FOX OTA Refuses to Tune Reliably

General Discussions Plex Features
1

Nine times out of ten FOX will pop an error on a black screen (no video showing) while trying to tune: “Playback has stopped because the connection to the Plex Media Server has been lost. Please ensure the server is available and retry.”

My hardware; Nvidia Shield TV (2015), WinTV-DualHD - in Phoenix, AZ. All local channels are found with ‘scan’. They all tune fine except FOX. Testing with the same antenna feed direct to my TV (which has a channel strength display) all channels come in just fine including ABC which is the other 720P offering in my area.

One the rare occasion that it tunes FOX, the info overlay at top left corner shows that it is not using DirectPlay!

Player: ExoPlayer V2
Video: Transcode
Audio: Direct
Size: 1280 x 720
Transcode Reason: Direct Play was attempted but failed, fallen back to transcoding

Now the crazy thing is … I can tune in this channel no problem via Plex Web (Intranet within home)

Anyone have a thought as to what might be going on or how to resolve?

Regards,

Bob_H
Phoenix, AZ
USA

Additional Hardware Notes:

  • Shield upgraded internal memory from 16GB to 64GB
  • All software and firmware are current
  • DVR storage set to WD My Cloud (mounted storage on Shield)
  • Everything is ethernet connected
2

UPDATE: Went into Shield settings, apps and cleared cache and data for both Plex Player and Server. All tuning is working now!

Only side effect of doing so was that I had to re-setup DVR, scan for channels etc. Now I only get a few random cannot tune, cancel/retry events which will tune on next attempt. Usually happens when changing channels rapidly.

Bob_H
Phoenix, AZ
USA

3

Update this fix still does not allow FOX to consistently tune.

I always get error about connection to PLEX Media Server is unavailable. Only way to get it to work consistently is go into settings on the Plex app on the Shield and stop and start the server.