I’m experiencing it on the Andriod app but others are seeing on Apple TV, the web player, etc. I can only report the bug that I have experienced though.
The scenario is: I begin playing a TV episode that I have on an unRAID NAS. The episode is around 20 minutes long depending on how many commercials were cut from it but the player reads the video as being 2:00:00 long.
Once the player finishes playing the episode (around 20 minutes in), the screen just goes black. I don’t know if it’s playing a black screen until the end, or just freezes/bugs out there. I don’t see this playing through to the next item in the playlist though (this happens to me at night when watching something on the tablet, and I tend to fall asleep before it ends).
I turned on debugging before I was able to replicate the issue this afternoon (non-verbose). Once this was enabled, I started playing a few videos that I have ‘on deck’ in the Android app. After a few attempts, I was able to get one to direct play and give me a runtime of 2:00:00 on an episode of Parks and Recreations. I’ve experienced this on another show recently though (new girl), but this has been an issue that has been happening for me on my Android tablet for YEARS).
I downloaded the logs a minute or two after I was able to replicate the bug. I have kept the episode playing but can download them again once it plays past that 20-minute mark and goes into the black void, so to speak…if it will help.
the runtime on the left and right side (current time - time remaining) reads 21:31 and 1:38:28 and it has “stopped” playing. as in the video player thinks it is playing (won’t let the Android OS time out the app/display) but there isn’t anything on the screen.
it’s as if the video I’m watching is a black screen (I can tap the screen to bring up the UI) but the progress times displayed in the player are just displaying what I listed above. I can scrub back through the video and replay it as long as I keep it within that 00:00 - 21:31 time span, but the player still thinks it is playing a 2:00:00 video
I see this from time to time. For me my NAS is asleep (power save) and it takes a few seconds (maybe 10) to wake up and for the spinning disks to get going after plex reaches out to the NAS to play something. I’ve the plexserver on a PC and a nfs mount to my NAS.
When it happens whatever it’s playing is reported as 2:00:00 in length. I usually just stop what I’m playing and start it again which sets the time right.
Think some default value is being set while the NAS is waking up.
that makes sense. I see it when my local transmitter is about to go offline and the signal starts falling apart. When Father Brown is 9 hours and 40 minutes long - I know things aren’t going to go very well for a few days (been a month this time - it may have died).
okay, so I actually ran across two different bugs when getting logs for this.
this first one is for the original issue I detailed in the OP with the runtime being 2:00:00 for a 20ish minute show
however, when attempting to replicate that bug I ran into a stuttering type of issue where the video freezes and the audio skips back and replays the last 3 seconds. it will pause for a bit then, and then do the same thing for the next bits. I downloaded two logs with this second bug since I noticed it happening on episodes of two different shows I have on my NAS
@anon18523487 is that guy, and I’m pretty sure he’d like to have that sample…lol
(typically you put it on your G-Drive and PM him the sharing link, but do wait for the word to do so - so he’ll know it’s coming)
yea, I’m not going to keep 20 mechanical hard drives spinning 24/7 (or 18/6 for that matter). if Plex developers honestly expect people to do that then that is embarrassing
I do hope to hear something more rational from them
Agreed, would be nice to get whatever timeout is being used here to be increased to 20-30 seconds. That would give any NAS/RAID time to wakeup from power save.
Interesting. @Endda Do you notice the same? If you stop playback and try again, does it show the correct time?
That can explain what is happening. When the transcoder starts up it checks the duration of the file, if it can’t find that info it defaults to 2 hrs. If the sleeping drive is causing this, I can request that this timeout be increased for the transcoder.
I don’t see anything to explain the problem, except maybe what I’ve said above.
For that issue, I do see the problem. The transcoder is jumping back and forth in your file. There is definitely something wrong. I’ve seen this before but haven’t been able to identify the cause.
FYI - drives don’t always spin. Doesn’t matter if they are powered down or not, if the drive needs to be accessed, it will spin. It’s this powering down that might be causing the problem. I would personally recommend not letting the drives power down. The electrical jump from having to come back on to me is a larger concern then the amount of power you would save. With 20, that might be a different story and heat could be a concern. However, if you have proper cooling, this shouldn’t be an issue.
yes, when I stop the player and then start to play it again, I’m asked if I want to start from the part I stopped it at. and then upon resuming the video, the proper time is displayed in the plex android player
re: spinning drives. I’m referring to how much wattage the drives are consuming when they are ‘active’ compared to when they go in their ‘standby mode’ aka a ‘spun down’ state.
I have a UPS connected and can monitor watt usage through the unraid dashboard. all drives spun down I see ~90 watts being pulled compared to over 225 watts with all discs spun up. so I will pass on keeping my drives spinning all the time
