I did manage to sideload this onto my Chromecast with Google TV. It seems to have fixed the issue where playback would stop after 5 minutes. I was watching college basketball on CBS and FOX today (on 8.11.2286) and it was stoping playback after a few minutes. I switched to this build (8.13.0.22653) and that issue went away. However, it seems like a new issue may be present.
After a 5 or so minutes, the feed started buffering. I checked plex dash and it was showing the bandwidth had shot up over 75 mbps. I switched from original quality to 20 mbps, and at first I thought that fixed it, but after 5 or so minutes I had buffering again and the dashboard was again showing that the bandwidth had gone from 15-30 mbps to over 75 mpbs. I then switched the quality to 12 mbps. Again, it was fine for a bit but then shot up to over 75 mbps after a few minutes. I decided to let it go even though it was barley watchable since it was buffering every other second. I let it go for 3 or 4 minutes at the bandwidth was between 60 mbps and 100 mbps the whole time. It wasnāt spiking up that high occasionally, it was that high the whole time.
I downloaded the logs. I donāt see anything interesting in them, although I havenāt really looked through the logs before.
I downgraded to 8.2.1.18636 and playback is fine which leads me to believe this is an issue introduced in one of the versions after that. Itās possible that it has been an issue for a while though, and the bug that is stopping playback was preventing be from ever seeing it.
For now I think I am sticking with 8.2 since it seems to be working.
I just found out that I have to turn off auto update for all of my apps if I want to keep version 8.2. I thought sideloaded apps might not auto update. Thats really unfortunate as other apps will have updates that I want to get installed automatically.
Have you all considered rolling back to the last version that was stable if this cannot be addressed soon? Live TV is has been pretty much unusable. I know I am just looking at it from my perspective, but I donāt see anything in the release notes since 8.2 that was released that seems more important than Live TV. I would bet most people would rather have it rolled back to 8.2 and have working Live TV.
I second that motion of rolling back to the last stable version. Live TV has been virtually unusable. Does management need to fly someone to the US to repro the issue and get it fixed? Can one of us provide you remote access to troubleshoot the problem in situ?
I know this doesnāt help the fire stick-ers but another workaround (android tv users) for the playback loop issue on current build is to just cast the live tv to your device instead of using the app. It plays fine that way.
Yeah man I was just happy to see it was not a server issue(my fault) after a month of my wife complaining about it XD. Finally got a chance to look at it and found this thread. Eagerly awaiting another build
If I try and cast from the iOS app it locks up on the screen where you choose what to cast to. Have to force close the app. When you do, the audio from the channel you are streaming keeps playing for a couple seconds. Real weird as I have never seen the audio continue on an app you force closed on iOS.
Clearly this is not a Plex Server issue. Live TV Playback works fine on a Roku. On the Fire TV 4k stick Live TV Playback runs for five minutes and then exits back to the guide. Iāve tried all the settings as others have in this thread. Clearly the Plex client for the Amazon Fire Stick 4K needs to be updated with a fix.
I am running Plex on 10 TVs in my house via various firesticks models (4k, 2nd gen and 3rd gens). Every firestick that is running via wifi has various issues with livetv, as detailed above. Either dumping to guide, screen going blank, or endless spinning circle. Started last fall.
The only firesticks (4 of them a mix of 4ks and 2nd gens) that work with my LiveTV are the ones that are hardwired direct into my network. They are bullet proof and almost never freeze. Occasionally have to reboot the stick, but other than that, LiveTV works great. I can do hours of TV without a hitch (football Sundays running 3 streams for 8plus hours).
Running the latest plex server (windows 10) and HD Prime3 with FIOS cable card.
I too am anxiously awaiting a fix, as its made the other wifi firesticks useless. I just had a 4k roku delivered, so that I can get back livetv functionality in a bedroom.
Interesting. I had a firestick that would drop livetv via wifi, switched it over to a wired adapter and it has been fine since. Didnāt change any settings on it when I swapped it over.
Some of my wifi sticks will work for 30plus mins before dropping, others only a few mins.
The issue is with streams that are transcoded (not direct play in plexās version of exoplayer). If I had to guess Iād say there are factors in each setup (wifi vs wired) that contribute to whether or not the stream direct plays or not. I have never seen the issue on a direct play stream. It would help to share other playback factors that may affect transcode status. For example selecting EIA608 subtitles (closed captioning) will always force a transcode. Perhaps wifi network quality is not up to par for live tv streams without transcoding.
Ofc this may be completely anecdotal and anyone is welcome to prove me wrong.
The issue is only happening when transcoding, Iām not sure how or why your wifi would change between direct playing and transcoding (would need logs to see why). If itās on a Fire TV though, it will most likely always transcode as Fire TVās donāt support interlaced content.
The build below fixes the issue and allows playback to continue whilst transcoding without randomly dropping (or rewinding) - note though, this build introduces a bug when switching channels and requires you to retry playback rather than quickly switching.
Thank you! Just tried it out and the first bug is fixed, but this does introduce the bug you explained, do you need logs?
EDIT: I was playing around a little bit more, and found when I went to watch a show that was recording it wouldnāt play at all, immediately erroring out. Let me know if you need server logs or more logs. Thank you!!
01-28 08:35:06.495 e: [LiveTuningBehaviour] Content source is null or couldn't find EPG media provider.
01-28 08:35:06.531 i: [MediaSessionHelper] Releasing media session with tag: video
01-28 08:35:06.532 i: [MediaSessionHelper] Starting media session with tag: music
01-28 08:35:06.533 i: [MediaSessionHelper] Creating media session with tag: music
01-28 08:35:06.555 i: [SystemUIBehaviour] Hiding the system user-interface.
01-28 08:35:06.556 i: [SystemUIBehaviour] Hiding the system user-interface.
01-28 08:35:06.576 i: [Player][View] Layout has been measured with a size of 1920 x 1080 (1920 x 1080).
01-28 08:35:06.589 i: [Player] Error reported: LiveTuningChannelFailed (null)
01-28 08:35:06.590 i: [TranscodeSession] Stopping...
01-28 08:35:06.592 i: [TranscodeSession] Session already stopped.
01-28 08:35:06.595 i: [Player][Timeline] Playback stopped (error: false)
01-28 08:35:06.596 i: [Player][Timeline] Unable to report progress to server as item is unknown.
01-28 08:35:06.614 i: [Player][Error] Displaying player error...
Server logs would be helpful, thanks! Currently investigating the issue with switching channels, might be related to your issue of trying to watching a recorded channel.
