Server Version#: 1.42.1.10060
Player Version#: 4.12.4
Casting from Plexamp has been problematic for some time now but sometime over the past few months it as become complete unusable for me. Using Plexamp on my Android phone, casting a song will result in a couple seconds of the song looping indefinitely while the track counter continues to count up as if nothing is wrong. If I cast from any other app it works fine. If I go into Google Home and cast my entire screen or single app (selecting Plexamp), it also works fine (but with limitations…otherwise I’d just use this as a permanent workaround).
I’m using an Arylic LP10 for streaming. I was previously using a Chromecast Audio but the SSL certificate apparently expired and it was no longer usable. So I replaced it with the Arylic. From there it worked more consistently, but for personal/life reasons I hadn’t used it for many months. Now that I’m using it regularly again I simply can’t seem to get it to cast correctly. Searching on the forums I’ve seen others post similar experiences with no input from anyone on the Plex team. Searching through documents it appears Google Cast is fully supported, yet it’s not working for me.
Based on my troubleshooting all signs point to this being specific to casting with Plexamp or the Plex web player. Is this expected to be fixed? If not and casting support is being deprecated, what specifically is the alternative solution for streaming audio with Plexamp?
In case it’s helpful, my primary usage of Plexamp is to stream audio throughout the house. I have a 6-zone amplifier to which many ceiling speakers are directly wired. The Arylic LP10 line-out is connected to the input on the amplifier. I use Plexamp to enable casting to the Arylic, shuffle and play a playlist, and then it plays throughout all the zones in the house.
a better solution might be to use a raspberry pi or a spare old computer to run Caldera headless and use this as an input to your audio system
my best guess regarding your issues with google cast …
the arylic lp10 probably updated its firmware to google cast for audio 2.0
cast 2.0 devices [incorrectly] tell streaming apps that they can only play a short list of audio formats, when in fact they can play the same stuff as with earlier cast firmware
most music streaming apps probably don’t ask about format support, so they send flac and other formats as they always have, and the cast device plays it
the plex receiver, as i understand it, does ask the cast device about format support … if you try to cast flac files, for example, the cast 2.0 device says flac isn’t supported … so plex transcodes to its fallback opus before sending … most cast 2.0 devices play the transcodes fine, others (your arylic) have issues, not sure why
anyway, fixing this from plex’s end might need a number of changes touching the client app (plexamp), server, and cast receiver … agree it would be nice to see this addressed, as eventually all audio-only cast devices will update their firmware and have the same problems
