Failing FLAC playback: ongoing "Streaming Resource: Bandwidth exceeded" errors

[nulptr]

Server Version#: 1.28.0.5999
Player Version#: 14.12 (S2)

This issue has been reported previously, but I cannot find a solution, so I’m raising it again.

For some reason, certain FLAC files trigger a

Streaming Resource: Bandwidth exceeded: 2147483647 kbps > 2000 kbps

warning, and the Sonos app skips the track with an ‘Unable to play [track] - the connection to Plex was lost’ message.

A “good” track behaves like this:

Sep 11, 2022 18:09:35.668 [0x7fc1c9fb1b38] DEBUG - [Req#26b67/Transcode] Streaming Resource: Reached Decision id=145619 codes=(MDE=1000,Direct play OK.) media=(id=136409 part=(id=136424 decision=direct play protocol=hls streams=(Audio=(id=76387 decision= channels=0 rate=0))))

While a “bad” track behaves like this:

Sep 11, 2022 18:02:05.509 [0x7fc1c92afb38] DEBUG - [Req#259dc/Transcode] Streaming Resource: Reached Decision id=145805 codes=(MDE=3001,Cannot direct play this item. Required bandwidth is not known and only kbps is available. General=1000,Direct play OK. Direct Play=1000,Direct play OK.) media=(id=136572 part=(id=136587 decision=direct play protocol=http streams=(Audio=(id=77780 decision= channels=2 rate=44100))))

There are reports that a temporary fix is to disable limits in internet upload speed (by setting it to zero in Settings → Remote access, but I have nothing in this field and the behaviour is unchanged regardless of what value I enter (0, 2000, 100000…). As the log message suggests, it seems that the problem is that Plex can’t determine the bandwidth to begin with.

There is also a comment here that this problem has been fixed in the (then-)current beta, but my PMS is several versions on from this.

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As far as I can tell, this issue has something to do with the PMS / Sonos app integration: if I play the offending tracks from any Plex app (iOS Plex app, Chrome web app, etc) and then cast via AirPlay to the Sonos, everything works fine, and the Sonos app even updates itself. But it’s impossible to play back the same track using the Sonos app directly.

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The Plex server is on a NAS device on the local network. Remote access is not disabled. There are no problems accessing the server and playing back media on another device on the network, except using the Sonos app (and there are no problems browsing using the Sonos app, only playing back the offending items - which play back fine from Plex itself, or using VLC, etc.).

If this sounds like it’s a Sonos problem, I’d be inclined to agree, except for the fact that the error is showing up as a transcoding issue in the Plex logs. Can anyone provide any further insight into this issue?

[timcroydon]

I think the cause is the same problem reported here. The comment (by me) about the problem being fixed is erroneous - it appears this only fixes itself after Plex’s scheduled tasks have run and calculated the track bandwidth. I think when I tried it I must have coincidentally hit that scheduled task so it appeared fixed.

Given that the tracks play after the scheduled tasks have run, but not before, makes me think this is a Plex issue, as it is not providing the info required by Sonos to play the track. I don’t know if this is badly documented in Sonos’ API.

I think the fix is just for Plex to calculate the bandwidth on library import, not just as a scheduled task - the code is obviously in there, but just not triggered. Feels like a one-line fix to me, but they’ve never addressed this

[nulptr]

Right - thanks for confirming. Things do basically work just fine after the nightly scheduled tasks run; but there appears to be no way to manually run those tasks (who knows what else is done?) so basically no FLACs that are imported can be played until the following day. Devs, any way to implement “calculate bandwidth on import” or similar?