I’ve literally just been having problem after problem after problem after problem with Plex and the Nvidia shield tv. My brother and I share a Plex server, we’re about 100 miles apart and ripped/converted all of our movies and put them on the server which is a Linux-based server located in his closet at his job(he is the owner of a company). The bandwidth up and down is 1 gigabyte, and the hardware is more than sufficient to run at least 20 transcodes, to which only two transcodes will ever be happening at any one time. I constantly get yellow triangles with exclamation points saying something to the effect of lost connection to server. This is gotten better in the last month but it’s still happening. I also constantly get “you’ve been paused for too long“ to which I just started up the app. And when playing 4K remux on about 80% of the titles I play I get heavily artifact gobbledygook… System freezes all the time And I’m constantly having to reboot the system. I actually have to reboot the system pretty much three or four times just to play video because of the connection problem or the paused for too long problem. And with each update to the shield or the Plex app the problems seem to get worse and worse. I thought it was my specific 2017 Nvidia shield so I just purchased a new one the 2019 Nvidia shield pro and all the same problems are still happening, But on every other device I have the Xbox one S, my ipad, my HTPC Plex play is fine.
I opened a ticket with Nvidia and they pointed the finger and said it was my network… Which is interesting because every other device I have please fine with the plex app…
I’m seeing similar problems with my 2019 version (standard version). I’m using it as a Plex Client only, uplinked to the Plex Server on FreeNas (1Gb link)
To be fair it’s only an issue when I throw high rate 4k at it. I get crashes in the player (although Plex Server still thinks it’s playing) and if it’s not crashing, the video & audio can be randomly jumpy. The provided remote control becomes either completely non-responsive, or at best extremely slow.
The large files I am putting through (50-60GB) are derived directly from the 4k disc in X.264 along with a 7.1 Atmos soundtrack more often than not.
The situation seems to resolve though, if I process the file through FFMPEG and convert the video to X.265, retain resolution, HDR and the soundtracks, subs, using a CRF of 22.
As the SHIELD is hooked directly onto the back of a Denon AVC-6500H, then the server does not need to transcode any of the streams (all direct play). Atmos is comfortably passed to the Denon
I can’t help but think that the larger video throughput is straining the SHIELD somewhat. I do not believe it’s the network - if it was then I cannot think how that would cause the remote to become sluggish.
Plex Server Version: 1.18.4.2171
SHIELD TV Client: 7.26.0.14578
SHIELD OS version: 8.1.0(32.7.301.32)
so if your files are really in x264, then they have been converted after/during the rip, and if so they will have lost a lot of quality going from ~60g x265 to ~60g x264.
converting them from x264 to 265 is yet another conversion, which again will reduce overall quality.
as far as player crashes, I don’t seem to have any problems with my shield (2017ish 500gig).
you might check the plex player settings and see if there is an option to enable/disable the new/experimental player, and see if that does anything for your playback.
I don’t think your problem has anything to do with the original poster though, if you continue to have problems, please start a new thread, along the details above and logs reproducing the problem(s).
@teddysurf this sounds more like a problem with the internet connection between your house and your brothers.
you might consider trying to create a VPN between your networks to help rule out if either ISP is filtering/blocking/obstructing plex traffic.
or you could take your shield tv over to your brothers house and try it directly on his local network.
Yes my bad, apologies for the confusion, I’m in transition from dealing mostly with 1080p so my knowledge on 4k isn’t quite yet as intact as I’d like. So what I am doing is keeping the file X.265 encoded, but reducing the file size. I suppose there will be a reduction in the quality, but to my eyes, it’s not discernable.
It is obviously discernable to the player as those freezing/crashing issues do go away. Realise it isn’t exactly the same issue as OP - sorry I will open a new thread if needs be, but thanks, I’ll try switching the player and see if that makes any difference first. Thanks for the tip.
This indicates to me that something may be transcoding. The reason I say this is because if it were purely a bandwidth/throughput issue, you should see buffering only. Artifacting and other stuff typically points to transcoding. Especially when you pile in the “Other devices work just fine” aspect.
One thing I WILL ask, is, are all devices wireless? and are all devices in the same location? Or is the shield hard wired? If so is it hardwired to a 1Gigabit switch and router? Or is something in the chain got a 100mbit port? 4K HDR does commonly peak over 100Mbit, so if there’s anything that is 100Mbit in the string, that will be the limiting factor…
If all the devices are wireless however, and they’re not in the same room, could you, for testing purposes try the shield right next to the Xbox?
Disabled the experimental player and got a perfect playback using the large file. Re-enabled it and everything went to pot again within seconds. I think we have a candidate for the issue. As suggested I’ll open a new thread. Thanks for help.
Disabling the new player was also my solution to this issue. Although occasionally, the regular player will crash Plex too … particularly if it’s trying to resume. Usually just trying again works. The new player however just causes non-stop crashes, buffering, and poor playback for me.
Sorry everyone I got distracted by life and forgot I posted this (I apparently don’t get emails from Plex forum when I get replies to my post…?). Both players do the same exact thing… Somebody said they tried the original player and it worked? When I play the 4K remiux on my Xbox one S everything‘s fine andlay smoothly… I’m also having horrible issues getting my Plex server content to load… I literally have to fight with it for about 10 minutes to get it to load the content and then if I back out of the app and go back in it doesn’t load again and I have to start over.
@teddysurf my issue above is different to yours. However if you’re switching to original from experimental and still seeing the issues, then as @TeknoJunky said, that might point to issues with your internet/network? Have you got something like Tautulli so that you can look to see what transcoding (if applicable) is in progress for the content being looked at?
