Chromecast with Google TV (4K) Streaming Stick - Never picks surround sound. Only AAC

Plex Players Streaming Devices
1

Server Version#:1.32.4.7195
Player Version#: Updated to the latest that was in the Google Play store.
I did not enable verbose tossing, as suggested. I didn’t see anything odd other than it said it selected the best audio for playback with an empty language listed (see log). It also seems to be using a generic ‘Chromecast’ profile, which may be the problem? I looked at the generic Chromecast profile and it shows a max resolution of 1920x1080 and 8-bit color. This one is capable of HDR10+ and DolbyVision at 4K. Interestingly though, If I pick a 4K HDR movie, it plays fine at 4K/HDR but still chooses the 2 channel stereo. The same files play fine in Apple TV and Roku Ultras (4K).

This happens with both MP4 and MKV containers. Language is defined as English on all media and also my preferred language on the server settings. Same for subtitles.

For example, all of my media has AAC (2 channel) stereo as first audio track, and typically a second that is 5.1 AC3. Every other streamer gets 5.1 AC3 first. The Chromecast w GTV 4K picks stereo every time. I can choose AC3 manually and it plays and sounds fine, but I have to do this manually every time I pick a movie to play. I have two media servers. One on a Mac, and another on a Sinology NAS, and it acts the same on both.

Hopefully I have the relevant part of the log attached.

Jul 09, 2023 16:55:09.527 [0x700008c22000] Debug — [Req#3bcf4b] Streaming Resource: Removing session 0x7fa8877aab38:7f27b3baa9341357-com-plexapp-android
Jul 09, 2023 16:55:09.528 [0x700008b1c000] Debug — Completed: [172.16.1.91:49010] 200 GET /:/timeline?audioStreamID=134&bufferedTime=113149&column=5&context=source%3Acontent.library&duration=7138262&guid=plex%3A%2F%2Fmovie%2F5d77705edd931c001e38bde2&key=%2Flibrary%2Fmetadata%2F30&playbackTime=16011&playQueueItemID=49529&ratingKey=30&row=4&state=stopped&time=15917&token=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (18 live) #3bcf4b TLS GZIP 49ms 492 bytes (pipelined: 5)
Jul 09, 2023 16:55:09.590 [0x700008c22000] Debug — Request: [172.16.1.91:48994 (Subnet)] GET /library/metadata/30?asyncAugmentMetadata=1&checkFiles=1&includeExtras=1&includeReviews=1 (18 live) #3bcf29 TLS GZIP Signed-in Token (user) (Chromecast Google TV)
Jul 09, 2023 16:55:09.593 [0x700008c22000] Debug — [Req#3bcf29] It took 0.000000 ms to retrieve 125 items.
Jul 09, 2023 16:55:09.595 [0x700008c22000] Debug — [Req#3bcf29] It took 0.000000 ms to retrieve 125 items.
Jul 09, 2023 16:55:09.597 [0x700008c22000] Debug — [Req#3bcf29] We’re going to try to auto-select an audio stream for account 1.
Jul 09, 2023 16:55:09.597 [0x700008c22000] Debug — [Req#3bcf29] Selecting best audio stream for part ID 58 (language: )
Jul 09, 2023 16:55:09.597 [0x700008c22000] Debug — [Req#3bcf29] We’re going to try to auto-select a subtitle.
Jul 09, 2023 16:55:09.597 [0x700008c22000] Debug — [Req#3bcf29] Subtitles: Found a candidate subtitle language [en] for a foreign film
Jul 09, 2023 16:55:09.597 [0x700008c22000] Debug — [Req#3bcf29] Audio Stream: 134, Subtitle Stream: 136
Jul 09, 2023 16:55:09.605 [0x700008b1c000] Error — Session 0x7fa8877aab38 terminated
Jul 09, 2023 16:55:09.617 [0x700008a99000] Debug — Completed: [172.16.1.91:48994] 200 GET /library/metadata/30?asyncAugmentMetadata=1&checkFiles=1&includeExtras=1&includeReviews=1 (18 live) #3bcf29 TLS GZIP 26ms 8142 bytes (pipelined: 4)
Jul 09, 2023 16:55:09.991 [0x700008c22000] Debug — Request: [172.16.1.91:49010 (Subnet)] GET /library/metadata/30/related?count=10&excludeElements=Actor%2CCollection%2CCountry%2CDirector%2CLabel%2CMood%2CPart%2CPhoto%2CProducer%2CSimilar%2CTopic%2CVast%2CWriter&excludeFields=file%2Ctagline&includeAugmentations=1&includeDetails=1&includeEmpty=1&includeExternalMetadata=1&includeLibraryPlaylists=1&includeMeta=1&includeRecentChannels=1&includeStations=1&includeTrailers=1&includeTypeFirst=1&libraryHubsOnly=1 (18 live) #3bcf84 TLS GZIP Signed-in Token (user) (Chromecast Google TV)
Jul 09, 2023 16:55:09.993 [0x700008c22000] Debug — [Req#3bcf84] It took 0.000000 ms to retrieve 125 items.
Jul 09, 2023 16:55:09.995 [0x700008c22000] Debug — [Req#3bcf84] It took 0.000000 ms to retrieve 125 items.
Jul 09, 2023 16:55:10.057 [0x700008c22000] Debug — [Req#3bcf84] It took 0.000000 ms to retrieve 115 items.
Jul 09, 2023 16:55:10.058 [0x700008c22000] Debug — [Req#3bcf84] It took 0.000000 ms to retrieve 104 items.
Jul 09, 2023 16:55:10.059 [0x700008c22000] Debug — [Req#3bcf84] It took 0.000000 ms to retrieve 109 items.
Jul 09, 2023 16:55:10.061 [0x700008c22000] Debug — [Req#3bcf84] It took 0.000000 ms to retrieve 158 items.
Jul 09, 2023 16:55:10.063 [0x700008c22000] Debug — [Req#3bcf84] It took 10.000000 ms to retrieve 174 items.
Jul 09, 2023 16:55:10.076 [0x700008a99000] Debug — Completed: [172.16.1.91:49010] 200 GET /library/metadata/30/related?count=10&excludeElements=Actor%2CCollection%2CCountry%2CDirector%2CLabel%2CMood%2CPart%2CPhoto%2CProducer%2CSimilar%2CTopic%2CVast%2CWriter&excludeFields=file%2Ctagline&includeAugmentations=1&includeDetails=1&includeEmpty=1&includeExternalMetadata=1&includeLibraryPlaylists=1&includeMeta=1&includeRecentChannels=1&includeStations=1&includeTrailers=1&includeTypeFirst=1&libraryHubsOnly=1 (18 live) #3bcf84 TLS GZIP 85ms 29800 bytes (pipelined: 6)
Jul 09, 2023 16:55:11.626 [0x700008a99000] Debug — Sending data was too slow, timed out.
Jul 09, 2023 16:55:11.626 [0x700008a99000] Debug — Completed after connection close: [172.16.1.91:49008] 206 GET /library/parts/58/1585144847/file.mp4?autoAdjustQuality=0&hasMDE=1&location=lan&mediaBufferSize=74944 (18 live) #3bcf2f TLS 19056ms 103809024 bytes (pipelined: 2) (range: bytes=515-)
Jul 09, 2023 16:55:13.946 [0x70000934c000] Debug — [NSB/SSDP] Parsing SSDP schema for http://172.16.1.243:9080
Jul 09, 2023 16:55:13.949 [0x700008e2e000] Debug — [HttpClient/HCl#34e5] HTTP/1.1 (0.0s) 200 response from GET http://172.16.1.243:9080 (reused)
Jul 09, 2023 16:55:15.424 [0x700008b1c000] Debug — Sending data was too slow, timed out.
Jul 09, 2023 16:55:15.424 [0x700008b1c000] Debug — Completed after connection close: [172.16.1.91:49018] 200 (11 live) #3bcf5d TLS 21412ms 0 bytes (pipelined: 2)
Jul 09, 2023 16:55:43.945 [0x70000934c000] Debug — [NSB/SSDP] Parsing SSDP schema for http://172.16.1.243:9080
Jul 09, 2023 16:55:43.948 [0x700008e2e000] Debug — [HttpClient/HCl#34e6] HTTP/1.1 (0.0s) 200 response from GET http://172.16.1.243:9080 (reused)
Jul 09, 2023 16:55:48.042 [0x700008a99000] Debug — Request: didn’t get any data from [::ffff:127.0.0.1]:60469: End of file
Jul 09, 2023 16:55:53.577 [0x70000880a000] Debug — [Req#3bcf30] BPQ: onConsiderProcessing: Idle (true)
Jul 09, 2023 16:55:53.577 [0x70000880a000] Debug — [Req#3bcf30] BPQ: [Idle] → [Processing]
Jul 09, 2023 16:55:53.578 [0x70000880a000] Debug — [Req#3bcf30] BPQ: generating queue items from 0 generator(s)
Jul 09, 2023 16:55:53.578 [0x70000880a000] Debug — [Req#3bcf30] BPQ: generated 0 item(s) for queue
Jul 09, 2023 16:55:53.578 [0x70000880a000] Debug — [Req#3bcf30] PlayQueue: 0 generated IDs compressed down to a 20 byte blob.
Jul 09, 2023 16:55:53.578 [0x70000880a000] Debug — [Req#3bcf30] PlayQueue: 0 generated IDs compressed down to a 20 byte blob.
Jul 09, 2023 16:55:53.579 [0x70000880a000] Debug — [Req#3bcf30] BPQ: [Processing] → [Idle]

2

The Plex Android TV app picks the first audio track that matches your language settings.

If you pick a different audio track, Plex will remember the selection the next time you play the same file.

There is no way to change the app behavior.

Alternatives would be to remux the file, changing the track order, or to delete any unnecessary audio tracks.

3

Thanks FordGuy61. Even if it’s bad news I appreciate the response. That technically violates the specification for the MP4 files (the MKV won’t care). MP4 requires a stereo or mono AAC track first as the default. I have thousands of movies encoded though, so not an option. Odd that they would have this one player act this way and not address it properly like all the others have. I was hoping there was a simple edit in an android or Chromecast profile I could do to resolve it. I take it they don’t actively develop for the Chromecast?

I have all the major flavors of streaming boxes and haven’t been able to resolve this one. I’ll just relegate it to a spare room or something.

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