I’m also having similar connection issues, and am wondering if I should join in this thread or start another. My problem is that clients (within the home) will start to play content, and after a random period of time (sometimes minutes, sometimes a half hour, etc.) the stream will just stop, as if you intentionally hit the stop button when you actually did not; depending on the client you’re either dropped out to the movie selection screen with a “There seems to be a problem; A network error occurred” message or you get no message at all, as if it’s totally normal. You can then resume the content and another random period of normal streaming will be interrupted again and the cycle repeats.
I run the latest version of PMS on a Win10 system with a 4790, most of my content is in SD and it rarely streams to more than one client at a time so I don’t think I have a hardware issue. I do have an unusual setup; the server is connected via Ethernet but is bridged to a HomePNA coaxial network (the house is setup this way to connect the AT&T U-verse receivers) and I believe this is a bus topology. Now this network arrangement does have bandwidth limitations but I have the aforementioned issue regardless of any other activity on this portion of the wired network. Other streaming services (e.g. Netflix) work fine, I can play multiplayer games from the same part of the network uninterrupted, etc.
I just recently made an adjustment to the server; I disabled the Ethernet adapter and enabled the wireless one. It seems to be streaming properly right now, which further suggests that the issue is more related to the network. This isn’t a long-term solution though, since I can’t expect to wirelessly connect the server to multiple wireless clients (when everything is clearly working properly) while other devices are connected and saturating the WAP; beyond that I’m getting more HD content which requires additional bandwidth to stream, so I really need to get the server on a wired connection. Also, any other wired clients I’d like to stream to are ultimately connected via the same HomePNA network so I need to make the adjustments to get the server to work as intended.
As I mentioned, the HomePNA coaxial network may be involved in the issue I’ve described, but again PMS is the only service that shows adverse effects. I’m guessing that there is some setting in PMS that causes it to stop playback prematurely when it detects a slight network anomaly, even when it would make more sense to pause and buffer the stream instead of stopping it outright. Would it help to link log files while it seems to be working normally, and then right after I re-configure the network and experience the issue?
I’ve logged this thread with all the other threads in the documentation for Engineering to look at. I think they know the problem but every set of logs which captures the connection failure or being dropped adds to their confidence in what they’ve done works best for everyone.
I am having the same issue right now. I can play all my movies from my Sony BD-player, Windows PC and Android tablets via the network but if i try using Plex, i get a error message that server can’t be contacted. Some movies play fine others not at all. Again, i can go to my blue ray player and select the movie via the network and stream it fine.
This all started after i updated to the most recent Plex server. Really frustrating after i set my whole house up to run Plex and now i can’t even watch a movie. Sometimes, if i reboot my pc or select “add to queue” then the movie will start. Most times, nothing. Not ready to uninstall Plex and ask for my money back yet.
First and probably most important is I got involved last week in the 1.3.4 → 1.4.x+ streaming issue. fixed and coming through QA now… I read the candidate release notes this morning
Next, where the server shows remote access (green) then flips (red), fully identified. Engineering has two facets here they have to address. It is a triad (UI, Server, and Plex.tv). They want it all fixed together and are working on that now. In the interim, I’ve found that when you let PMS pick the port itself (Remote Access) and use UPnP it will get the green indicator. All is good and you’re online. When it drifts off to red… ignore it… you’re still accessible. Let it along long enough and it will come back.
If anyone is having LOCAL playback issues, these aren’t related to these two items and should best be addressed in a new thread. When more than one issue is ‘piled on’ in a thread, it becomes impossible for me to keep separate and support (I get about 250 support requests each day).
There is inherent latency with wifi. If the packet stream from PMS -> client isn’t handled perfectly to account for that, the inherent latency in SEND-ACK is much higher. If you plan and do it right, you can mitigate even that latency. Do it wrong and OOPS… it multiplies.
If you would like to conduct a test, even on your local lan, Go into your Settings - Server - Network. Add the specific LAN IPs of the devices you had trouble with… Test again. A modest increase in perf will be seen. It should have no impact on perf.
I will give that a go but I get the same issues over a wired connection too. Plus this never ever happened, say, 6 months ago. It’s only been in recent PMS updates this started. I could happily watch anything over any connection but now, like I mention, it’s totally unusable.
1.5.2 is out for Plex-Pass members so can you try that. For me it fixes most of the connection problems but there is still issues with nVidia Shield on a local network (server not fast enough). Probably a client issue.
Grabbed the latest plex pass release of PMS and its worse! Started a video and it buffered every 3 seconds and then said my connection to the server wasn’t fast enough (like before).
Only tried this on my iPad but not holding out much hope for my Apple TV!
@danverbiest said:
Grabbed the latest plex pass release of PMS and its worse! Started a video and it buffered every 3 seconds and then said my connection to the server wasn’t fast enough (like before).
Only tried this on my iPad but not holding out much hope for my Apple TV!
I take it your iPAD is wireless (wifi). What about your AppleTV? Wireless also?
2.4 or 5.8? How far from your wireless router?
On your iPad what kind of speeds do you get if you go to speedtest.net and run this check?
On your Plex server what kind of speeds do you get if you go to speedtest.net and run that check?
Just a little diagnostic that might help us and easy for you to do.
@danverbiest said:
Grabbed the latest plex pass release of PMS and its worse! Started a video and it buffered every 3 seconds and then said my connection to the server wasn’t fast enough (like before).
Only tried this on my iPad but not holding out much hope for my Apple TV!
I take it your iPAD is wireless (wifi). What about your AppleTV? Wireless also?
2.4 or 5.8? How far from your wireless router?
On your iPad what kind of speeds do you get if you go to speedtest.net and run this check?
On your Plex server what kind of speeds do you get if you go to speedtest.net and run that check?
Just a little diagnostic that might help us and easy for you to do.
Thanks,
Carlo
iPad is wireless on 5Ghz band around 10-15 feet away from Airport Express hotspot, Apple TV is wired.
Speed on iPad is 69.26Mb/s
Speed on Plex Server is 60.95Mb/s
I am attaching everything you asked for. In the time you advised to wait (I gave it a minute or 2), all I saw on the iPad was 1 second of video and a constant buffering icon :#
XML below:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<MediaContainer size="1" allowSync="1" identifier="com.plexapp.plugins.library" librarySectionID="15" librarySectionTitle="TV" librarySectionUUID="a88cb78069dc8e3f9277f614fc5da20d79942d26" mediaTagPrefix="/system/bundle/media/flags/" mediaTagVersion="1490709706">
<Video ratingKey="41610" key="/library/metadata/41610" parentRatingKey="41593" grandparentRatingKey="11731" guid="com.plexapp.agents.thetvdb://279536/2/4?lang=en" librarySectionID="15" librarySectionKey="/library/sections/15" type="episode" title="The Oath" titleSort="Oath" grandparentKey="/library/metadata/11731" parentKey="/library/metadata/41593" grandparentTitle="Billions" parentTitle="Season 2" contentRating="TV-MA" summary="Under pressure to make progress, Chuck develops a new strategy. Wendy helps a tech billionaire assess a candidate for a special project. Axe considers pledging half his net worth to charity. Lara's new business faces a rival. Meanwhile, Axe and Chuck find themselves together in a room for the first time since their face off." index="4" parentIndex="2" rating="9.0" viewOffset="1715841" lastViewedAt="1490904540" year="2017" thumb="/library/metadata/41610/thumb/1490634316" art="/library/metadata/11731/art/1490634317" parentThumb="/library/metadata/41593/thumb/1490634317" grandparentThumb="/library/metadata/11731/thumb/1490634317" grandparentArt="/library/metadata/11731/art/1490634317" grandparentTheme="/library/metadata/11731/theme/1490634317" duration="3540832" originallyAvailableAt="2017-03-12" addedAt="1489772164" updatedAt="1490634316">
<Media videoResolution="1080" id="105140" duration="3540832" bitrate="8009" width="1920" height="1080" aspectRatio="1.78" audioChannels="6" audioCodec="eac3" videoCodec="h264" container="mkv" videoFrameRate="24p" videoProfile="high">
<Part accessible="1" exists="1" id="105157" key="/library/parts/105157/1489768127/file.mkv" duration="3540832" file="/Volumes/TV/Billions/Billions S02E04.mkv" size="3544841147" container="mkv" videoProfile="high">
<Stream id="222522" streamType="1" default="1" codec="h264" index="0" bitrate="7369" language="English" languageCode="eng" bitDepth="8" chromaSubsampling="4:2:0" frameRate="23.976" hasScalingMatrix="0" height="1080" level="41" profile="high" refFrames="4" scanType="progressive" width="1920" />
<Stream id="222523" streamType="2" selected="1" default="1" codec="eac3" index="1" channels="6" bitrate="640" language="English" languageCode="eng" audioChannelLayout="5.1(side)" samplingRate="48000" />
<Stream id="222524" streamType="3" codec="srt" index="2" language="English" languageCode="eng" />
<Stream id="222530" key="/library/streams/222530" streamType="3" codec="srt" language="English" languageCode="eng" />
</Part>
</Media>
<Director id="31224" filter="director=31224" tag="Noah Emmerich" />
<Writer id="31223" filter="writer=31223" tag="Adam R. Perlman" />
<Extras size="0">
</Extras>
</Video>
</MediaContainer>
Don’t suppose there’s any update here? Tried again with another video last night and got a whole new error message: “The server is not powerful enough to convert this video for smooth playback”.
I’m finding this whole thing utterly frustrating now. What compounds the issue is how Infuse is able to play absolutely anything I throw at it flawlessly. If only it had the management/library side Plex had…!
I did some QA testing last night of a release candidate to Plex Pass.
It directly addresses what you’re seeing.
I passed out around 3am (it’s 9am now) haha
Please hang in just a little bit longer. It’s coming through now.
