HTPC Hangs on black screen after Skip Credits on last episode if autoplay next is set to immediately

[a351must2]

Server Version#: 1.41.5.9522
Player Version#: v.1.70.1.303-5bbf114f

Plex HTPC Hangs on a black screen after clicking Skip Credits on the last episode of a series if auto-play next is set to immediately. Plex HTPC process must be killed and restarted to recover. The black screen isn’t completely static, the scrubber bar will show up, but you can’t navigate it and the app doesn’t respond to any mouse clicks or keyboard shortcuts.

This issue has actually been around for quite some time with Plex HTPC, but I only recently experienced it myself after changing the auto-play to immediately. A friend of mine has been complaining to me about the issue for over a year, probably since the auto-play options were added. I couldn’t help her since I couldn’t figure out how to reproduce the issue on my own system so I assumed it’s just her machine.

For some reason it also affects watching movies and will hang with the black screen after any movie. On Series it only happens if there is no more episodes to play after the one you skipped credits on. I’ve also reproduced randomly at the end of the last episode without pressing Skip Credits, but I can’t reproduce that every time like I can with Skip Credits.

Reproducing is easy:
Enable automatically playing the next episode
Set the delay before playing to immediately
Watch the last episode of a series where the Skip Credits button will skip the rest of the episode
Enjoy your black screen (press “\” to leave fullscreen and close the window to get out of Plex. Press “\” again after re-launching to get back to full screen.

[JohnAlex]

@a351must2

Reproducing is easy:

I couldn’t reproduce it.

Server Version#: 1.41.4.9463
Player Version#: Version 1.70.1.303

Edit - I don’t run Beta Server versions anymore unless the beta has something I must have. Your HTPC player version also seems unusual ?

[a351must2]

I listed the wrong player version … I just updated it from what Plex HTPC actually says in About and it’s the same as yours.

[JohnAlex]

Well, hopefully it gets resolved.

I can only say with my hardware/software, I cannot replicate the issue.

Also, whilst I changed settings to try and replicate the issue, I never use ‘play immediately’ as I find it too jarring.

[BigWheel]

@a351must2 is this on Mac, Windows, linux?

[a351must2]

Windows 11 with current AMD drivers for my system and Windows 11 with nVidia drivers for my friends … mentioning video drivers before it gets asked, but the blank black screen does still show the scrubbing bar when I press the up arrow, so it’s not completely blank. Repeating also that my friend has had this issue for quite a while, but she used the “immediately” option long before I tried it. I prefer a least 5 seconds myself.

Possibly related issue I forgot to mention is that with it set to 5 seconds, clicking Skip Credits will take you to the page that the 5 second counter should show on, but the counter doesn’t run and you have to click or press enter to play the next episode.