong at the server level too, as I cannot play .mp3 audio files via DLNA client (appears as unsupported format). So the server is definitely doing something to make the PS3 think that .mp3s are not actually .mp3s.

I have attached zip file with current log files. Any insight/solution to this problem would be appreciated.

2

Thanks for the Plex Media Server logs. I can see you are running PMS version 0.9.16.2 Plex for Playstation app version 2.5.7

I can see streaming starting and stopping when transcoding movie to Playstation 3 and Playing direct to Playstation 4. I am not sure if this is what you are referring to. I cannot tell why the Playstation app stopped a few seconds after start. Need to discuss with the team

Playstation 3

Mar 18, 2016 12:16:04 [0x355ed400] DEBUG - [Now] User is 5byfive (ID: 1)
Mar 18, 2016 12:16:04 [0x355ed400] DEBUG - [Now] Device is  (PlayStation 3).

Movie /volume1/video/TV Shows/Doctor Who 2005/Doctor_Who_s6e13_the_wedding_of_river_song_720p.AC3.mkv and was being transcoded

Mar 18, 2016 12:16:04 [0x355ed400] DEBUG - Client [ebdd8752ad81657d411eea61eae88aa9d8c71565] reporting timeline state playing, progress of 1000/2718800ms for guid=com.plexapp.agents.thetvdb://78804/6/13?lang=en, ratingKey=16081 url=, key=/library/metadata/16081, containerKey=/library/metadata/16081, metadataId=16081
Mar 18, 2016 12:16:13 [0x304db400] DEBUG - Client [ebdd8752ad81657d411eea61eae88aa9d8c71565] reporting timeline state stopped, progress of 3000/2718800ms for guid=com.plexapp.agents.thetvdb://78804/6/13?lang=en, ratingKey=16081 url=, key=/library/metadata/16081, containerKey=/library/metadata/16081, metadataId=16081

Mar 18, 2016 12:16:14 [0x355ed400] DEBUG - Client [ebdd8752ad81657d411eea61eae88aa9d8c71565] reporting timeline state playing, progress of 1000/2718800ms for guid=com.plexapp.agents.thetvdb://78804/6/13?lang=en, ratingKey=16081 url=, key=/library/metadata/16081, containerKey=/library/metadata/16081, metadataId=16081
Mar 18, 2016 12:17:54 [0x355ed400] DEBUG - Client [ebdd8752ad81657d411eea61eae88aa9d8c71565] reporting timeline state stopped, progress of 100000/2718800ms for guid=com.plexapp.agents.thetvdb://78804/6/13?lang=en, ratingKey=16081 url=, key=/library/metadata/16081, containerKey=/library/metadata/16081, metadataId=16081

Mar 18, 2016 12:18:00 [0x304db400] DEBUG - Client [ebdd8752ad81657d411eea61eae88aa9d8c71565] reporting timeline state playing, progress of 1000/2718800ms for guid=com.plexapp.agents.thetvdb://78804/6/13?lang=en, ratingKey=16081 url=, key=/library/metadata/16081, containerKey=/library/metadata/16081, metadataId=16081
Mar 18, 2016 12:18:04 [0x304db400] DEBUG - Client [ebdd8752ad81657d411eea61eae88aa9d8c71565] reporting timeline state stopped, progress of 3000/2718800ms for guid=com.plexapp.agents.thetvdb://78804/6/13?lang=en, ratingKey=16081 url=, key=/library/metadata/16081, containerKey=/library/metadata/16081, metadataId=16081

Mar 18, 2016 12:18:05 [0x355ed400] DEBUG - Client [ebdd8752ad81657d411eea61eae88aa9d8c71565] reporting timeline state playing, progress of 90000/2718800ms for guid=com.plexapp.agents.thetvdb://78804/6/13?lang=en, ratingKey=16081 url=, key=/library/metadata/16081, containerKey=/library/metadata/16081, metadataId=16081
Mar 18, 2016 12:19:05 [0x304db400] DEBUG - Client [ebdd8752ad81657d411eea61eae88aa9d8c71565] reporting timeline state stopped, progress of 145000/2718800ms for guid=com.plexapp.agents.thetvdb://78804/6/13?lang=en, ratingKey=16081 url=, key=/library/metadata/16081, containerKey=/library/metadata/16081, metadataId=16081

There was an error round the first stopped timeline indication

Mar 18, 2016 12:16:13 [0x2ef2f400] ERROR - handle_stream_read error 104 Connection reset by peer
Mar 18, 2016 12:16:13 [0x2ef2f400] DEBUG - Removed transcode output stream 0x350055f8, active count 1 => 0
Mar 18, 2016 12:16:13 [0x304db400] DEBUG - Request: [::ffff:127.0.0.1:44116] GET /:/timeline?containerKey=%2Flibrary%2Fmetadata%2F16081&duration=2718800&guid=com%2Eplexapp%2Eagents%2Ethetvdb%3A%2F%2F78804%2F6%2F13%3Flang%3Den&key=%2Flibrary%2Fmetadata%2F16081&ratingKey=16081&report=1&state=stopped&time=3000&X-Plex-Device=PlayStation%203&X-Plex-Device-Name=PlayStation%203&X-Plex-Product=DLNA&X-Plex-Token=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (4 live) GZIP

I will see if one can get any diagnostics out of the Playstation app to go with the server logs

and for the Playstation 4

Mar 19, 2016 13:22:14 [0x37a6a400] DEBUG - [Now] User is Home (ID: 6069055)
Mar 19, 2016 13:22:14 [0x37a6a400] DEBUG - [Now] Device is Mystery 4 (Plex for Sony (PlayStation 4 01.17)).

showing starting and then stopping

Mar 19, 2016 13:22:14 [0x37a6a400] DEBUG - Client [oy0ytgy9bms] reporting timeline state playing, progress of 0/201596ms for guid=, ratingKey=122221 url=, key=/library/metadata/122221, containerKey=, metadataId=122221
Mar 19, 2016 13:22:21 [0x32cd7400] DEBUG - Client [oy0ytgy9bms] reporting timeline state stopped, progress of 6000/201596ms for guid=, ratingKey=122221 url=, key=/library/metadata/122221, containerKey=, metadataId=122221

Movie was /volume1/music/Nik West/Just In The Nik Of Time/11 No Choice.m4a and it was Direct Play

Mar 19, 2016 13:22:13 [0x30861400] DEBUG - Request: [::ffff:192.168.1.110:50372] GET /library/metadata/122221?X-Plex-No-Cache=14584081333103682&X-Plex-Product=Plex%20TV&X-Plex-Version=2.5.7&X-Plex-Client-Identifier=oy0ytgy9bms&X-Plex-Platform=Mystery%204&X-Plex-Platform-Version=531.3&X-Plex-Device=Sony%20%28PlayStation%204%2001.17%29&X-Plex-Device-Name=Plex%20for%20Sony%20%28PlayStation%204%2001.17%29&X-Plex-Token=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx&checkFiles=1&includeChapters=1 (5 live) TLS GZIP
Mar 19, 2016 13:22:13 [0x30861400] DEBUG - Auth: We found auth token (xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx), enabling token-based authentication.
Mar 19, 2016 13:22:13 [0x30861400] DEBUG - Updating part with ID=208180 [/volume1/music/Nik West/Just In The Nik Of Time/11 No Choice.m4a]
Mar 19, 2016 13:22:13 [0x30861400] DEBUG - It took 0.0 sec to serialize a list with 1 elements.
Mar 19, 2016 13:22:13 [0x2ebed400] DEBUG - Completed: [::ffff:192.168.1.110:50372] GET /library/metadata/122221 (5 live) TLS GZIP 70ms 1264 bytes 200 (pipelined: 166)
Mar 19, 2016 13:22:14 [0x37a6a400] DEBUG - Request: [::ffff:192.168.1.110:64439] HEAD /library/parts/208180/file.m4a?X-Plex-Token=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (6 live) TLS
Mar 19, 2016 13:22:14 [0x37a6a400] DEBUG - Auth: We found auth token (xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx), enabling token-based authentication.
Mar 19, 2016 13:22:14 [0x37a6a400] DEBUG - Content-Length of /volume1/music/Nik West/Just In The Nik Of Time/11 No Choice.m4a is 7007599.
Mar 19, 2016 13:22:14 [0x37a6a400] DEBUG - Completed: [::ffff:192.168.1.110:64439] HEAD /library/parts/208180/file.m4a (6 live) TLS 58ms 0 bytes 200

This was the last request from the Playstation 4 app

Mar 19, 2016 13:22:15 [0x32cd7400] DEBUG - Request: [::ffff:192.168.1.110:49293] GET /library/parts/208180/file.m4a?X-Plex-Token=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (7 live) TLS
Mar 19, 2016 13:22:15 [0x32cd7400] DEBUG - Auth: We found auth token (xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx), enabling token-based authentication.
Mar 19, 2016 13:22:15 [0x32cd7400] DEBUG - Request range: 5242880 to 7007598
Mar 19, 2016 13:22:15 [0x32cd7400] DEBUG - Content-Length of /volume1/music/Nik West/Just In The Nik Of Time/11 No Choice.m4a is 7007599.
Mar 19, 2016 13:22:15 [0x2ebed400] DEBUG - Completed: [::ffff:192.168.1.110:49293] GET /library/parts/208180/file.m4a (6 live) TLS 198ms 1764719 bytes 200

Are these the failures you are referring to?
Could you get the media info for both of these please
See https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/201998867-Investigate-Media-Information-and-Formats

3

Yes, these are some of the errors I’m referring to. To be clear, in the PlayStation app, it never “appears” to play anything at all. As soon as you hit play, it immediately comes back with an error. And this happens with ALL my videos. I have attached an archive with the media info of several files, output to individual text files, so you can have more data. The Nik West audio album is primarily mp3s but the last track is an m4a, thus the two different media info files.

4

You mentioned in your first post you could play m4a files but the log showed an m4a file that was in stopped state. Was that a problem or was that was working. I need to know which of the errors the devs should look into - just the ps3 transcoding issue for the mkv - and was the error for the Dr Who episode on the PS3 at 12:16:13 the error you mentioned in your first post The video file cannot be transcoded. ? I cannot see any transcoding error on the server.

And for the PS4 m4a Direct Play of 11 No Choice.m4a - did that give an error and what was the error message - it cannot be the same error because we were not transcoding.

5

Ok here we go…

  1. Sorry for the confusion regarding playing .m4a audio files. During my testing on the PS3, I turned off ‘Direct Play’ and ‘Direct’ Streaming.’ With these options unchecked, the PS3 will not play .mp3s nor .m4as. Once I re-enabled these options, both the PS3 and PS4 only play .m4as. mp3s still produce the following error under both conditions:
    “The server is not powerful enough to convert video. You may be able to enable playback by increasing your quality setting.”

  2. The video error that I’m getting is simply a black screen with the words “There was a problem playing this item” and a “Go Back” button.

  3. In doing further testing, I stumbled upon a video that actually DID play in the PLEX app. So I subsequently tested every movie and found a total of 5 that would play. In trying to determine what was different about these 5 videos, I found the following: Of my 62 videos, these were the only ones that were NOT encoded with a video format profile of High Level 4.1. The 5 that worked were encoded at High Level 4.0 or lower. While this article (https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/204377253-What-media-formats-are-supported-) states that videos have to be Level 4.0 or lower to be ‘Direct Played,’ I would assume videos at Level 4.1 would be transcoded accordingly. This also does not explain why I can still play/stream the same High Level 4.1 videos via the PS3’s built-in DLNA client that won’t play in the PLEX app. The PS4’s Media Player app will also play all videos via DLNA, although any video with DTS audio will be silent as the PS4 Media Player does not support this audio codec.

This still feels like issues on both sides, the server and client/app side. I have attached a new archive with media info on the 5 videos that would play and new logs that should show me going through all 62 videos.

Let me know what you find.

6

@5byfive said:

  1. Sorry for the confusion regarding playing .m4a audio files. During my testing on the PS3, I turned off ‘Direct Play’ and ‘Direct’ Streaming.’ With these options unchecked, the PS3 will not play .mp3s nor .m4as. Once I re-enabled these options, both the PS3 and PS4 only play .m4as. mp3s still produce the following error under both conditions:
    “The server is not powerful enough to convert video. You may be able to enable playback by increasing your quality setting.”

That is different from what you stated on the first post. If the synology is not powerful enough to transcode in time then that is what it is. NAS is known to be bad at transcoding. In the previous logs the transcoding capability for the Dr Who episode was very marginal. It took 19 seconds to transcode each 27 seconds - a speed of about 1.4-1.6. Any reduction to speed below 1 would simply fail as it would not be able to keep up

There is a support page on the subject: Why do I get the This server is not powerful enough to convert video message

@5byfive said:

  1. The video error that I’m getting is simply a black screen with the words “There was a problem playing this item” and a “Go Back” button.

It is important to be precise. This is a different error from the one you mentioned in your first post. Are we talking about PS3 or PS4? But first have a look at my reply to the next point

  1. In doing further testing, I stumbled upon a video that actually DID play in the PLEX app. So I subsequently tested every movie and found a total of 5 that would play. In trying to determine what was different about these 5 videos, I found the following: Of my 62 videos, these were the only ones that were NOT encoded with a video format profile of High Level 4.1. The 5 that worked were encoded at High Level 4.0 or lower. While this article (https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/204377253-What-media-formats-are-supported-) states that videos have to be Level 4.0 or lower to be ‘Direct Played,’ I would assume videos at Level 4.1 would be transcoded accordingly. This also does not explain why I can still play/stream the same High Level 4.1 videos via the PS3’s built-in DLNA client that won’t play in the PLEX app. The PS4’s Media Player app will also play all videos via DLNA, although any video with DTS audio will be silent as the PS4 Media Player does not support this audio codec.

This still feels like issues on both sides, the server and client/app side. I have attached a new archive with media info on the 5 videos that would play and new logs that should show me going through all 62 videos.

First we need to eliminate what is documented as the limitations for the Playstations. So please have a look at this support page and then come back with any issues for what that support page says should be ok.

Plex for Playstation - what media formats are supported

@5byfive said:

Let me know what you find.

I will wait for you re-assess what issues you have based on what is documented as supported or not.

And please when submitting logs and screenshots, try and make it easier to investigate by following the guidelines

http://forums.plex.tv/discussion/195799/troubles-read-here-to-learn-how-to-provide-great-logs

You should not leave one to guess which abnormality in the logs relate to the issues/errors

7

Sorry I wasn’t “precise” enough for you. I thought the point of sending you debug logs was to provide you with “precise” information. Now it just sounds like you’re trying to shift blame and give yourself a reason not to have to do anything.

  1. How does the “The server is not powerful enough to convert video” apply when I’m trying to listen to AUDIO. I get this message trying to listen to MP3s, NOT video! Both the PS3 and PS4 support MP3s natively. So why does the PLEX app think these are videos files?! EVERYTHING supports MP3s so there should be no transcoding whatsover necessary and the capabilities of my NAS should not be an issue here.

  2. I didn’t mention any specific video errors in my first post. I simply stated that, “I STILL cannot play ANY video (.mkv or .mp4) on my PS3 or PS4 using the PLEX app.” While this may have lacked the “precision” you were looking for, it is incorrect for you to state “This is a different error from the one you mentioned in your first post” BEFORE I actually provided you with an actual error message. And to clarify, yes, I get the exact same behavior on my PS3 and PS4.

  3. As I am the one who linked to the PlayStation support page in my previous post, I am fully aware of what it says. Both the PS3 and PS4 are absolutely capable of playing High Level 4.1 profile video. It’s YOUR PLEX APP that seems to have all the limitations and caveats. As you seem to continue to ignore, I can stream ALL my videos from the NAS to both the PS3 and PS4 with no issues using the PS3 and PS4’s DLNA capabilities/applications. I can also stream from the NAS to the PLEX app on my Apple TV. So my NAS is completely capable of streaming/transcoding the files in question.

So none of my issues have changed and the question is still exactly the same… Why won’t the PLEX app for PS3 or PS4 play mp3s or High Level 4.1 videos (when I can play these files on the PS3 and PS4 via the NAS through other applications)? This is NOT a NAS issue. The is NOT a PS3 or PS4 “limitation” issue. This IS a PLEX issue.

8

Ok so the issues you are raising are specifically to do with the documented limitations of the Plex for Playstation app - on this support page https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/204377253-What-media-formats-are-supported-

I will ask the Plex Team on that

Do you have any failures to stream / play when you are using media files that are documented as supported by the Plex for Playstation app stated on that web page? and which media files are these and do they appear in the supplied logs together with the media info ?

9

So let me ask you a question… have YOU read the page above? It starts by stating the parameters of video that can be Direct Played. More importantly, it immediately follows with, “Other content will need to be either Direct Streamed or transcoded.” If you need to, please read that sentence again.

So, since with have already established as fact that 1) the audios and videos in question are natively supported by the PS3 and PS4 and 2) my Synology NAS can stream/transcode the audios and videos in question to the PS3 (via DLNA), PS4 (via DLNA) and Apple TV (PLEX app), the OBVIOUS answer to your question is YES. I DO have failures to stream/play media files that are supported by the PLEX PlayStation app.

The page also says this, “The Plex for PlayStation app does not currently support Direct Playing of MKV container videos. If the audio and video streams in the file are otherwise compatible, it will be Direct Streamed.” Since all but 1 or 2 of my videos use the .mkv container, we can use all the information already provided to deduce that ALL my videos should be getting Direct Streamed from the NAS to the PS3 or PS4 PLEX app. Since the 5 videos that DO work, fall within the parameters of videos that can be Direct Played, we can make the supposition that the problem lies somewhere within realm of Direct Streaming. Whether this is a PLEX server side or PLEX app side problem, is the question.

So, let’s summarize…

  1. ALL of my audios and videos are natively compatible with the PS3 and PS4.
  2. ALL of my audios and videos can be streamed (natively) to the PS3/PS4 from my Synology NAS via DLNA without issue.
  3. Per the PLEX support page, MOST of my audios and videos SHOULD be getting Direct Streamed from the NAS to the PLEX app on the PS3 or PS4. Only the 5 that fall into the Direct Play parameters are working.
  4. In the logs I attached two messages ago, you should see me going through ALL the videos and see 57 out of 62 failures.

So, all the information you need has been there. Are you going to be able to deduce some things on your own or am I going to have to hold your hand through this entire process?

10

We know it’s frustrating when things don’t work as you expect them to. To try and clear up some misunderstandings here and make general notes:

  • Just because a playback capability is available for the DLNA app (or any other app), that doesn’t mean that it’s exposed to our app for us to use. That doesn’t seem very logical for many users (or even us), but it’s true nonetheless. This is a super important point.
  • Some capabilities might be exposed to our app, but extensive testing has revealed that using them results in problems (poor playback, unexpected stopping, etc., etc.). In those cases, we may intentionally not allow their use until PlayStation updates are made and further testing demonstrates that the issues have been resolved.
  • You mention running your Plex Media Server on a Synology DS115. That NAS device that uses an ARMv7 processor, which is not particularly capable of good transcoding (and has some special transcoder-related limitations), so when you do have content that needs transcoding then you might well run into issues.
  • Believe it or not, MP3 music playback support simply isn’t exposed to us at all - it just doesn’t work. M4A works and the only way we found to reliably get non-M4A formats to work is actually to transcode it in such a way that there’s basically a “hidden” (blank) video stream, too. Weird, huh? (That’s also why the error message mentions “video”, but we agree that it’s confusing in that situation.) We think the reason you’re having issues with MP3 playback may be related to the transcoder-limitations on your NAS platform and we’re investigating that.
  • As noted on our support page, the app supports H.264 levels 4.0 or lower natively. So, if your content is level 4.1, then it would need to have the video stream transcoded - regardless of whether it’s in an MP4 or MKV container.
  • You can go into Settings > Video > Maximum H.264 Level in the app and move it to 4.1 if you wish. It’s quite possible that could significantly help you out. But just be aware that it’s possible that could lead to playback issues sometimes as it notes in the setting.
11

Thanks Chris. I truly appreciate your response. You are obviously “in the know” in regard to Plex functionality.

My frustration was stemming from providing what felt like a more than adequate amount of information (over numerous posts) simply to get more generic questions tossed back at me because of the apparent lack of expertise from the forum mod. If I had gotten your response two or three message ago, I wouldn’t be complaining and we’d actually be closer to wrapping this up at this point.

Moving on…
I’ve been in the Settings pane numerous times, and for some unknown reason, every time I went in, the “Maximum H.264 level” felt like a “read-only” field. It never dawned on me that I could actually change this setting. So, low and behold, I changed the H.264 level to 4.1 and presto, my videos are now “playing” in the PLEX PlayStation app. See how easy that should have been? I must admit, I feel kind of dumb missing such a simple solution, but you guys could use some error messaging that is a little less vague.

In doing some additional testing I’ve discovered the following. Most of my “4.1” videos only play if the “Local Quality” video setting is set to '10 Mbps 1080p" or higher, and this includes the PS3. I believe this is probably due to a limitation in the transcoding ability of the NAS (I think it has a problem going from 1080p down to 720p). While my PS4 is connected to the network via Ethernet, where bandwidth is not an issue and I can watch videos at ‘Original’ quality with no problem, the PS3 is connected via WIFI and 10Mbps definitely pushes the limit. This is obviously not your problem. I’m currently testing the “Optimized Versions” capability of the PLEX server, but on my NAS it looks like it’s going to take FOREVER. I’d probably be better off transcoding it via an actual computer. I can see that the PLEX server has created new folders on the NAS: Plex Version -> Optimized for TV. If I manually made an optimized version of a video, and placed it in this folder, would the PLEX server automatically become aware of it and categorize it properly?

Last but not least, obviously changing the H.264 level settings did not fix my mp3 issues. While fixing the video issues was my biggest concern, any insight or workaround you might have regarding mp3 playback on my NAS would be greatly appreciated.

Once again, thanks for your thorough and informative response.

12

@5byfive said:
Thanks Chris. I truly appreciate your response. You are obviously “in the know” in regard to Plex functionality.

To be clear, @sa2000 is incredibly knowledgeable about Plex in general and is a thoroughly invaluable part of our community for all the assistance he provides for users. But when you’re not personally familiar with all the myriad clients, it can take longer to hone in on something particular, like in this case. (And very few people understand - or even should need to understand - things like the fact that PlayStation has to do bizarre things like include a hidden/blank video stream in order to get music to play. I mean, who would ever guess something as strange as that?!?)

the “Maximum H.264 level” felt like a “read-only” field. It never dawned on me that I could actually change this setting.

It’s a fair comment. There are limitations with the current settings UI and it’s an “obvious in hindsight” kind of thing, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t be improved, too.

Most of my “4.1” videos only play if the “Local Quality” video setting is set to '10 Mbps 1080p" or higher

Presumably your content largely has a higher average bitrate than 10 Mbps, thus if you set the quality lower, you’d need to transcode it for playback in the apps.

If I manually made an optimized version of a video, and placed it in this folder, would the PLEX server automatically become aware of it and categorize it properly?

Yes and no. You could place it there and it ought to get picked up fine, but it wouldn’t be treated exactly the same as if you’d optimized through the Media Optimizer feature. Basically, you’d just be making use of the multi-version media feature to have different versions of the same item merged together. When using an app to choose a version to play, the display information about the version will be a little different between an item from Media Optimizer and one you do manually.

obviously changing the H.264 level settings did not fix my mp3 issues.

Plex Media Server 0.9.16.3 was released tonight and includes a fix related to transcoded music playback on PlayStation. I don’t know for sure that it’s the same issue you were experiencing, but I definitely encourage trying it.

13

It’s not personal with regard to sa2000. I used to do tech support. I know you need to be smart, but sometimes humble, and realize when you don’t have enough experience/expertise on a particular subject and that you need to defer to someone who does, as to not waste the time of all parties involved.

I downloaded the 0.9.16.3 Server and have the same results with regard to mp3s. I think the passing of the “hidden” video stream is what’s “confusing” my NAS. I certainly don’t believe it simply can’t convert a .mp3 to .m4a.

Yes, most of my videos probably have an overall and/or video bitrate of 10Mpbs or higher.

My NAS took about 10-12 hours to transcode a 10.5GB mkv to a 7.1GB mp4. So I won’t be using that again. I’ll try Handbrake or ffmpeg (via CLI) next. Any preferences/suggestions? Handbrake likes to output into the .m4v container. PLEX should handle this just like .mp4, correct? I looked at the media info for the “Optimized for TV” file and noticed it didn’t have CABAC encoding. So is the additional processing required to decode CABAC not worth the better compression? CABAC seems to be the standard with H.264. If you happen to have any “ideal” encoding parameters for PLEX to PlayStation I would love to see them.

Appreciate all your feedback.

14

Looks like the issue you’re seeing with transcoded music playback is different from what the server release fixed. We’re aware and working on a resolution for it, but it’s not available yet (and in this case would be an update on the app side, not server side).

For manually creating an “optimized” version, you can use whatever you want. Both Handbrake and ffmpeg would work fine. M4V should be handled fine, but you could also just change the extension. If you’re making MP4s, you should definitely make them “web optimized”. CABAC is fine (and we actually have server changes coming soon that will alter things so CABAC gets used in most cases). Using H.264 Main or High profile at level 4.0 should help ensure the best compatibility.

You might check this support article for some additional (somewhat related) information.

15

Hey Chris,

Thanks for the link to the transcoding page. Super quick question… Synology has just released a major upgrade to their DSM (system) software…version 6.0. Have you tested Plex Media Server with new DSM software? Am I ok to upgrade or should I wait? If upgrading breaks Plex Server I’m going to be highly displeased. :((

16

My understanding is that our internal testing was able to install PMS fine on earlier beta versions of DSM 6.0. As with any new OS (for any platform), most users are best served waiting a little bit to make sure there aren’t any unexpected issues. You might want to keep an eye on our Synology forum.

17

Plex Server seems to run fine on DSM 6.0. Haven’t run into any DSM related issues yet.

I have run into another PS4 app issue. I transcoded a movie down to more ‘compatible’ parameters (via Handbrake):
Video - 6500Kbps, H.264, High@Level 4.0
Audio - 640Kbps, AAC (5 Channel)
.m4v/.mp4 web optimized container.

The video plays fine everywhere (locally): PS4, iOS, Apple TV, Web browser.
It’s a foreign language film so I configured subtitle support via this page. Got nothing. So I downloaded the subtitles (external file in .srt format). Subtitles show up fine in iOS/Apple TV, but now I’m getting the same old “There was a problem playing this item” error in PS4 app. Move .srt file out, video plays fine, move .srt file back in, doesn’t play in PS4. Man this app is touchy. Do you see anything wrong with the attached .srt file that the PS4 Plex app can’t handle it?

18

Nothing looks wrong with that SRT file offhand. There’s definitely a difference between iOS/Apple TV and the PlayStation app when it comes to subtitles, though:

  • both iOS and Apple TV have the ability to stream text-based subtitles (like SRT) without burning them in to the video so long as the audio and video streams are otherwise compatible
  • PlayStation doesn’t yet have that capability, which means that your server would need to burn subtitles into the video stream for the PlayStation app

If having the subtitle enabled causes an issue, then your server log will very likely shed some light on the issue.

FWIW, I added that SRT file to a movie in my library and then played it in an app that requires the subtitle to be burned into the video stream. It played fine with no errors on the server.

19

@“Chris C” It seems that I may have a similar problem to the OP; however, for me it is with Xbox one and a Synology DS413. The app no longer plays anything except TV shows.

It doesnt even play the files it used to play, it basically shows a black screen and doesnt look like it even tries to play them. Under the Plex web iterface under now playing, nothing ever shows up when trying to play a movie. When I play a TV show it lists it there instantly.

In addition the feature where you used to be able to select the show from your browser and tell it to stream on the Xbox One doesnt work anymore either, it simply says “There was a problem connecting to this player”

@trumpy81 @Moussa

20

This page is about Plex for Playstation supported file formats, just have a reference:
https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/204377253-What-media-formats-are-supported-