Server Version#: 1.13.9.5439
Player Version#: Roku, latest
A few days ago I updated my Plex server to the newest Plex Pass beta. I also Installed the new Preview channel on my two Roku Premier+'s. The next day, I went to watch a TV show on the non-preview app on one of the Roku’s and noticed the first screen of posters were blank gray rectangles with no text on them. If I click on one, it beeps, but nothing happens. If I scroll to the right, the other shows are visible and work. It’s just the first screen of 10 that I can’t watch. This has been a major pain for my wife and I since we ditched cable a year ago and use Plex every day as our DVR.
Please appears to work fine on web. I can see and watch everything as usual. If I try watching shows on the other Roku, I see the same problem. In the new Preview app on both Roku’s, I get unpredictable results. For instance, if I open the TV library, it shows three titles. If I click the right side link for “A”, I see most of the titles.
I followed steps from the Plex site to use sqllite3.exe to try to fix a corrupted database. This didn’t appear to do anything. I backed up the main .db file and copied in the most recent dated backup. It worked for a couple hours, then reverted back to the missing 10 titles again. I rolled back to an even earlier backup. This time, when it failed, I could only see the first 10 titles and everything else was gray!
Is there anything I can do to fix this? It took several days to download metadata and create thumbnail previews for 1,000’s of video and audio files. If I have to start over, I can, but I fear I will end up in the same situation if I don’t find the cause. Any help is greatly appreciated!
My wife is pissed as she can’t use PLEX to watch her shows. I moved the laptop into the living room and connected the DVI cable to the TV so she could watch her programs. (PLEX still works fine from the PC interface.) You can go into the beta Roku version and browse by folder to play the shows but what a total pain in the ass this is. PLEX, do you know what quality testing is? This is the first time in years that PLEX is totally unusable. My wife also hates the new beta user interface. PLEX, you better get user input before you make these major UI interface changes or you will go the way of Radio Shack…
Same issue with Roku and same picture you shared. Yes I am using a Live/DVR installation running on Windows Server 2016. I also can’t view most recordings stored in folders used by the LiveTV / DVR feature. (A small few do show up.) I also can’t access the recorded TV library on my iPad in iOS. I receive the same message that the recorded media is unavailable and these is a connection problem but all other PLEX content like photos works fine.
I figure it will take the Plex team some time to fix this issue, assuming they do. In the meantime, I found a way around this. It took some time, but it seems like a workable solution. The only thing is, I am not sure if this is just a temporary fix or if it will continue to work.
I have videos from multiple sources. I use the Plex DVR feature to record the local news, Jeopardy, and a few other shows. I also use PlayOn to record recent episodes off of Hulu, NBC, CBS, and ABC. I had all of this feeding into the same “DVR” Library in Plex. I could be completely wrong on this, but my current understanding is that there is a problem if both Plex recordings and other videos are in the same library. At the least, it seems that if you don’t feed Plex DVR recordings into a library, that library is safe. I have a collection of older TV series in one Library and Movies in another. Neither of these seem to be affected.
So…my fix for now was to create a new “Antenna” Library that only contains recordings from Plex. I went into Plex Recordings and changed each recording to save into this new Library. I then copied all of the old Plex recordings into the folder for this new library, Scanned Library Files for Antenna, deleted the recordings from “DVR”, and Scanned Library Files for DVR. Now, I have two separate libraries for “DVR” type files.
So far, I haven’t seen any corruption, but I haven’t had any new Plex DVR recordings complete yet, either. At the least, I am hoping to keep access to the old recordings. If the new Antenna library gets corrupted, I can always copy those new recordings back into DVR and I can recreate Antenna from time to time until this is fixed.
I’ve been reading these threads with some interest, and I decided to test out the process. I don’t know how you all have your libraries set up, but here’s me:
One TV library with 4 watch folders, one of which is specifically for TV shows recorded on the DVR
One Movie library with 12 watch folders, one of which is specifically for movies recorded on the DVR
Other various libraries for other media (music, audiobooks, etc.)
Plex setup:
Plex Pass
PMS 1.13.8.5388
Roku Ultra
Plex beta channel
HDHomeRun EXTEND
Files are housed on my QNAP TS-453 PRO 8TB
Using the new beta Roku channel, I set up a recording for a movie airing the next day. After the movie had been aired and recorded, the movie was automatically added to my movie library. The resulting movie showed up in the Roku channel just fine, with all correct metadata. The file played correctly as well. I have no idea what the problem you’re having is related to, but it looks like it’s going to take a lot of testing from both users and developers to figure it out…
Thanks for the detailed post. As with anything concerning software, clients, servers, etc, there are many possible factors. I think the common issue we’re having with corruption is on the Beta channel with PMS Version 1.13.9.5439. I strongly recommend you stay on 1.13.8.x until this problem is resolved. Everything worked great until I did the PMS upgrade and Roku channel upgrade on the same day earlier this week.
At first, I think it might be a problem with the Roku client. After all, I can still see all of my videos in the web interface. However, even that is screwy with the incorrect count of unwatched shows. The server is the common factor. Also, when I revert to a backup of the database that was created when I was on 1.13.8.5388, everything works fine, for a while.
Bottom line: I think PMS 1.13.8.5388 is the problem.
Both the beta and regular Roku channel have this issue with not displaying shows and not allowing you to select anything. That would indicate something on the server side, but hard to say without knowing if the regular channel was changed?
P. S.
(side note, The roku beta channel also has an issue once in a library where the background flickers between black and white, although it seems to depend on which show is highlighted. It only has happened on one of two tvs I own though for some strange reason? )
Uninstalled Plex-Media-Server-1.13.9.5439-7303bc002.exe and reinstalled the version that was working for a long time (Plex-Media-Server-1.13.8.5395-10d48da0d.exe). The same issue with the missing recorded TV images and being able to play recorded TV with the Roku still exists so that proves that the issue is with the Roku version pushed out recently and not with the server version.
Plex, are you listening?
Thanks prichards14 ! This workaround worked for me to fix my Roku.
During my attempts to fix the problem, I also found that the Plex Preview App on Ruku was working pretty well but it is clearly still in Beta. It can be found here: Try out our Roku preview channel
I have mostly moved to using the Preview app on Roku. I like the layout much better, once I removed all the fluff I didn’t want on the home screen. Two big fixes that would help me are for it to save selection for sort order and bigger numbers for unwatched shows.
I am using Plex on Roku as a replacement for a traditional DVR. For this to make sense, it really needs to show the most recently recorded episodes first. I change the setting every time I get in, but every time I start the Preview app, it resets the sort to Alphabetical.
As far as unwatched episodes, there is an orange square in the upper right of each show tile that shows unwatched episodes. On the normal channel, the number is easy to read. On the Preview app, it is so small, I find it difficult to tell one number from another.
Other than these two issues, it seems perfectly useuable. It’s beta, so I expect it to improve over time.
Hi,
Fortunately for me, I found my problem when I created another Library for TV shows as suggested by prichards14 above. While I was moving TV programs to the new library, I found that one TV show that had three new recordings (that day) from my OTA antenna was damaged and heavily pixelating. I deleted this TV show (all three programs) and my ROKU was OK again. If it matters, the TV show was “Unsolved History” and this was the first time we had recorded it.
So, unfortunately, I cannot produce the issue but I will describe my original issue the best I can.
My Setup:
Plex Pass
Plex server 1.13.9.5439
Roku 2 updated to the latest
On Roku, I used the latest Plex app (not the the plex preview app)
The initial problem that I noticed when when I started my Plex app on my Roku 2 yesterday afternoon. The first screen of the app did not have the usual “Continue Watching” “On deck”, “Recently added TV” or “Recently added movies” sections. However, it did have “Watch later” and “Web Shows”.
The menu down the left side was fine and showed all of the options properly.
From the menu on the left, when I went into the movies section, it had the “recently added movies” section as usual.
When I went into the TV section, it only had a list of of all of the TV programs but did not have the “On Deck” or “Recently Added TV” sections
When I tried the Plex Preview app, it showed the “Continue watching” and “Recently added TV” sections even before I deleted the pixelating shows and when the regular Plex app wasn’t working properly as described above…
Sorry I cannot provide more info than that but I am happy to have my system working again! I hope this helps.
Thanks. What you described does sound like an issue caused by the bad file. PMS will try to analyze your DVR’ed content so if the file is really bad, it can cause issues. My guess is that this analysis failed so when the app was trying to gather this info, it failed too and prevented the rest of the screen from being rendered. The Roku Preview app is a little different and 1 bad file wouldn’t stop the rest of it.
Just my findings, when I removed all the files from my recorded TV section, where my DVR stuff gets saved. And refreshed the folder. Then copied them back it was fine, this appears to only affect me when working with items saved during recording. I see grey folders, but like the last Dr. Who I recorded, there was 1 file there, and in the folder it showed 43 unplayed episodes, but only one file existed. It is very odd.
I think most of us here are seeing the problem from different angles and we are trying to piece it together. Here is a summary of what I am experiencing…
Here is the issue as I first experienced it on my Roku Premiere+ using the current app:
There are grey boxes instead of posters and they are missing the labels beneath each image. If I click on any of them, nothing happens.
I have a somewhat complex Library configuration, but here are the highlights:
DVR
TV
Movies
Music
TV, Movies, and Music contain a standard folder structure with properly named files. I have several others for photos, other types of videos, etc. The key here is everything worked fine, except for the DVR Library.
The DVR Library contains several folders. I have shows from several sources feeding into the different folders. One folder is used for Plex DVR recordings. The picture above is the DVR Library. I renamed it to ZAntenna to move it out of sight.
At this point, I assumed this was just a problem with my setup. I followed instructions on the Plex site for repairing a corrupted database. This didn’t help.
I then restored the library database from the most recent dated backup. This worked for the evening and the next morning it was messed up again.
I restored from and older backup. It worked for a while, until a new DVR recording was made. Once again, the DVR library was messed up with the gray boxes instead of clickable shows.
I tried the new Plex Preview app on the Roku and ran into different problems, again, just with the DVR library. It didn’t display most of the shows that were in there. I tried to navigate by letter selecting A, then B on the right edge of the screen. When I did this, it showed different groupings of shows, but never all of them.
I have a second Roku Premiere+ and I tested with the current and preview Plex apps. Both apps displayed the same behavior as I saw on the first Roku.
It seems in all of these cases, the common denominator is the server. Restoring the server from backup temporarily fixes the problem everywhere. Recording a new DVR show breaks it everywhere.
I was wrong in a previous post I do indeed have PMS version 1.13.9.5439.
Please see this thread for more information and screenshots of the Roku problem I am seeing, as well as a Web problem I have experienced and a problem on iOS. Again, it looks like it’s this new server version causing problems:
For now, I have created a new DVR Library that contains the folder that the ZAntenna library records into. It mostly works. However, I use the DVR feature mainly for local news in Rochester, NY and all of the poster art is missing for these local broadcasts. The only place I can normally see the poster art for WHAM13 News at 6 (for example) is in the actual library it is recorded into. Is there a way I can get that same cover art to appear in my new (temporary) DVR library?
Here is a copy of my log posted in the thread linked above:
If there is anything else you need, let me know. I am no expert at SQLite3, but I know my way around a command line and us SQL Server and write code in C#, JavaScript, etc, on a daily basis. I am glad to dig into the technical bowels of Plex if I can be of assistance. I just want this to work…and to restore my wife’s faith in cutting the cord
MovieFan.Plex , Please note there is another thread that has additional information on this topic that I think will help enlighten you. The problem is any library that has a live recording added after the update, causes the ENTIRE library to fault. Once it faults, you get blank titles for each program, and NONE of them is clickable / useable. This happens on BOTH of the Roku apps for Plex (preview and regular.)
The other thread: https://forums.plex.tv/t/unable-to-play-from-libraries-used-by-livetv-dvr-feature/318687/23
prichards14 uploaded his logs, and I can do the same if you would like, but the bottom line is this is affecting your entire Roku user base who use DVR functionality.
I find that if I press the play icon on the screen with the gray posters, it will play the first video. I can then use the controls to skip to the end, causing the next show to start. In fact, the title is even displayed, so you can immediately go to the end and start the next show. Not perfect, but workable.
As I mentioned earlier, the Amazon Fire seems not be impacted by the bug.
I find the iOS bug the most annoying. I wish there were a fix for that.
That’s interesting. I never intentionally skip to the next show like that, but I will give it a try tonight. It’s also good to know the Fire TV is not affected. That’s what I used before I got the Roku, so I may give it a try. It seems, then, this is a combination of server and client if there is a client that works correctly.
