Inability to play live TV via Plex but fine elsewhere. (New take on an old chestnut?)

Live TV & DVR
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Server Version#: 1.41.0.8994.-70008994 (synology)
Player Version#: 1.102.0.230-7301ebfb
Tuner Make/Model: VBox 3442 DVB-T/T2 running v2.66 firmware (latest supported)
Guide/Lineup name: Default Plex Guide (Gracenote?) for UK Freeview channels
Using XMLTV?: No
Channel number/Name: All BBC channels

I have a fully functioning VBox tuner setup. I can verify that all the Freeview channels can be seen on all my home networked devices through both the VBox apps and also VLC.

However, within the Plex Live TV option, all the BBC Channels - BBC 1, 2 and Four - both HD and SD - fail to display with the usual “Playback Error. Could not tune channel. Please check your tuner or antenna.” message.

I have had this problem for quite some time - at least a year - but haven’t really decided to get to the bottom of this until now. So, I can’t be certain when these channels stopped working - but they used to be fine.

I have been doing a lot of reading on the forums and was struck by the extensive work being done around a similar issue in the thread VBOX DVR tuning issue for Sydney Australia. And there are a few posts around similar issues with tuners other than VBox, e.g. DVR not able to playback / record HD channels.

It seems to me that the issue may be the way in which Plex interfaces with Gracenote, Perhaps it’s that the Gracenote data is malformed, or the Plex interface is somehow misusing the data it’s getting.

Looking at the Plex logs, I see that when I try to livestream BBC TWO, Plex is attempting to open http://192.168.0.33:55555/devices/vbox-4C57/media/BBC%20TWO, which results in a failure. The message in the log says “Connection refused”

And, when I livestream ITV 1, it works. The URL that is being addressed is http://192.168.0.33:55555/devices/vbox-4C57/media/ITV1.

If I go to VLC and enter these two URLs, both play successfully.

(I’m wondering whether Plex mangling the handling of the “%20” white space in the channel name. All the BBC channels have a space in their names).

Anyway, I’m putting this out here to see if anyone else is successfully watching BBC channels via the Freeview EPG download. If so, what tuner and Plex server versions are you using?

Or are there any other ideas on what may be happening?

Could not tune channel. Please check your tuner or antenna
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A quick update: I spotted a post in another thread that suggested some operations work in the Apple TV Plex client but not in the Plex web client. And so it proved.

Through Plex on the Apple TV, I am able to watch BBC 2 SD and HD but all other BBC channels fail to launch.

I had a quick look through the logs but there’s nothing that’s obviously helpful to share.

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