Trying to use the Android App on a Sony TV or a Shield has become quite a depressing experience.
It seems to have so many issues. Playback is very much a hit and miss affair, sometimes it will play some times it won’t. If you keep trying to play a file it will usually play after a few attempts.
If a lot of these problems are related to Exo Player then maybe it is time for Plex to consider some sort of alternative. As the current situation is not a good look for Plex.
Is there any update on this? All my shield clients are suffering this issue now!!! Seriously Plex! I dumped all my Xbox Ones as player because of all the buffering issues and bought shields and now this.
I’m seeing this too on my shield. Fortunately I’m not as affected as some on this thread.
For me, if I get the buffering circle all I need to do is hit back and then play again. It normally plays the second time, worst case it maybe takes 5 loads to start playing the file.
I’ve given up on using the nvidia shield. It just consistently fails for me. The built-in plex player on my cheap TCL tv works consistently, but it is obviously much slower.
Also seeing this issue on my shield as a player
This issue has recently developed for me too. (Shield Pro 2019 as player / Overpowered TrueNAS running plex in a jail)
Seems generally confined to hi quality MP4 with dolby vision and TrueHD audio.
Native Plex App on Shield buffers constantly after about 2 minutes into a file, though running Plex through Kodi (but still on the same shield) things fare much better (but still not perfect)
PMS server logs fills with the same errors in both the above scenarios, despite the file successfully playing in one and not the other:
"Failed to stream media, client probably disconnected after xxxxxxx bytes: 32 – Broken pipe."
This speaks of a network problem, however shield and NAS are both connected over gig ethernet (and these errors don’t show when playing other similarly sized or even larger containers that include the same attributes)
Something very screwy, suspect dolby vision is the culprit somewhere along the way.
Getting the same issue here using Nividia Shield as client.
Have 3 seperate plex servers on my network and the issue definitely seems to be the client, as playback issues happen across all 3 servers, from 1080p to 4k content.
On some 1080p content, I can see the video buffering (from the timeline bar), but this buffering also stops at random points, when the video catches up, same infinite circle. Buffering doesn’t even seem to retry.
My phone client seems to be absolutely fine.
Shield client has been spot on until the last few days. I don’t know what’s happened but it’s very annoying now.
Network connection is 5ghz mesh.
Edit - my LG TV is on the same network and the Plex app works perfectly on that. I don’t use that though as it can’t output Dolby Atmos/hdmi passthrough.
OK problem seems to be solved by deleting all app content (cache and storage), uninstalling and reinstalling again. All content now appears to be playing flawlessly again.
Tried the above steps as you mentioned @P5y and still having issues, especially with DTS 5.1 content.
@holdfast77 would you mind messaging me your android logs after it fails.
@BigWheel sure thing - as soon as I’m off work for the day. Thanks!
Edit: Logs have been sent as requested.
Deleting and reinstalling doesn’t solve the issue. FFS I bought the shields as Plex refused to fix the infinite buffering loops on the Xbox and now this.
I’m also having the same issues with both of my 2019 Shield Pro’s and a local Plex server installed on a fresh W10 environment on new 11th gen Intel hardware.
Ongoing issue since June/July.
No issues on Apple TV, Roku, iOS, WebOS devices.
I was having this same problem on my shield and not on my 4k apple tv. Cleared cache, uninstalled, reinstalled…problem appears to be gone.
Did you reinstall the plex client or plex server and client apps?
I have been having this problem on my Sony TV for quite a while now. I also get the infinite buffering when I try to jump to the next episode of a TV series. I have deleted the app and reinstalled it and the problem persists. I then purchased a Shield TV and have had the same problems with it. I run my server on a Synology 920+ natively. I also set up a server on my Win 10 Pro box and the problems still persist.
All player and server software has been updated to the latest versions.
All my content plays fine on my Samsung TV with its built in player. I have a Roku Ultra arriving Sunday and after reading this thread, I assume it will work fine with my Sony TV.
I cleared cache, uninstalled and reinstalled on shield and problem still exists. 
Same issue here. What else can we do to show this bug for developers? Very annoying.
I love the shield but it’s becoming very very frustrating.
Nothing helped what you mentioned previously 
Pretty sure it’s all “Android” platforms not the shield that’s at fault. There’s people with other devices with Android OS that are having the issue too.
Spoke too soon. Playback issues again yesterday on the Shield.
Same video file plays back fine using Plex client on my LG TV and on Android phone. Chokes again in the Plex client on the Shield.
All using direct play with no transcoding.
It’s like the client gets a network glitch and then gives up instead of retrying.
