Server Version#:17
Player Version#:
Sometimes and only on some files, chromecast will pause in the first 10 - 15 secs. Pressing unpause does nothing. Changing quality doesnt help. Please help.
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Hello. Do you have Chromecast version 1?
No. We have 3 or 4 and they are all the round ones. It doesn’t show as buffering, it just shows up as paused.
Oh okay. shows up as paused and unresponsive. A few things would help.
A sample of the media file, or at least a zip of the XML media information.
Debug server log folder zipped up, showing a reboot, 10min of leaving it alone, then exhibiting the problem. And any details you can give us about what’s common to those files.
Yeah, I’ll get a debug sample and video file too. It’s weird because these files were specifically rendered for the Chromecast to make sure it was direct play and not need to adjust quality. It only started doing it about server version 16. I’ve downgraded the version but still get the pausing.
Sometimes it takes clean install of PMS, which we know will start well, with your database moved back in place. The debug logs might reveal a bunch of errors too.
size=“1” allowSync=“1” identifier=“com.plexapp.plugins.library” librarySectionID=“2” librarySectionTitle=“TV Shows” librarySectionUUID=“bc2d8491-9cf5-48ab-881c-31aecd7e236b” mediaTagPrefix="/system/bundle/media/flags/" mediaTagVersion=“1568358906”><Video ratingKey=“266358” key="/library/metadata/266358" parentRatingKey=“266357” grandparentRatingKey=“236246” guid=“com.plexapp.agents.thetvdb://335550/2/2?lang=en” parentGuid=“com.plexapp.agents.thetvdb://335550/2?lang=en” grandparentGuid=“com.plexapp.agents.thetvdb://335550?lang=en” librarySectionTitle=“TV Shows” librarySectionID=“2” librarySectionKey="/library/sections/2" type=“episode” title=“Drone and Dumber” grandparentKey="/library/metadata/236246" Gas Animated" parentTitle=“Season 2” contentRating=“TV-PG” summary=“Brent gets a new drone that he uses to terrorize Oscar. Meanwhile, Wanda and Emma set out to test a turkey’s intelligence.” index=“2” parentIndex=“2” viewCount=“2” lastViewedAt=“1569302594” year=“2019” thumb="/library/metadata/266358/thumb/1569277193" art="/library/metadata/236246/art/1569277195" grandparentThumb="/library/metadata/236246/thumb/1569277195" grandparentArt="/library/metadata/236246/art/1569277195" duration=“1301984” originallyAvailableAt=“2019-07-01” addedAt=“1569238775” updatedAt=“1569277193”>
whats the best way to upload the logs? I couldn’t actually get it to pause which is very weird. I’ll keep trying and than upload the logs. I only ask because putting up the details about the videos, it just comes up as a blank post.
VideoDetails.txt (2.7 KB)
which log files do i send? there are 147 logs files to choose from…
was offline. This is the article for Log Files
You zip the whole PMS logs folder and attach it with your reply.
See also
I had the same problem. It makes NO SENSE but clear out the “Terminate Sessions Paused for Longer Than” setting in Settings > Network and then save changes.
I’ve done limited testing but it seems to completely solve the problem for me. Files that were unplayable due to pausing in the first minute on every cast now play fine.
3 Likes
@tholland15 that’s a very interesting discovery. On every PMS I’ve installed, the default is set to 0 which I see listed there.
Are you saying you removed the 0 and now it works?
I would be keenly interested in logs displaying the same video playing with and without the option set to 0. It would be so nice if that showed something.
Yes. I forgot that I removed that pause setting and I haven’t been able to get the fault to happen again. Now I’m sure that’s what was causing it.
nice this works for two people again.
Mine was set to 60, though I do not remember setting it to that. I totally cleared out the box and saved the changes. After a page refresh it now shows 0 as in your screenshot. I have not had any pauses since, whereas for the last week+ I had been getting pauses in the first minute of almost every Direct Play, making Plex completely unusable.
I’ve been getting frustratingly high amounts of pause/freeze behaviour in the first few seconds of playback for a couple of weeks (at least).
I had no idea what was going on.
I’ve removed the value mentioned above; I’ll monitor and report back.
seven hours of beautiful silence 
Everything seems to be okay. Haven’t had any paused playback on Chromecast. It’s weird how it never affected any other devices. Phone, tablet, raspberry pi. Etc.
PMS version: 1.18.0.1846 (docker)
OS: Ubuntu Server 18.04.3 LTS
I’ve recently been seeing this issue when casting from Plex mobile app (both Android and iOS) to Chromecast (all versions, it seems).
I, too, had “Terminate Sessions Paused for Longer Than” set to 20 minutes, and the Chromecast would pause shortly after playback, often at 16 seconds, or 32 seconds.
After deleting the value in the “Terminate Sessions Paused for Longer Than”, the issue has now been resolved. The value in “Terminate Sessions Paused for Longer Than” seems to revert to 0.
Thanks for pointing us toward what appears to be a fix for this bug.
Plex, over to you fix the bug.
