H264 movies do not play

[tsolignani]

Hallo folks.

I have some h264 video which do not play.

My server is on a mac, server is the latest version.

I tried to play them with the Plex app on an android tv (Sony) and with the Plex app on my note 10 plus.

No error arises, it just stays in sort of loading for ever.

If I get to the mac I can play those movies with VLC without any issue.

Please find attached a copy/past of data from the video, grabbed from plex player itself.

Any hint?

Thank you.

Media

• Durata 2:07:40
• Bitrate 7935 kbps
• Width 1920
• Height 1080
• Aspect Ratio 1.78
• Video Resolution 1080p
• Container MP4
• Video Frame Rate 24p
• Web Optimized No
• Has 64bit Offsets true
• Video Profile high
• Overlay

Parte

• Durata 2:07:40

• File Piece.mp4

• Size 7.08 GB

• Container MP4

• Has 64bit Offsets true

• Has Thumbnail 1

• Web Optimized No

• Video Profile high

• Codec H264

• Bitrate 6495 kbps

• Bit Depth 8

• Chroma Location left

• Chroma Subsampling 4:2:0

• Coded Height 1088

• Coded Width 1920

• Frame Rate 24 fps

• Height 1080

• Livello 4.0

• Profilo high

• Ref Frames 1

• Stream Identifier 1

• Width 1920

• Display Title 1080p (H.264)

• Extended Display Title 1080p (H.264)

• Codec AAC

• Canali 2

• Bitrate 96 kbps

• Lingua Deutsch

• Audio Channel Layout stereo

• Profilo he-aac

• Sampling Rate 48000 Hz

• Stream Identifier 2

• Display Title Deutsch (HE-AAC Stereo)

• Extended Display Title Deutsch (HE-AAC Stereo)

• Codec AAC

• Canali 2

• Bitrate 96 kbps

• Lingua English

• Audio Channel Layout stereo

• Profilo he-aac

• Sampling Rate 48000 Hz

• Stream Identifier 3

• Display Title English (HE-AAC Stereo)

• Extended Display Title English (HE-AAC Stereo)

• Codec AAC

• Canali 2

• Bitrate 96 kbps

• Lingua Español

• Audio Channel Layout stereo

• Profilo he-aac

• Sampling Rate 48000 Hz

• Stream Identifier 4

• Display Title Español (HE-AAC Stereo)

• Extended Display Title Español (HE-AAC Stereo)

• Codec AAC

• Canali 2

• Bitrate 96 kbps

• Lingua Français

• Audio Channel Layout stereo

• Profilo he-aac

• Sampling Rate 48000 Hz

• Stream Identifier 5

• Display Title Français (HE-AAC Stereo)

• Extended Display Title Français (HE-AAC Stereo)

• Codec AAC

• Canali 2

• Bitrate 96 kbps

• Lingua Italiano

• Audio Channel Layout stereo

• Profilo he-aac

• Sampling Rate 48000 Hz

• Stream Identifier 6

• Display Title Italiano (HE-AAC Stereo)

• Extended Display Title Italiano (HE-AAC Stereo)

• Codec EAC3

• Canali 6

• Bitrate 192 kbps

• Lingua Deutsch

• Audio Channel Layout 5.1(side)

• Sampling Rate 48000 Hz

• Stream Identifier 7

• Display Title Deutsch (EAC3 5.1)

• Extended Display Title Deutsch (EAC3 5.1)

• Codec EAC3

• Canali 6

• Bitrate 192 kbps

• Lingua English

• Audio Channel Layout 5.1(side)

• Sampling Rate 48000 Hz

• Stream Identifier 8

• Display Title English (EAC3 5.1)

• Extended Display Title English (EAC3 5.1)

• Codec EAC3

• Canali 6

• Bitrate 192 kbps

• Lingua Español

• Audio Channel Layout 5.1(side)

• Sampling Rate 48000 Hz

• Stream Identifier 9

• Display Title Español (EAC3 5.1)

• Extended Display Title Español (EAC3 5.1)

• Codec EAC3

• Canali 6

• Bitrate 192 kbps

• Lingua Français

• Audio Channel Layout 5.1(side)

• Sampling Rate 48000 Hz

• Stream Identifier 10

• Display Title Français (EAC3 5.1)

• Extended Display Title Français (EAC3 5.1)

• Codec EAC3

• Canali 6

• Bitrate 192 kbps

• Lingua Italiano

• Audio Channel Layout 5.1(side)

• Sampling Rate 48000 Hz

• Stream Identifier 11

• Display Title Italiano (EAC3 5.1)

• Extended Display Title Italiano (EAC3 5.1)

• Codec MOV_TEXT

• Lingua Deutsch

• Stream Identifier 12

• Display Title Deutsch (MOV_TEXT)

• Extended Display Title Deutsch (MOV_TEXT)

• Codec MOV_TEXT

• Lingua Deutsch

• Stream Identifier 13

• Display Title Deutsch (MOV_TEXT)

• Extended Display Title Deutsch (MOV_TEXT)

• Codec MOV_TEXT

• Lingua Ελληνικά

• Stream Identifier 14

• Display Title Ελληνικά (MOV_TEXT)

• Extended Display Title Ελληνικά (MOV_TEXT)

• Codec MOV_TEXT

• Lingua Español

• Stream Identifier 15

• Display Title Español (MOV_TEXT)

• Extended Display Title Español (MOV_TEXT)

• Codec MOV_TEXT

• Lingua Français

• Stream Identifier 16

• Display Title Français (MOV_TEXT)

• Extended Display Title Français (MOV_TEXT)

• Codec MOV_TEXT

• Lingua Français

• Stream Identifier 17

• Display Title Français (MOV_TEXT)

• Extended Display Title Français (MOV_TEXT)

• Codec MOV_TEXT

• Lingua Italiano

• Stream Identifier 18

• Display Title Italiano (MOV_TEXT)

• Extended Display Title Italiano (MOV_TEXT)

• Codec MOV_TEXT

• Lingua Italiano

• Stream Identifier 19

• Display Title Italiano (MOV_TEXT)

• Extended Display Title Italiano (MOV_TEXT)

• Codec MOV_TEXT

• Lingua English

• Stream Identifier 20

• Display Title English (MOV_TEXT)

• Extended Display Title English (MOV_TEXT)

Mostra XML

[jdbrookes]

I think I’m seeing the same thing; my server is on Windows but the players having the problem are the Android Plex apps on two Sony Bravia TVs. One model is 2015, the other 2018. I thought it was HEVC failing at first, but it seems somewhat random and now x264 is impacted as well.

Plex for Kodi works on both TVs all the time., and Plex Web, other clients etc are working fine. So I suspect its an issue with the Plex app on Bravia TVs specifically. Not sure where to start getting it fixed though.

The issue specifically is that the content loads to a blank black screen, and just stays there with the timeline fixed at 00:00. Scrubbing is not possible. I’ve been able to force transcode with limited success, but that only works the odd time.

[tsolignani]

Thank you.

Yep, the issue seems the same.

Only difference is that I cannot play them even on Plex for Android on my phone, so that maybe the issues is related to the Android app and not just the Androit Tv one.

Did you install Kodi alongside Plex on your server?

Thank you.

[jdbrookes]

Can’t say I’ve had any issues with the Plex mobile android client on my tablet or phone; perhaps its older Android versions?

You can go to the Play store on your Bravia TV and download Kodi. You don’t need to setup any libraries or anything; simply install the “Plex for Kodi” AddOn from the AddOn store within Kodi and it will connect to your local Plex server. It works pretty well for us.

[tsolignani]

Yep, I am still on Android 9, no intentions to upgrade. It might be that.

Thank you I’ll try that!

[FordGuy61]

Have you tried selecting different audio tracks?

What happens if you select an EAC3 audio track and no subtitles?

The first audio tracks are HE-AAC, which is less common than AAC-LC. It should not be a problem, but the Plex client may not like the HE-AAC format.

---

A couple of other things to try:

Optimize the file using Subler

Load the file into Subler and Optimize it.

This re-arranges some header bits in MP4 files so the client has to buffer less data before playing the media. It is also called MP4 Fast Start. It will show in Plex as “Web Optimized” (look at the Media section of the file info you provided).

This applies only to the mp4/m4v container, not to mkv or other containers.

The FFMPEG CLI equivalent is: ffmpeg -i INPUT -map 0 -c:v copy -c:a copy -movflags faststart OUTPUT.mp4
The input can be any container supported by FFMPEG. This remuxes the file to a mp4 container and optimizes it for web streaming.

FYI, Subler is a nice Mac-only tool for remuxing MP4/M4V files. It can also download metadata from several online sources.

Remove unnecessary audio and subtitle tracks

The file has ten audio tracks and nine subtitle tracks: 5 x AAC; 5 x EAC3; 9 x MOV_TEXT.

Consider removing any unnecessary tracks. It will reduce the amount of data the Plex server has to stream to the clients and the amount the client has to process.

I am not aware of any limits with Plex Android clients, but some other clients have limits on the maximum amount of tracks they can handle.

You can easily remove any unneeded tracks with Subler (and optimize the file as a last step).

You’ll need to manually re-analyze the movie when moving it back into Plex (so PMS will pick up the changes). Alternately, put it in a test library of type Other Videos. Plex won’t try to match it to any online databases. It is a quick way to check if the movie plays OK without loading it into your primary movie library.