Just another update.
If I stream using the Plex client on the LG TV I didn’t get any infinite buffering problems (testing this morning it’s now getting a few issues though) . When checking the network graph on the Plex server, this shows a lot of activity, varying up/down in the 10-30 Mbps range (averaging around 25 at a guess) , which is what you would expect.
However this network graph tells a different story from the Shield: an initial spike of around 380 Mbps then settling to around 20 for a minute or two and then dropping to zero with no further attempts. Subsequently infinite buffer occurs and it seems the client just gives up.
Yes, I also noticed eternal buffering, but it is treated like this - return to the main folder (a few clicks on the remote control to the left) and then again stand on the same file and play
Really annoying! Checked all the possible causes, no change. If there’s not something changing fast I will switch back to Kodi! Loved it till the last few months. if I can’t play videos correct, of what use is the media player than?
Very disappointed that this is still an issue.
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Agree very disappointed that this is such an issue!
try this Plex client may be the problem will be solved
I did try then nightly build, however it seems to fall back to transcode every-time, and cannot do direct play. Non-nighltiy works (when it does) by direct playing fine.
For me, 23.976 fps material almost never just starts playing. But if I start and stop some 25 fps material first, just let it start so that the fps rate is switched, the 23.976 fps material mostly work after that.
25 fps material is not guaranteed to work, but it does most of the times.
So, as an alternative to my pretty much useless 2017 Shield, what player could be recommended? The Roku Ultra?
This one works for me, too.
I have gone to an old Roku Ultra as a stand in for my 2015 Shield which was running the latest version of the Plex app for Android. The Roku just works. High approval from the wife and kids. The only thing that I notice is that with the Roku Ultra it Direct Streams my mkv content and often has to transcode the audio stream. Transcoding the audio stream is not a big deal - uses next to zero CPU on a Intel i7 running Windows 10. With the Shield (when it worked), it would Direct Play both the video and audio streams. I fully recommend the Roku Ultra as a standby player until the issues get sorted with the Android client. And from what I have seen, it is not a developer priority at Plex since they have been having issues ever since switching to the new version of Exoplayer. My question for the devs is why not use a different player? Obviously Exoplayer is the weak link here.
Thanks for the review! The Roku is not that easy to find here in Sweden, so we’ll see if I need to explore that option.
Right now the nightly build seems to work on the Shield when disabling the refresh rate switching. Just tested it briefly and noted that every movie/show started without problem. Will use more tonight and examine if I get the transcode issue? That may be “less bad” than not being able to watch at all…
https://forums.plex.tv/t/android-new-video-demuxer-for-improved-playback/764448
Sorry this a bit of a rant, but using the Android TV app is pretty depressing experience. (I do keep asking myself why I bother)
Decide to sit down and watch a TV Show last night. Infinite buffering when trying to start, so go back try again, starts instantly. so think great… then halfway through it starts buffering every few seconds. Back out and resume playback, same buffering every few seconds. Hardly the expected behaviour of an app designed to play video.
Am I really expected to go and gather logs, when all I want to do is watch something, nope, tbh there seem to be so many issues with Plex these days, I would spend more time collecting and posting logs than actually watching anything…
So I gave up and launched kodi with the Plex add on. could resume playback from where I left it, started playing straight away and it played back perfectly through to the end.
I think the fallback to transcode is related to DNS. I was seeing issues where the android box could not resolve an IP like
192-168-100-20.{some_guid}.plex.direct to 192.168.100.20.
I use pfSense for my DNS and it has settings that prevent it resolving non local domains to private reserved address [I have relay and remote access turned off]. As a result it seems to fall back to transcode.
Once I made this change seems that plex.direct was properly resolving and it was able to DirectPlay instead of transcode. Hope this helps someome.
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Same issue here, worked fine for a couple of years…for the past 3 or 4 weeks the Plex app has been increasingly buggy and now is pretty much unusable on my shields, chromebook, Pixel 6, or remotely on any platform. I factory reset my shields which resolved their issues for a week or so but now both units are fubar again. Turning off hardware encoding/decoding as suggested in some other threads did not help either.
Initial tests on version 8. 29.1.30697 are worse than release build with infinite buffering occurring more frequently.
Fast forwarding or rewinding more often than not will cause infinite buffering.
Server network graph shows an initial spike on playback, but then drops right off. Then infinite buffering.
Update again.
Just installed the current beta available from the play store on the Shield and initially this looked really promising. However after skipping to approx half way through a film the dreaded infinite buffer started again.
hmm… am not seeing that I guess last few weeks the switch to ExoPlayer has been a bit more buggy than expected.
Seems I may have spoken too soon.
The last two streams off my NAS (plex server) have played through without infinite buffering issues.
Fingers crossed this continues 
Hi,
Is it related to the HDD being idle, then waking on, but for the client its taking too long to launch?
I also have this issue with latest beta version of plex on my shield. No problem with the samsung tizen client.
It seems that the issue is only coming when the hdd of my server is in idle.
Infinite loop, then the idle disk is spining up, then I push back button and play again, working instantly…
If I am spinning up all of my hdd before playing, it won’t infinite buffer (both direct play or transcode).
If the wake up of the hdd takes too long then infinite loop…
While doing it with the samsung client, it seems “waiting” the disk to be ready before playing the stream…
Nas = unraid server + multiple 14TB white WD cmr disks + nvme as cache
My hdd never gets to sleep and i have the spinning whell, too. Even between episodes. Only this “inofficial” beta posted some times ago works for me.
