External players not working on latest Android beta

Plex Players Mobile Devices
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Server Version#: Nvidia shield TV running v1.20.5.3600
Player Version#: Pixel 5 running v8.12.0.22456 (Play Store beta)
Note: I have also been experiencing this issue on the previous beta version for the past ~month

I’ve got the Advanced > Player > Use external player setting checked to let Android resolve the intent and let me decide which player I want to view my media in. I’ve had my default player (VLC) selected as the default player for media files forever, but it seems the latest builds are doing something wonky with the intent that Plex sends to VLC, and VLC is unable to open the files it used to be able to play just fine in this exact same way. VLC tries to open, but immediately spits out a big toast about being unable to play the video (with a really long URI) and dumps me back on the media page in Plex. I’m able to then start the Plex-internal player, but without some additional settings/UX that I prefer from VLC.

I’ve experienced this issue transiently in the past with some versions, so it seems like occasionally there’s just some code that gets inadvertently broken by standard changes. Perhaps this use case could get added to a regression test suite for each release? :slight_smile:

Happy to provide as much logging as needed to help resolve the issue.

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I just tried with VLC and it worked fine.

it is probably the URL to the video file. I would look at your VLC logs to see if there are any more details about the error why it could not play it. Might not be able to connect to the server for some reason.

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It is indeed the URL of the file, VLC just says “The location $SUPER_LONG_LINK cannot be played” in its toast.

I took a look at the VLC logs, and the most suspect looking log is an HTTP error when it tries to open the long URL from Plex (redacting some IP and probably other identifying stuff): “libvlc tls client: cannot resolve 192-168-xx-xx.${HEX}.plex.direct port 32400: No address associated with hostname.” That sounds like a DNS error to me, but maybe that’s just masking the real error since this is all just intranet connections that shouldn’t need DNS anyways.

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Well it needs to resolve the plex.direct part which is the secure connections. What is your secure connections set to on your servers network settings?

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It was set to required. If I set it to disabled, then VLC is indeed able to open media as normal on my phone, but that naturally makes access from Chrome on my laptop unhappy (until I manually opt to enable insecure connections).

It seems on the surface like setting the server’s secure connections option to preferred will make Chrome happy and use TLS, and then setting the Android player’s settings to allow insecure on the same network should be the right middle ground, but in that case I still get the TLS errors from VLC. Any suggestion on how to configure this to keep both happy at once?

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In the Android app in Settings>advanced see if setting “allow insecure connections” to “on the same network” helps

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Hi,

I’ve also ran into this issue.

I am able to use the external player when not on the same network e.g. on mobile 4g/5g.

As a test I installed the same Plex version of the app on a new device and I was able to use external player on both WiFi and mobile networks.

Until I installed magisk to root the device. I was then unable to use the external player on WiFi, mobile still works.

Removing root does not resolve the issue. A new install of the OS would solve the issue.

So… Where to go from here?

Thanks in advance.

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