Hello fellow Plexers. Got an interesting challenge / problem / issue / unique scenario.
I upload my media to a Gdrive business account. I use Stablebit’s CloudDrive to upload it (with encryption and mount a storage drive on my server OS.
I have 75Mb down / 17Mb up. It usually takes 35ish seconds to fill up a 400MB pre-fetched buffer with my internet speed (fully gigabit wired, SSD on server).
Say I want to stream this file with a high bitrate:
Using a 400MB precatch buffer:
When attempting playback via the Plex for Android TV client, it times out saying the connection to the server has been lost, presumably due to the buffer being too large for the client to play back the media on first attempt and thinks its failed playback. On the 2nd attempt, longer wait but failed playback. If I attempt again on the 3rd attempt, the buffer has filled enough to start playback **without **timing out and plays fantastically.
Using a 150MB precatch buffer:
Works great and plays first time. This provides enough data for the player to start playback first time however this means that I cannot take advantage of a full 400MB buffer, particularly useful when playing back high bitrate material.
My question is:
Can users have the option to control the size of the Plex for Android TV cache in the GUI? This would be useful to me as I could set it to say for example 75MB like I can in Plex Media Player, and this allows me to stream after an initial 75MB buffer flawlessly as my internet pulls down the next 400MB requested and the next etc etc without issue.
@cayars can I trouble your brain for some thoughts on the subject as I realise it’s a bit of an edge-case as @keithah would like to say?
First I will tell you I gave up on CloudDrive a couple months back. I got tired of it not allowing shutdown/reboot without having to completely flush the cash. If you ever power cycle the computer or get blue screen it needs to go through a long process to rebuild. For me that’s about 2 days which is absolutely crazy IMHO.
For me it just wasn’t worth the benefit. NetDrive2 is much easier and less prone to issue and allows you to use your own Google ID/Secret if you want so you aren’t throttled by other people.
Now with that said I still have NetDrive2 for quick access or for access from multiple computers which you can’t do with CloudDrive without detaching/reattaching the drives which is a pain.
But I use neither for my cloud backups. I use rclone which is free and command driven so it’s easy to script or put in batch files if on windows. Works with a variety of cloud providers and it’s faster. Again you can use your own ID/Secret and can set encryption if you want. You can tune it easily with command line options.
As an example if I want to “sync” my local copy of Music to my Google Drive for use with Plex Cloud I do this without encryption and use this command:
Could have been as simple as:
rclone -v copy V:/Music gdrive:/Music
-v = verbose so I get info as things are copied. Remove it for less info.
V:/Music is my local music parent directory
gdrive:/Music is where I’m writing info to
gdrive is what I named this provider on setup which is a simple as “rclone config” (with a couple of questions).
So I’d seriously give rclone a test but KNOW it doesn’t do true SYNCING YET. It’s one way or the other. Also make sure to learn the difference between SYNC and COPY options.
COPY basically is local to remote while SYNC is remote to local (sort of).
Make a copy of some data and play with it first before going live. It will click quickly but you don’t want to copy/sync backwards because rclone will delete files that don’t exist.
Rclone can also be mounted and there are options for that also.
I know this didn’t answer your question yet but I believe the question is NO. But I just wanted to turn you on to Rclone if you haven’t heard or played with it yet.
Thanks for the detailed response. I’ve had no issues rebooting and its preserved the cache and remounted on reboot multiple times. I’ve honestly been through the hassle of trying to setup this kind of thing with rclone on a headless ubuntu server but just got fed up when it didn’t work even when following the instructions to the tee. As a Linux noob, I thought I’d just stick with Windows. I’m not interested in doing it without encryption hence why I’m using CloudDrive.
“know this didn’t answer your question yet but I believe the question is NO.”
BTW, I use Rclone on windows since that’s what I use for Plex. I didn’t have problems with CloudDrive until I got over 25TB or so. Now with over 50TB there I can’t even get CloudDrive to mount the drive without a 24+ hour delay trying to attach.
I just kind of got hooked on Rclone since you can carry it around on a flash drive and use it anywhere or just quickly d/l on someone else’s computer for quick access to files. Rclone will work WITH or WITHOUT encryption just as CloudDrive will.
Not trying to push you this way if you have something that works but wanted to mention it in case you weren’t aware of it.
BTW, I use Rclone on windows since that’s what I use for Plex. I didn’t have problems with CloudDrive until I got over 25TB or so. Now with over 50TB there I can’t even get CloudDrive to mount the drive without a 24+ hour delay trying to attach.
I just kind of got hooked on Rclone since you can carry it around on a flash drive and use it anywhere or just quickly d/l on someone else’s computer for quick access to files. Rclone will work WITH or WITHOUT encryption just as CloudDrive will.
Not trying to push you this way if you have something that works but wanted to mention it in case you weren’t aware of it.
Carlo
Thanks for the clarification / insight. I’m not even over 100GB at the moment so that’s interesting to hear.
That’s a real damn shame. It’s difficult to find a perfect player these days. I just don’t want to deal with Linux / cmd line to be honest. sighs
@cayars said:
We’ll find out once they incorporate ExoPlayer 2.
This seems to suggest people have already implemented their own caches in programs they’ve built themselves. Given the fact Plex is using a forked version of 1.5 from what we know, don’t see why it’s not possible now.
Maybe they are waiting for this:
Who knows. Wish I was a developer and knew what any of this meant haha!
You guys need to stop dropping ExoPlayer v2.x hints because “soon” is past us already.
ExoPlayer v2.x was mentioned all the way back in October 2016 with the most recent mentions of “awesome” things coming as of Feb. 2017 (see link above). The mention of “soon” should be weeks, not months…
ExoPlayer v2.x was mentioned all the way back in October 2016 with the most recent mentions of “awesome” things coming as of Feb. 2017 (see link above). The mention of “soon” should be weeks, not months…
Soon doesn’t indicate a time frame. That’s the point.
ExoPlayer v2.x was mentioned all the way back in October 2016 with the most recent mentions of “awesome” things coming as of Feb. 2017 (see link above). The mention of “soon” should be weeks, not months…
Soon doesn’t indicate a time frame. That’s the point.
I understand that but it’s a lame excuse at saying “they’re working on something”. “Soon” has been going on since February and considering they got their hands on it in October, “soon” is bad choice of wording.
ExoPlayer v2.x was mentioned all the way back in October 2016 with the most recent mentions of “awesome” things coming as of Feb. 2017 (see link above). The mention of “soon” should be weeks, not months…
Soon doesn’t indicate a time frame. That’s the point.
I understand that but it’s a lame excuse at saying “they’re working on something”. “Soon” has been going on since February and considering they got their hands on it in October, “soon” is bad choice of wording.
An excuse implies they’ve done something wrong. They haven’t. They’re working on the app. We are well aware it’s Plex’s motto to stay mum’s the word on new developments and comment only when they see fit. You need to deal with that fact.
I am dealing with it, just like I’m dealing with the fact that they continue to drag their feet on getting Live TV and time shifting out. Doesn’t mean I have to agree with it or like it…
I know I’m impatient. I have to deal with that too (also something I don’t like)
@johnny15 said:
I am dealing with it, just like I’m dealing with the fact that they continue to drag their feet on getting Live TV and time shifting out. Doesn’t mean I have to agree with it or like it…
I know I’m impatient. I have to deal with that too (also something I don’t like)
I agree with you to an extent but as I’m not a developer and have no idea how hard software development can be, I can only sit idlely by and twiddle my thumbs just like you and pray for good things.
Don’t even get started with the “officially committed to” garbage. They’ve eluded to it enough and have said they are “very interested in Live TV”. I get that they don’t disclose road maps blah, blah, blah… Hell…even Emby at this point has Live TV and time shifting available and Plex in almost every way is superior. If Emby can do it, there’s no reason Plex cannot. Also, for Plex to put in the framework for DVR with the EPG and to not bring Live TV into play is like buying a Ferrari and ONLY driving it in town. What the hell is the point of that???
