Can't play transcoded videos on Android

Plex Players Mobile Devices
1

Hi everyone,

yesterday I installed the 64 Bit version of Plex on my Synology DS916+ to enable hardware transcoding. So far everything is going well using Plex Web and the Windows 10 Plex App, but I have some issues on Android and a FireTV. Following the description of the issue:

  1. Playing Videos in original quality is always working on any device.
  2. Playing Videos in any other quality on both Android and FireTV immediately throws an error: “Fehler: Es ist ein Fehler aufgetreten beim Versuch das Video abzuspielen. Bitte versuche den Plex Media Server und die App neuzustarten.” Meaning like “Some error occured attempting to play the video”.
  3. Playing the same video on Windows 10 or even Plex Web in Chrome Mobile on the same Android device is working fine. In addition to this I can confirm that hardware transcoding is working as expected, as the CPU % is not going up during the transcoding process.
  4. The server is throwing “[FFMPEG] - libva: /volume3/@appstore/Plex Media Server/lib/dri/iHD_drv_video.so init failed”, but even after deleting the file as described here does not change the result.

Looking into the com.plexapp.android 2020-04-06.log file I find a suspicious error you can find here: Error.txt (59.5 KB). Please ignore that the file is using vc-1 codec, as it is also not working with more simple codecs.

I attempted reinstalling the app, server (including setting up the database again). Looking forward for any help with this issue.

Kind regards
NovacX

Server Version#: 1.19.1.2621
Player Version#: 7.30.1.16475 (90b25cf6)

Manufacturer: HUAWEI
Device: HWEML
Model: EML-L29
Product: EML-L29
Version: 9

2

Thanks for the report, looking at your logs it seems like a DNS rebinding issue. The issue has been fixed in v7.31 which is currently in beta.

If you can, you can signup to our beta and the update will be delivered by Google Play after a few hours (Join App Betas: Android (mobile), Android TV, Apple TV, iOS), or you can sideload a build: Release Announcements - Android TV beta

3

v7.31.0.16802 it doesn’t work with an Android TV. The Player from the iPhone, Apple  TV and the Browser works fine.

1 Like
4

Thank you for that. I waited for the Rollout of Plex Version 7.31 (currently using 7.31.0.16802 on my Android Smartphone) and the problem is NOT fixed.

5

I have the same issue, both on Android mobile 7.31.0.16802 as well as Android TV 8.0.0.17168-beta (only with the new player). Direct play/stream works fine, but everything that’s transcoded fails. I see this error in the logs:

[FFmpeg] [ERROR] [tcp @ 0x6edebe2100] Failed to resolve hostname 192-168-178-20.410cdec9d9e64e48adb7d2ca42c7d113.plex.direct: No address associated with hostname

6

Fixed the problem myself. I am using a FritzBox Router with DNS Rebind Protection. Whitelisting plex.direct as described here fixed the problem.

Anyway it is interesting, that the problem only occurs when connecting from an Android device. Hope it assists you in future develoment.

7

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