Server Version#: 143.2.10687
Player Version#: 2026.10.0
I made a post about this on May 19th and nobody replied. Is there an update to this?
in the latest update of the plex app on the firestick max gen 2 and firestick 4k plus DTS audio is playing no audio. On the old version of app this worked fine. This was a bug a few years ago that was fixed with the firestick devices. Can an admin please have a look at this?
I’ve a FireStick 4K Max Gen 2, Plex app 2026.12.0 connected to a HDMI input on a Denon receiver. FireStick audio = Best Available, Plex app has passthrough = HDMI.
DTS 5.1 plays OK. The Denon receives DTS 5.1 audio.
DTS HD-MA 5.1 does not. The Denon is not receiving any audio from the FireStick.
I’ve been trading messages with one of the developers. There’s an open issue and they’re investigating. They’ve my client & server logs and sample files.
I’ll update if there is anything to report.
thank you so much. ive been waiting forever for a reply lol
Is the MA file the second audio file? If so, move it to the first position and try again.
This Issue was reported years ago.
It is the only audio track in the file.
For DTS-HD MA tracks, the old Plex app would passthrough the DTS core audio. With the FireStick 4K Max Gen 2, the New Experience app does not pass any audio when a DTS-HD MA track is selected.
Does not apply to FireTV devices. Different hardware, different OS, different underlying video player.
yes but this was fixed years ago and the issue came back with the new UI interface. It only happens with dts audio
Glad to know those two things could never be related.
are any admin aware of this currently? This is my second post about this in the last 30+ days
I replicated the problem and sent log files and sample media files to the Plex dev team. They’ve an open case and are working the problem. However, all of that was three days ago (my first reply above), so they’ll need some time to figure out what is wrong and how to fix it.
sounds great. This is like the 3rd time this has happened. And it always happens after a UI interface update. I wonder why
Reddit pointed me to this post. Glad someone opened a ticket. I’ll have to see if I can pull logs and add to it because after getting the new experience of Plex on my Fire Stick 4K I no longer can get DTS core audio. Instead Plex flags the fire stick as not supporting DTS-HD MA and transcoding it to AAC. I get that in my case the fire stick 4k is just plugged into my TV instead of my receiver like in my living room, but the old Plex app always played these same files as DTS core. Now they transcode to AAC. Only change was the new experience update to the Plex app.
Following. Getting no audio when trying to watch a movie is no cool.
this post was made on may 31st and still no update from plex
Ran into this, I use Claude to help manage my server and this is a report it generated to add to this thread:
Server Version#: 1.43.2.10687-563d026ea
Player Version#: 2026.13.0
Confirming this is still present on player 2026.13.0 (one version newer than the 2026.12.0 reports above), on the same server build others here are running.
I did some digging on the server side and turned up two things I haven’t seen mentioned in this thread yet: the failing playback is being delivered over HLS, and the same file direct-plays with working audio in a different client on the same hardware. Details below, plus the server logs that were asked for.
| Plex Media Server | 1.43.2.10687-563d026ea (Linux, Debian 12) |
| Plex for Fire TV | 2026.13.0 |
| Device | Fire TV Stick, Fire OS 8.1.8.0 (build RS8180/3729), Android 11 |
| Comparison client | Jellyfin Android TV 0.19.9, same device |
| Audio chain | Fire TV → AVR with channel indicator → speakers |
Test file: single audio track, DTS-HD MA 5.1 (dca), no fallback track. HEVC 2160p in MKV.
Symptom: video plays perfectly, no audio, and the receiver shows zero active channels — nothing is arriving at all, as opposed to the wrong format arriving.
Every failing playback logs this decision:
Streaming Resource: Reached Decision id=2870 codes=(MDE=1000,Direct play OK.)
media=(id=15328 part=(id=15328 decision=direct play protocol=hls
streams=(Video=(id=75844 decision= width=3840 height=2160)
Audio=(id=75845 decision= channels=0 rate=0)
Subtitle=(id=75846 decision=ignore languageCode=eng location=embedded))))
Note protocol=hls, an empty audio decision, and Audio=(... channels=0 rate=0).
This looks like the actual mechanism: the video track extracts from the HLS stream fine while the audio track silently fails to initialize. It would explain why the receiver sees nothing rather than receiving something malformed.
Run minutes apart on the identical Fire TV:
| Client | Method | Delivery | Audio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plex for Fire TV 2026.13.0 | direct play |
HLS | Silent |
| Jellyfin Android TV 0.19.9 | DirectPlay |
raw MKV over HTTP | Works |
Both direct-play the same DTS-HD MA track with no transcoding. The only difference is the delivery wrapper.
This rules out the device, the receiver, the HDMI chain, and DTS support itself — the hardware bitstreams DTS to the AVR correctly. Whatever is failing is on the Plex side.
This may be the more serious problem, because it removes any user-side workaround.
Six consecutive playback attempts of the same item, spanning Passthrough enabled, Passthrough disabled, and Direct Play switched OFF (Direct Stream left ON), each after a force-stop of the app:
21:08:12 | part=direct play proto=hls audioDecision=(empty) | MDE=1000,Direct play OK.
21:10:19 | part=direct play proto=hls audioDecision=(empty) | MDE=1000,Direct play OK.
21:13:31 | part=direct play proto=hls audioDecision=(empty) | MDE=1000,Direct play OK.
21:15:13 | part=direct play proto=hls audioDecision=(empty) | MDE=1000,Direct play OK.
21:18:22 | part=direct play proto=hls audioDecision=(empty) | MDE=1000,Direct play OK.
21:21:55 | part=direct play proto=hls audioDecision=(empty) | MDE=1000,Direct play OK.
The decision never changes. The client also continues advertising dca support with Passthrough set to Disabled:
TranscodeUniversalRequest: adapting profile with augmentation data:
add-transcode-target(type=videoProfile&context=all&protocol=hls&container=mkv
&videoCodec=h264,hevc,vp8,vp9
&audioCodec=aac,pcm,mp3,ac3,dca,eac3,truehd&...)
WARN - ClientProfileExtra: ignoring directive:
add-transcode-target-codec(scope=videoTranscodeTarget&scopeName=dca
&scopeType=audioCodec&context=all&protocol=http)
So the server keeps being told the client can handle DTS, and keeps choosing direct play, regardless of what the app’s settings say.
There is a parallel report — [Android TV/Amlogic] Plex 2026.11.0: Direct Play ON causes no audio (EAC3/AC3) — describing the same shape with EAC3 and AC3 on Amlogic Android TV, and it mentions similar EAC3 Direct Play failures on Windows clients.
Different codecs, different platforms, same behaviour: Direct Play produces silence, forcing a transcode fixes it. If the fault is in the direct-play/HLS path in the New Experience app rather than in DTS handling specifically, that would account for all of these reports together.
That reporter also found Direct Play OFF + Direct Stream OFF → audio works. That is consistent with what I saw: I tried Direct Play OFF with Direct Stream ON, which still routes through HLS, and it stayed silent.
The excerpts above are from default logging, not verbose. Happy to supply the full Plex Media Server.log window around any of those six attempts, client logs, or a sample file — just say which would be most useful.
Following.
i reported this months ago and there has been no reponse from plex
I’m having the exact same problem. Firestick 4K MAX gen 2. DTS works fine, DTS-HD playback doesn’t let the DTS core through, AVR identifies it as no audio incoming. Only happening with the new Plex Experience.
