I’ve got the most perPLEXing thing happening and I’m at my wit’s end.
Been streaming content from my friend’s Plex server for years without issue, but over the last couple days when I pick something to watch it buffers and buffers, then says my connection is too slow. We have fiber service with synchronous 500+ down/up; all tests show full speed.
Our primary device is a current gen Apple TV 4K, and this is where this issue began. I tried the app on our Roku TV, same thing. I tried the Roku Premiere downstairs, same thing. I tried my iPhone, same thing. I tried this laptop, same thing. I rebooted everything, no joy. I tried lowering the stream quality, no joy.
Plex Live TV works perfectly. Other services (Amazon, Hulu, Kanopy, AppleTV+) all work perfectly.
Now I know what you’re thinking - it’s gotta be my friend’s server. Nope. He’s running synchronous gigabit fiber, and I reached out to a couple friends who stream from the same server and it’s working perfectly for them.
Jep, got this problem too.
Trying to watch stuff from a buddy but it stutters like crazy. Doesn’t matter if Apple TV, Plex for Mac or the browser. He has 500/500 connection (so this shouldn’t be the issue).
You could ask your friend to check the server dashboard when you’re attempting to stream remotely from your home.
Focus on:
Is the stream listed as remote or indirect? Even if their remote access setup is General ok, there could be some networking issue on your end, preventing a direct remote connection and resulting in the stream to run over a Plex Relay.
An transcoding going on that might not be the case when their other friends stream?
They could have configured a restriction on their server, e.g. on the number of allowed transcodes
Yep, my friend is also having this issue when watching some 4k HDR content from my server. I have a 1000/400 connection and he has an Apple TV 4K 3rd Gen with 1000/100 connection. Constant buffering. From the recent posts here it seems like a bug.
This is definitely a Plex app on AppleTV issue, but it’s not consistent. Some media won’t play at all, other times I’ll get transcoder crash issues, other times it will just spin and give me a bandwidth of failure error. I hop over to the Google TV, NO problems! This has suddenly been happening for a week or so now. IDK if it is because of a Plex update or the ATV updating to tvOS 26. Either way, it’s making Plex on Apple TV practically unusable.
Might as well just use Infuse at that point (which is what I have now had to resort to for the ability to watch videos from a remote Plex installation because Plex is now turned to crap on Apple TV.
