Server Version#: 1.30.2.6563
Player Version#: 11.5.0
Tuner Make/Model: HDHomeRun FLEX 4K
Guide/Lineup name: ? (whatever the default was)
Using XMLTV?: No?
Channel number/Name: All
Today I bought and activated an HDHomeRun FLEX 4K – it works, but not with Plex.
Problem:When I watch live tv via the plex app on Roku, buffering happens every couple of seconds and then streaming stops with an error about signal quality. This happens only with Live TV and happens on all channels.
When I use the HDHomeRun app on these same Roku devices all channels stream with perfect clarity and zero buffering. The only time this happens is when I use the Plex app on those same devices to watch.
I’ve tried this on two different Roku devices (a Roku Premiere+ (4k) and a Roku TV (4k)) and both have the exact same behavior.
Everything else from my plex server streams perfectly to the Roku devices, and this even includes when transcoding and/or streaming 4k content stored on my plex server. The buffering only happens with Live TV.
The signal quality reaching my antenna is excellent.
I have no idea what to try next to troubleshoot this issue further. I’ve attached logs, and I did look at them, but really don’t know what I’m looking at.
Which CPU is in that server? You have Hardware Transcoding enabled but it is failing to activate the video drivers.
Under server settings uncheck Verbose but leave Debug logging enabled and restart your server.
WiFi isn’t going to cut it, with the stream coming from the HDHR, then being transcoded and sent back out to the Roku, well wifi just doesn’t handle that well.
On the Roku is a check box to enable Mpeg2, that will at least take care of the Video transcoding.
The processor is a Intel(R) Core™ i7-9700KF CPU @ 3.60GHz. Just FYI, much earlier today I had tried all this with hardware transcoding disabled and that didn’t appear to change anything.
In response to your post, I found and enabled the MPEG 2 option of the Roku plex app and enabled that. I also unchecked verbose logging, restarted the server, and then tried again to play live tv. The result was the same. That log file is attached here:
Just a few notes about my wifi setup too – the HDHR is connected to my eero router by ethernet cable. The plex server sits right next to that router and is connected via Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) and reports a 433/433 (Mbps) connection (can’t hardwire both the server and the HDHR b/c eero only has 1 open ethernet port).
The roku devices both get strong wi-fi signal, and stream 4k movies and tv from my server, even when I force those to transcode. For example, an episode at 21 Mbps 4k will direct play fine, and if I change the playback settings to make it 20 Mbps 4k, then the server will transcode it, and it still plays fine. All of this makes me suspect that Wi-Fi speed and the CPU aren’t the problem. But please let me know if that doesn’t make sense.
Again, really appreciate the reply and suggestions for troubleshooting!
The KF would explain why no VAAPI found, it doesn’t have a iGPU. Whatever you GPU is, it isn’t being used. If you run Plex as a Service this will happen.
Server log looks normal, stream continued until stopped by client. If their was buffering then the connection is the likely suspect. At the risk of complicating things you could plug a 5 port switch into the Eero and then plug the HDHR and Computer in via ethernet then you would only have wifi between the Eero and Roku. The HDHR only has a 100Mbit port and might be causing buffering issues with the Eero.
tl/dr: Disabling HDR Tone Mapping on the Plex Media Server fixed the problem.
Thanks for the info; you’ve led me to this fix by pointing out that my GPU wasn’t doing the transcoding.
I have an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 graphics card in my server. With some additional help from Google, I learned that the HDR Tone Mapping setting in Plex, when enabled, prevents the NVIDIA GPU from handling transcoding. So I tried disabling it. When it is disabled, the Live TV issue goes away completely.
Now I’m just hoping that turning that feature off won’t affect picture quality too much on other content from my server.
