iOS Chromecast streaming crashes if you minimize / close / navigate away from the Plex iOS app

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Server Version#: 4.87.2
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Plex IOS App Chromecast Crashing Issue.zip (6.2 MB)

Hello,

NOTE: I tried looking through the forums, but couldn’t seem to track down my specific issue when searching. If the fix for this issue is outlined elsewhere, I’m so sorry if I’ve overlooked another forum post. Please point me in the right direction if so.

I have been having an issue with the iOS Plex app for the past three years, where when you are playing any video, if you minimize the Plex app on your iOS device (NOT force closing the app), if you were to return to it after ~15/20 minutes (to either pause playback or review how much time is remaining on the tv show / movie) the PLEX app will behave like it’s starting up again. Essentially, you see the Plex logo / startup splash screen for a moment and then as soon as the “home” menu loads, the Chromecast stream stops. We’ve also seen this behavior if we receive a notification on our phones and navigate away from the Plex iOS app for ~15 seconds and then return.

What I describe above has been happening to us for over 3 years, since late 2019 / early 2020 (~since iOS 14). We have 3 Chromecast TVs (one with a 1080p dongle, and two other 4K TVs with Chromecast built in) that all exhibit the same issue when using the iOS app. It’s been driving us mad, and I figured I’d try posting this here to see if anyone has any insight. Note using Chromecast from another iOS app (such as the YouTube app) always works flawlessly, so I just have a gut feeling something is going wrong specifically within the iOS plex app itself.

Also FWIW, below is a reddit post I previously made where other people are reporting the same issue:

Finally, I have attached logs from my iOS Plex app and my Media Server incase that is helpful. Note the following timestamps in the logs (all in Atlantic Standard Time, if that’s relevant). I noticed I can re-create the behavior on-demand by force-closing and reopening the iOS Plex app:

  • At ~10:00:00 PM 02/01/2022: I started playback of Andor S01:E01.
  • At ~10:01:00 PM 02/01/2022: I minimized (and then force closed the iOS app).
  • At ~10:02:00 PM 02/01/2022: I reopened the iOS Plex app. As soon as the ‘Home’ section appeared on screen in the app, the Chromecast playback immediately stops.

Any help would be much appreciated. Please let me know if there’s any additional info you need from me to troubleshoot further.

1 Like
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I have the same issue when casting to a chromecast. When I’m playing something the app is behaving as expected. As soon as I pause and then either switch app or lock the phone, the app has closed when I come back to it, and the casting disconnects. The time it has been locked for does not matter, can be a few seconds. This is extremely frustrating as I have to cast and start the movie again every single time I have to pause.
This is reproducible 100% of the time on my iPhone 13 Mini and my SOs iPhone 13 and our iPad (6th gen?)

I also have logs from one of these phones.
Notice these timestamps:
2023/01/03 13:49:16 - Movie paused
2023/01/03 13:49:20 - Screen locked
2023/01/03 13:49:26 - Ending playback ?
2023/01/03 13:49:45 - Startup app again (was not alive when screen unlocked)
com.plexapp.plex 2023-01-03–12-49-06-770.log (341.7 KB)

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Hello, I have recently set up a Plex server on a Synology DS920+ and have exactly the same issue when casting to a Chromecast (both 2nd Gen and CCWGVT) via the Plex ios app. As soon as you navigate away from the app on ios and then later return it cuts the Chromecast connection and restarts the Plex app.

Casting Plex to an Apple TV via the ios app works perfectly. There are no issues casting youtube to the Chromecast.

I hope someone can please help with this?

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I have exactly the same issue here. Have a chromecast ultra and as soon as the screen is off or I switch to another app, it crashes after about 1 min. When restarting the app and reconnecting chromecast it stops the playback and I have to restart. It would be great if it would at least keep playing on the chromecast and get the current cue from the chromecast when reconnecting.

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