Server Version#: Version 1.18.0.1944
Player Version#:4.10.1
Okay, I have media stored in the cloud… I know, boo his, etc.
My question is, can Plex be setup to download / fetch content in the background, before beginning playback, to prevent buffering and pauses due to my media being stored in the cloud?
It’s a google team drive, and most files are in the neighborhood of 2 to 4 gigs, in general, so having an 8gb prefetch to download and then playback, would be an ideal solution to my media issues. Local storage of the file is not an issue, space wise, on the server, which I have running in a VM.
Playback on the android based media player in my living room is totally unwatchable at this point, without some form of precaching enabled. It stutters and hangs to the point that we’ve all but given up on watching anything on it.
How is Gdrive mounted?
What you are asking for really shouldn’t be needed. I have just abandoned local storage and have no issues with playing even things like Gotham By Gaslight at around 80GB and an average Bitrate of 90Mbps.
They all directplay fine of my Shield, Apple TV 4K and Plex LG app, although the latter can give issues due to its lack of native Gigabit ethernet.
I have Gsuite running on the local machine that the VM is hosted on. The VM is running expandrive.
I’ve had numerous issues with both, as in running it locally, without the VM on the “server” with GSuite loading the shared drives, and also with the same config, minus the GSuite, using Expandrive, before attempting to host it in a VM.
I don’t think that it is the app that is mounting the drives, but just the latency of the connection. Internally, the connections are all gbit. Spectrum 400/20, no weird proxies or vpn connections to knock that speed down.
All that being said, since neither GSuite nor Expandrive seem to be able to precache the request, Plex or some other form of middle man style connector would be needed, to download to a local share, Ram Drive, or something, to enhance playback and eliminate stuttering.
I swear, it’s driving me crazy, and honestly, it’s a short trip.
Also, just to clarify…
I pay Google for the Google Business Suite, that uses Google Team Drives / Shared Drives, and have to use the GSuite software or some alternative, that allows access to the “unlimited storage” team drives that I have / pay for.
I started having issues with GSuite, and tried using Expandrive.
https://www.expandrive.com/
That didn’t work.
So, I tried changing platforms to Linux, using Ubuntu Mate with Expandrive, thinking it was an OS related issue.
That didn’t work.
I installed Windows Server 2016, and expandrive, in a test situation, and experienced the same issues. Windows Server OS’s for whatever reason, have issues with GSuite, Dropbox, etc.
I’ve used Mountain Duck, in both Windows 10 Pro, and Server… to no avail.
https://mountainduck.io/
That’s the reason I think the issue needs to be resolved, in the Plex software, as an option to allow you to download or cache X amount of online media, before playback begins.
I can easily add SD or Hard Drive based storage to any player I have, as I am sure most people can, and use it as nothing but a media cache.
The media is there… it’s accessible… it’s just glitchy as hell.
Yeah understood. I’m on Gsuite business too, though I only ever used Team Drives in a test environment.
Sadly I never really went down the VM route so I can’t help much.
I have mounted via NetDrive and Expandrive over the years on my Windows system.
Most recently I used rclone on Windows. That, like my rclone Linux remote dedi system are the ones I switched to. Currently, I have totally abandoned running PMS locally and just use my far less powerful remote dedi.
Like I said my files are mostly Remux quality and never had any issues with the rclone approach on either OS.
With such relatively small files as you have, I’m pretty surprised you have issues.
But out of curiosity what is the bandwidth of your home connection?
Which exact Android client? Have you tried others including a humble web browser to ensure it’s not just client related?
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