Server Version#: irrelevant
Player Version#: irrelevant
This issue is not version specific it’s been happening since I purchased the lifetime Plex Pass , I’ve been using it on a Synology NAS for 8 years now!
The issue is when I try to play anything from the NAS to a Sony AVR using several Rokus a Nvidia Shield or the app in my OLED LG TV . The sound will cut out randomly. This only happens with the AVR using the HDMI ARC or regular HDMI and Also fiber optic. I have no issues with a Bose sound bar. Or a Polk sound bar. Their is nothing wrong with the Sony AVR it works fine with any other source! I’ve been randomly asking for support but the forums just run me around and Plex themselves don’t get the message that there’s a Issue that needs to be addressed. How do I let the engineers at Plex know about this issue? I have so many movies and TV shows I don’t want to switch to another platform but soon I will have no choice if I want real surround from my collection. Right now my only option is to connect a gaming laptop to the AVR and Play the video manually with other software over HDMI . I’ve unfortunately told others that Plex is the way to go some have Sony AVRs having the same issues! I now regret telling them to buy the Plex Pass. And I know this post will close after 3 months like the others I’ve submitted.
From your brief description of the issue above, it sounds very much like a HDMI connection issue between your TV and AVR.
An easy way to check this would be to wait until the audio fails again, then wriggle or unplug/plug the connectors at either end of the cable and see if the audio returns, even if only temporarily.
You can try cleaning the cable connectors (not an easy task) or you can try replacing the HDMI cable. I do not advocate buying ridiculously over priced (read, scam) HDMI cables, but do try other brands/sources of cable.
And yes, I have suffered from very similar issues myself and for me at least, the cure was replacing the cable.
I don’t normally post on other folks threads here but I can tell you I have a similar setup with Roku’s in every room and Plex and in my main room a Yamaha receiver.
When you are using Plex on a Roku and it’s just a stereo TV things are fairly simple but you must understand there are a few layers of things going on even there.
When you introduce a receiver to pass audio through it complicates things up a bit. You have the Plex server, the Roku, the Plex client on the Roku and the receiver all with it’s own sound settings and detections. HDMI itself also has a role in this.
All my Roku’s I have their sound set to “auto” and for stereo TVs that works fine as everything auto detects just fine and the sound will get transcoded to stereo although recently I see Roku/Roku Plex client NOT transcoding multi-channel sound and just playing it on stereo. I like it. But I digress.
On my main room TV with the receiver I have that Roku set to passthrough. I don’t want the Roku to dink with the sound at all, just send it to the receiver which does its thing and sends it all to the TV via HDMI.
This works stably for me. But there is a hitch. Roku, at this time (not even an Ultra), cannot handle uncompressed sound streams. So for example, if I play a 4K movie with a TrueHD stream, it will get transcoded to EAC3. This works well and it still sounds good. Now that Nvidia Shield you have CAN handle uncompressed sound streams so that is a difference there.
I personally suspect when you play your stuff on your receiver it is getting transcoded differently than your other clients and either your NAS (this is why I use a PC for Plex itself) either does not have enough umph to do the transcoding or the output of the transcoding is wigging out your receiver. I do not know what device you are using to play through your receiver but I suggest dinking with the sound detection on that (so if it’s a Roku maybe turn on passthrough) and possible check settings on the receiver. You might also watch Plex to see what it’s doing or doing different from one client to the next.
If I just made you read all that and it helps zero I apologize.
An update this happens even using Fiber Optic I’ve replaced all HDMI cables I only have issues with Plex Rokus, Nvidia Shield Pro and regular. It’s definitely something with how Plex is sending the audio. It also doesn’t matter if the Video is sending 2 Channel auditor 7.1 and everything in between.
This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.
