Couldn’t retrieve the play queue for this item. Please try again. Videos in photo library

[decko999]

Server Version#: 1.20.3.3483-211702a9f
Player Version#: 1.21.0.1410-50a34597

My server started having a ton of playback issues in the past couple of days. The only change I made was I rearranged and moved around a lot of folders/files in my photos library. I’m wondering if that somehow caused some sort of corruption as it’s only files in the photo library that seem to be having all sorts of issues.

If I try to play video files (like home videos) on my two iPhones or iPad from the Photos library, I get an error saying “Couldn’t retrieve the play queue for this item. Please try again.” I can get the file to play if I load a picture in that folder first, then swipe to the video file and play it. I just can’t click on the video file and play it directly. However, I am getting a bunch of pictures not rendering either and it’s just blurry too.

The PC app (wired connection) can barely play the file and is stuttering and buffering any file constantly or it just won’t play it at all. It could play all these files fine before. This is with files I rearranged and with files that I didn’t touch too.

The web browser is acting weird too. It was playing files fine and now I’m getting a conversion failed error on the same video that was working a few minutes ago.

My Nvidia Shield seems to play everything fine too.

Video files in my Movies or Videos library all seem to be playing back fine without any issues.

I’ve uninstall/reinstalled the app. Optimized databased and cleaned it. Tried to change the network settings to disable security. I even recreated the photo library from scratch by deleting it and then recreating it. Nothing has fixed it.

Any help?

[decko999]

I think these are the relevant log snippets.plex logs.zip (33.5 KB)

[BigWheel]

If you analyze a video file that will not play or everything in library ( the whole library will take some time) does it help at all.

I would also try optimizing the database from server trouble shooting section of settings.

[decko999]

Thanks for the reply. Tried both of those things and no change. I also assume recreating the entire library would’ve refreshed that, but no luck there either. I’ve tried rescanning, refreshing all metadata, analyzing, optimizing db, emptying trash, and last but not least, just deleting the library and recreating from scratch.

[decko999]

More info that might be useful debugging this. If I add my pictures folder to the Videos library, now my iPhone can play the videos fine. So something is wrong when trying to launch videos files that are in the Photos library. But, if I drop a normal movie file into the Photos library that plays fine on my phone. So it it something about the type of video clips being played? I tried 1080p, 4k, 720p, videos from the various generations of iPhones or my camcorder and all didn’t play on my iPhone.

My PC still can’t play the file without massive stuttering and buffering. Even a low resolution file stutters. I can see that it’s direct playing it, but it still stutters. My PC is connected to the same switch as the Plex server so no issues with lag or latency. If I use the PC app directly on the media server itself it plays fine. Weird.

Really at a loss as to what’s going on here. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

One odd thing I noticed in the client logs on both my phone and PC is that there are GET calls to 127.0.0.1. Not sure if that’s by design or not, but I wouldn’t assume a client would try to call that address since that’s for the local machine only?

[decko999]

And now the server is crashing and locking up and not loading anything. The library suddenly disconnects and reconnects and nothing that was working a few minutes ago is working anymore. I haven’t changed anything other than just trying to load some files and view them. I’m getting random conversion errors when trying to view just pictures now and all sorts of weird behavior. Time to rip it down and redo it from scratch? Very frustrating that it just suddenly started having all these issues without me even touching it.

[Plexnoobie]

This just started happening to me for the first time. It was right after I purchased my Plex pass. I actually did a clean install of windows and Plex on my server with still no luck.

[idscomm]

My understanding is that the error occurred when attempting to play video from a photo folder. This is my issue.

All my Movies/TV Shows Libraries seem to be working but not my “home videos” … I have a folder containing all our family photos (and some homemade videos), these videos won’t play.

I hope someone from Plex will fix this issue since it used to work fine!!

[Shpaniel]

Im also experiencing this… exactly like you home made movies and GoPro videos in a ‘photos’ folder don’t play at all. I get the “Couldn’t retrieve the play queue for this item” error on every video file. Yet all Movies/TV Shows play fine.
What’s really annoying is it used to work fine until recently.
Seems to only affect iOS devices as my wife’s Samsung S10+ plays the home videos fine (albeit after a long buffer despite being on the same local network) and my PS5 loads them up and plays them instantly.
Can someone from Plex acknowledge and shed some light on this?
Any updates would be appreciated.

[edimon001]

This isn’t a new issue. Web searches show this error message as far back as 2015 but no one has a fix - not even Plex. Maybe time to research this issue?

This just started happening to me after the upgrade to 4.43.4 (latest as of 11/21/20). I cannot play any video from the Plex App on my iPhone 7, AppleTV, or NVidia Shield - all are updated. I say this is a Plex App issue because:

1. When in a Photo folder with nothing but videos, clicking on the video causes this error
   
   
2. When in a Photo folder with mixed videos and images, clicking on the video causes this error
   
   
3. When in a Photo folder with mixed videos and images, clicking an image will display the image along with a film strip at the bottom. Selecting the video from the film strip will play the video fine.
   
   
4. Moving the video to my ‘Video’ folder, it plays on first click.

I can reproduce this on all three devices. Playing from PSM (web client) plays fine.

Has anyone else come across a fix? I’ve tried all the recommendations - restart PSM, restart device, ensure all devices are up to date, blah blah blah. Time to dig into some code..

[Tahj]

Yeah also having this same exact issue on iOS for about an month now.

[Shpaniel]

@ChuckPa, hope you don’t mind me tagging you - are you able to help with this one? Thanks.

[edimon001]

Another finding - from the Home page of the Plex App (any device), I can play the video file that was saved in My Photos folder from the Recently Added film strip section. Still can’t play directly from the folder itself - queue error. There is a new Plex update (PlexMediaServer-1.21.0.3616-d87012962), so will install and check again.

[Shpaniel]

@edimon001, I’ve not tested playing videos from the Recently Added film strip. But I can confirm that like you, if I start to view content in a Photo folder with mixed videos and images, clicking an image first will display correctly with a film strip at the bottom, and when coming to a video file it plays fine. Yet if I’m in the directory and scrolling through the media files, clicking on the thumbnail of any video file returns the error Couldn’t retrieve the play queue for this item. Please try again.
I think this issue is on the client side rather than the server as I’m using PMS on a QNAP NAS and others reporting this issue are using PMS on Windows. From the limited testing I’ve done it only effects iOS devices. This issue has occurred for me on two iPhones, an XS Max and a 12 Pro Max all running the latest iOS 14.2.1 and Plex app.
My wife’s Galaxy S10+ and my PS5 don’t have this problem.

[BigWheel]

is it possible to get the full server and app logs from someone after reproducing

[jpa5071]

I posted this in another thread but seems like this is more appropriate to put here. This is client log from iPhone 12 Pro.

[BigWheel]

I’m asking for the full logs of the server and client.

[edimon001]

Here is verbose logging turned on PMS. If this is incorrect, let me know where to get the correct logs:

{
“type”: “log:message”,
“level”: 4,
“message”: “[Connections] Testing all 1 connection(s) for [Loopback]”,
“time”: “2020-11-24T03:38:02.826Z”
},
{
“type”: “log:message”,
“level”: 4,
“message”: “[Servers] Waiting for initial servers = [Loopback]”,
“time”: “2020-11-24T03:38:02.827Z”
},
{
“type”: “log:message”,
“level”: 4,
“message”: “[Commands] Executing testServerConnection”,
“time”: “2020-11-24T03:38:02.828Z”
},
{
“type”: “log:message”,
“level”: 4,
“message”: “[Connections] Retrying connection tests for [Loopback] in 30 seconds”,
“time”: “2020-11-24T03:38:02.828Z”
},
{
“type”: “log:message”,
“level”: 4,
“message”: “[Connections] Testing connection for [Loopback] at http://127.0.0.1:32400/media/providers”,
“time”: “2020-11-24T03:38:02.880Z”
},
{
“type”: “log:message”,
“level”: 4,
“message”: “[Connections] Testing legacy connection for [Loopback] at http://127.0.0.1:32400”,
“time”: “2020-11-24T03:38:02.880Z”
},
{
“type”: “ajax”,
“url”: “http://127.0.0.1:32400/media/providers?X-Plex-Product=Plex%20Web&X-Plex-Version=4.43.4&X-Plex-Client-Identifier=tg2b53rr32pgc5qt4qndajee&X-Plex-Platform=Chrome&X-Plex-Platform-Version=86.0&X-Plex-Sync-Version=2&X-Plex-Features=external-media%2Cindirect-media&X-Plex-Model=bundled&X-Plex-Device=Windows&X-Plex-Device-Name=Chrome&X-Plex-Device-Screen-Resolution=1536x678%2C1536x864&X-Plex-Language=en”,
“status”: 0,
“headers”: {
“Accept-Language”: “en”,
“Accept”: “application/json”
},
“statusText”: “error”,
“time”: “2020-11-24T03:38:04.886Z”
},
{
“type”: “log:message”,
“level”: 1,
“message”: “[Connections] [Loopback] is unavailable at http://127.0.0.1:32400/media/providers (Status 0)”,
“time”: “2020-11-24T03:38:04.887Z”
},
{
“type”: “log:message”,
“level”: 1,
“message”: “[Connections] [Loopback] is unavailable at http://127.0.0.1:32400/media/providers (Status 0)”,
“time”: “2020-11-24T03:38:04.888Z”
},
{
“type”: “log:message”,
“level”: 1,
“message”: “[Connections] All connections to [Loopback] failed”,
“time”: “2020-11-24T03:38:04.889Z”
},
{
“type”: “log:message”,
“level”: 4,
“message”: “[Servers] Found all servers = [hidden]_NAS1, plex.tv”,
“time”: “2020-11-24T03:38:04.889Z”
},
{
“type”: “ajax”,
“url”: “http://127.0.0.1:32400?X-Plex-Product=Plex%20Web&X-Plex-Version=4.43.4&X-Plex-Client-Identifier=tg2b53rr32pgc5qt4qndajee&X-Plex-Platform=Chrome&X-Plex-Platform-Version=86.0&X-Plex-Sync-Version=2&X-Plex-Features=external-media%2Cindirect-media&X-Plex-Model=bundled&X-Plex-Device=Windows&X-Plex-Device-Name=Chrome&X-Plex-Device-Screen-Resolution=1536x678%2C1536x864&X-Plex-Language=en”,
“status”: 0,
“headers”: {
“Accept-Language”: “en”,
“Accept”: “application/json”
},
“statusText”: “error”,
“time”: “2020-11-24T03:38:04.890Z”
},
{
“type”: “log:message”,
“level”: 2,
“message”: “[Companion] Opening long poll to [hidden]_NAS1 at https://[hiddenIP].[hiddenSHA].plex.direct:32400/player/proxy/poll”,
“time”: “2020-11-24T03:38:05.564Z”
},
{
“type”: “ajax”,
“url”: “https://[hiddenIP].[hiddenSHA].plex.direct:32400/player/proxy/poll?deviceClass=pc&protocolVersion=3&protocolCapabilities=timeline%2Cplayback%2Cnavigation%2Cmirror%2Cplayqueues&timeout=1&X-Plex-Product=Plex%20Web&X-Plex-Version=4.43.4&X-Plex-Client-Identifier=tg2b53rr32pgc5qt4qndajee&X-Plex-Platform=Chrome&X-Plex-Platform-Version=86.0&X-Plex-Sync-Version=2&X-Plex-Features=external-media%2Cindirect-media&X-Plex-Model=bundled&X-Plex-Device=Windows&X-Plex-Device-Name=Chrome&X-Plex-Device-Screen-Resolution=1536x678%2C1536x864&X-Plex-Token=TOKEN&X-Plex-Language=en”,
“status”: 200,
“headers”: {
“Accept-Language”: “en”
},
“time”: “2020-11-24T03:38:05.564Z”
},
{
“type”: “log:message”,
“level”: 2,
“message”: “[Companion] Poll connection successfully opened with SkiDiver_NAS1”,
“time”: “2020-11-24T03:38:10.583Z”
}
]

[jpa5071]

Providing a zip of Server and Client logs. Note: Timestamp of error is 11:29:43.051(File removed)

[lenkunz]

I’ve the same issue. For quickly inspection using HTTP proxy interception.
There is some weird request from client side when request a play queue.

This request cause the problem
http://[ip]:[port]/playQueues?continuous=0&includeExternalMedia=1&includeLoudnessRamps=1&key=%2Flibrary%2Fmetadata%2F138551&recursive=0&shuffle=0&type=photo&uri=server%3A%2F%2F[hash]%2Fcom.plexapp.plugins.library138550&X-Plex-Device-Name=LenKunZ%E2%80%99%20ipad

When compare to the request that work normally. There is a miss in value of the parameter.
uri=server://[hash]/com.plexapp.plugins.library138550

When compare to the working request it should be.
uri=server://[hash]/com.plexapp.plugins.library/library/metadata/138550

I set parameter with the value. Then the request response with content.
I don’t have access to any plex source code so I don’t know why is this happens.
Or don’t know if it is expected behavior.