I have had Plex running on a Synology NAS for a while now, but have yet to successfully have it work well at home. It works great outside the home. Family members and a couple of friends use it regularly also, with no complaints from any of them.
However, trying to access it from either the web app, or on iOS devices through the Plex app leads to constant video stuttering and buffering. These are only 1080p files, no 4k, and my home internet is pretty solid: 1 Gig symmetric connection, usually hitting in the 850-1,000 Mbps up and down on real world tests. I am using the most recent eero system at home for my home wireless, with 3 base stations and one extender on the top floor of the house. I have good connection everywhere in the house.
Of note, I have enabled DLNA server and if I access the content in something such as VLC, or even through the Synology apps, there is absolutely no buffering, only if accessed through one of the Plex apps. I am at a loss as to why things just don’t work at home if accessed through a Plex app, but work fine if accessed at home via the DLNA server, or work fine outside the home.
Good question. By changing the setting from “recommended” and then adjusting the quality down, I can get it to play smoothly. But I have to set it to a 720p setting or lower. Even the lowest 1080p setting and it won’t play smoothly.
But, again, don’t have to do anything along those lines using the DLNA server in VLC. Odd.
DLNA and VLC over the network will take the file directly without any processing. the playback device decodes the media. Change the settings in plex from recommended to original quality and see what happens.
I am experiencing a similar issue. My Roku plays all movies and TV shows just fine. However, when watching the same movie or TV show in the Plex web app or iOS device causes them to buffer basically forever. Except, that some movies do actually play fine, but I’m unable to identify the differences between the movies that would cause them to behave differently.
I’m trying the above recommendations. In changing the plex server settings from recommended to original quality for local connections, I can’t seem to find the setting. I am looking in the Settings->Quality->Home Streaming, and unchecking the box Use Recommended Settings. However, the drop down list doesn’t show Original, just Maximum and a bunch of constant bit rate choices. Am I looking in the wrong place?
I don’t see an option to set it to original quality. Only “maximum” and then a number of different bit rate options. If I set it to anything other than 4 Mbps 720p it just won’t play. At that bit rate it plays perfectly.
Also, I know it isn’t a network issue because, as you said, the DLNA with VLC option is just serving up the file at original quality/bit rate, and it plays fine. Also, I can stream 4k video to an Oculus Quest without any slow down whatsoever from this server.
That’s why I’m so confused. I know the network and NAS can easily serve up 4k video at home. Yet, if I use a Plex app to play the content, I can’t play above 720p.
I finally came to the forums because this issue has been driving me nuts. It seems to be limited to local playback only. It happens on the web client, iOS client and tvOS client at least. I have tried changing the qualities around to no avail. One thing I’ve noticed is that the clients seem to stop buffering in the background. The orange buffer bar runs all the way out then the video stops playing. If I pause the video, eventually the buffer bar filled back up. I haven’t experienced anything quite like this for a very long time but this started in the past few months. Again, if I switch to cellular it seems to work just fine. Server resources are fine and I’m using wired gigabit inside my house. Attached is a photo of what I’m seeing in the client.
This looks almost exactly like the problem I have. I can also state that my local CPU is at 100%, attributed to Firefox. The server says nothing about transcoding and its CPU is relatively idle. The dashboard shows like everything is fine and the video is playing. This only started, for me, a couple weeks ago.
For myself I’ve noticed that this mainly happens when my Plex clients are using direct play. When I watch the same videos using a client like VLC or IINA it plays just fine for the entire episode.
This is happening to me as of about 2 weeks ago. When it started, I noticed the Samsung and Roku clients now have the “Free Movies & TV” tagline under “PLEX”. Both clients are now buffering on files that used to play just fine - I’ve never had buffering issues. I’ve updated to the latest plex server. No change.
That’s odd, I have Gigabit Internet and network throughout the house - all clients are wired.
Is it that it lost Internet connectivity or that it lost connectivity to the Plex Server hosting the content? If the former, is there a way to make the client not connect to the Internet when playing from a local server?
