Server Version#:1.42.1.10060
Player Version#: Unknown but up to date
Super new to all of this so thanks for your patience and guidance.
Setup: Server running on a PC (with Plex Pass) with local playback for myself via Nvidia Shield Pro 2019 connected to an Anthem AVR via HDMI and then out to the LG G4. PC server hardwired into router/booster on gigabit Fiber connection. – My Remote streamer is also using Shield Pro 2019 via fast wifi (900 ish Mbps download) and connected directly to LG G4 TV via HDMI. Audio passed through from TV to AVR via optical cable.
Until yesterday my fiber line was not provisioned correctly, so I was not getting symmetrical upload speeds - so I told my Mom, my only remote streamer, that 4K movies probably wouldn’t play. She tried anyways, and they started, but buffered badly as expected. But the files still started direct playing regardless of audio stream etc. Her shield is set to always direct play and remote quality set to original. Bluray and DVD rips playback perfectly fine as direct plays. It is only 4K content.
Today I had my line reprovisioned and now get a consistent 900 Mbps upload speed. So I told my Mom to try out some 4K streams, but now they won’t even play. She just gets an instant “cannot playback” error of some kind immediately. These attempts do not even show up on my dashboard. All I see is a quick blip on my bandwidth chart.
in the logs I see errors like: “no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/hevc/dca
Direct Streaming is disabled … video stream will be transcoded" even though the shield and TV can indeed play that video profile
and
"Streaming Resource: Terminating session … which is using 47318 kbps of WAN bandwidth.
Terminated session … with reason Client stopped playback"
All of this points to a constrained remote bitrate but I have no idea why or what else to try. The same 4K files play back perfectly locally on the same hardware (LG G4 & Shield Pro) so it shouldn’t be any codec transcoding issue.
I had my Mom try turning her AVR off and even had her select Stereo audio streams to see if it was trying to force a transcode for the audio but that didn’t change anything either. My server shows as fully accessible outside my network, but I haven’t set up port forwarding. I have exhausted all the other troubleshooting and support articles Plex provides.
Since you had your internet service re-provisioned you might want to try a reboot of the Plex server and then check the Remote Access status to make sure it’s reporting the right WAN IP and showing Remote Access is linking up fine.
You could also try creating a “remote” connection on your side to test this by putting a client device through a VPN so it’s not able to talk to you server locally and has to be passed over your connection through the Internet, too.
I have restarted the PC running the server several times since the line was re-provisioned and tried disabling and re-enabling remote access already with no luck.
Tomorrow I’m going to try streaming a 4K file from school to see if it will even start to isolate the issue. If I can confirm the files at least start to try a direct play, I can then try using a VPN on my Shield to confirm for sure.
But even if I can confirm it is isolated, what else can I even try? Plex doesn’t offer any technical support which is wild so I don’t even know where else to look for ideas.
If you’re getting the correct speeds on your service the issue is likely the routing between your home and your user’s. Keep in mind when you test your Internet speed the test is almost always running from a server that exists in your ISP’s infrastructure or a system they peer with. It’s not displaying the speed to individual endpoints on the Internet at large.
You can set up a speed test server on your own network, and then access it remotely to see what the performance is uploading from your end. That can be done through something as simple as a port forward on your router and accessing it by your IP address, using a reverse proxy so you can reach out from a domain, or running a VPN server on your side and then connecting to it from somewhere else to use local IP.
If the speeds you can demonstrate on the speed test are good (in regards to streaming speeds (don’t expect it to run as fast as your ISP speed test is showing), the bottleneck might be on your user’s side. It also might not be the network connection at all, and you’re being led astray by incorrect error messages on the client.
You said this is 4K content, are these remuxes or 4k encodes? Make an actual remux of a normal 1080p Blu-ray. It will be very high bitrate, but common h264 codec. Use Dolby Digital audio (not DTS-HD) as that’s also not supported by all devices. See if your user can play that back without transcoding. That should be plenty of bandwidth for a 4k encode movie given common bitrates used.
I did set up port forwarding last night to see if it would make any difference and it did not. Maybe I’m not thinking about this in the right way, but in my mind an uncompressed 4K remux can eat up to 110 Mbps. With upload speeds of 850 Mbps + on my network and download speeds of 950 Mbps on my client’s network, even if I’m not getting those advertised speeds while streaming from server to client, I should still have enough headroom for at least 1 4K remux stream, no? That being said I can certainly do that to see for sure whats going on with the network when I stream. And very true, it’s unfortunate I’m not in the same city as my client device so I can’t review those Shield logs. The error it gives is pretty generic and unhelpful.
All of my library 4K and bluray content are remuxs. I don’t compress or re-encode anything except for my DVD rips. Remuxs of my Blurays play back for my client completely fine. No buffering, full quality, and no quams from the client regardless of audio stream selected. Even if it’s playing a DTS 7.1 track, the TV just passes through what it can via optical without forcing a transcode. Dashboard displays direct play as well. it is ONLY 4K content, and ALL 4K content, that throws the instant error for my client. What really puzzles me is why the direct play streams would even start on 4K content for my client before I reprovisioned my line. The only change that happened was I got my symmetrical upload speeds. And now it’s like the server isn’t even responding to the request from my client device/refusing to send anything.
Last night I even had my client completely disconnect her AVR from the device chain and try to stream a 4K remux with all subs turned off or not even present and an AAC Stereo audio stream. Same result. Also had her try playing a lower bitrate version of a 4K remux and still got the same result.
I also tried testing streaming from the Plex app on my phone over data. On the Plex App, nothing whatsoever will play - DVD rips, blurays, or 4K. All i get is a “device failed to determine decision for content.” If I play it on the web player in a browser on my phone, blurays load and play (very slowly) and 4Ks fail for obvious reasons.
And new update: Streaming direct play 4K Remuxs to my Galaxy Tablet Plex app on a different internet works perfectly fine. It seems to only be with the Shield my Client has.
Have they tried streaming from your server with any other device? Still sounds like you need to do a speed test from the user’s internet service direct to your server.
You set up a speed test server on your side and have them connect to you. For that I would recommend OpenSpeedTest. There’s LibreSpeed as well, but I get better test numbers with the former. To run the test direct on the Shield they can install a web browser on it. I recommend installing the Downloader app as it includes a web browser that I know doesn’t have an issue accessing sites by IP addresses (I’ve seen that on another browser I tried once).
