I am struggling to get Live TV working on my Plex Media Server (macOS) using Dispatcharr (Via Docker Desktop) as a tuner proxy. While the tuner setup completes successfully in the Plex dashboard, playback consistently fails across multiple clients.
The Problem: When I tune to a channel, the macOS “Recording Started” notification appears, but the player fails shortly after.
Error Code:s1001 (Network)
Behavior by Client:
Chrome / iOS / PS5: Fails immediately with the s1001 error.
Chromecast with Google TV: Plays video, but has no audio.
The Setup & Comparison:
Server: Plex Media Server v1.43.0.10492 running on macOS 26.3.1 (25D2128) Mac Mini M4
Tuner Proxy: Dispatcharr running on the same Mac.
The “Control” Test: I booted up my old Plex Server on my old Windows machine while keeping Dispatcharr on the Mac. In this configuration, everything worked perfectly, which suggests the issue is specific to the Plex Media Server installation or permissions on macOS.
What I’ve Tried:
Restarted Mac and Plex Server multiple times.
Uninstalled/Reinstalled Plex Media Server.
Performed a factory reset of the Mac.
Confirmed that the HDHomerun proxy (localhost:9191 & 192.168.68.63:9191) is reachable.
Tried Threadfin (Threadfin_darwin_arm64) instead of Dispatcher and it doesn’t work
Tried getting Claude AI & Gemini to help debug it, rattling of command codes left right and centre.
Logs: I have attached a snippet of the console logs. (cleared the logs, tried playing a stream. Then copied)
Any help would be greatly appreciated as I currently ‘have a £700 somewhat paper weight’ as the wife called it. I’ve also been trying to get it working for 2 days straight…
(Some) Mac-based servers have a problem right now when hardware-accelerated video encoding is used for live TV. Try disabling “User hardware-accelerated video encoding” in Settings -> [Select Server Name] -> Transcoder (Show Advanced) to see if that helps.
Keep in mind also that proxy tuners are not officially supported by Plex. If you’re using it proxy a real HDHomeRun tuner, I’d suggest just configuring Plex to use the tuner directly. If using it to proxy IPTV, then I’m not sure there’s any support to be had.
It would be best to send full logs, or at the very least, the full server log showing the play attempt. Snippets are rarely helpful, particular if they’ve been altered/redacted.
I’ve used xTeVe/Threadfin in the past just to try them out to see if they offer any benefit over just using a real tuner directly. In my experience, they do not. I’ve not tested Dispatcharr, so I don’t really have any experience to share there. Does it allow you to buffer the stream through FFMPEG as xTeVe or Threadfin does?
And while I’d never suggest anyone move away from Plex generally, if your primary goal (or even a major goal) is to use an IPTV service, Plex may not be your best option. They make absolutely zero concessions for that use-case.
Hi really appreciate the input, but I think the core of my issue is being missed here.
The “Control” test I mentioned is the most important part. The exact same Dispatcharr instance and IPTV source works perfectly when I point my old Windows Plex Server at it. This proves the proxy is fine and the stream is valid. The failure only happens when the macOS M4 Apple Silicon version of Plex is the receiver.
Regarding the hardware acceleration tip, I already tried toggling that both on and off before posting. It does not solve the issue. Whether it’s on or off, the stream still fails with an s1001 error on macOS, while the Windows machine handles the exact same setup without a hitch.
I’m well aware that proxy tuners aren’t “officially supported,” but they emulate a standard HDHomerun. If the Windows build handles the MPEG-TS stream fine and the macOS build throws an s1001 or plays without audio, that points to a platform-specific bug or a transcoder regression on Apple Silicon. It isn’t a proxy problem.
I’m not looking for a reason to switch platforms or “unsupported” disclaimers. I am trying to figure out why a Apple Silicon is failing at a task my old Windows box handles it fine. I’ll grab the full logs, but I’m looking for a fix for what is clearly a macOS or M-series specific failure, or at least get it raised as a bug which needs fixing.
Right, this is why I mentioned the known, Mac-specific issue with some Apple silicon-based servers and live TV. I’ll see if I can dig up one of the threads. The workaround I found was to disable HW-accelerated encoding (HW-acceleration can generally be left enabled)
All the testing I performed was with an HDHomeRun Flex 4K with OTA broadcasts in 480i, 720p, and 1080i (all MPEG2VIDEO). This was on an M2 MacBook Air-based server. In all cases, with HW-accelerated encoding enabled it would fail. I’d suggest leaving that off for the time being just to ensure it isn’t contributing to the failures in your case.
Yeah, I probably should have just left that part out. Or perhaps worded it differently. Mea culpa.
Edit:
I found the thread I was referring to:
There are others floating around out there. It seems that even in that thread the “encoding” workaround didn’t work for everybody; so, it’s obviously not a panacea.
Also, there’s another active thread for live TV playback issues (this one was started for Linux). Plex provided a test PMS build in that thread which may be worth trying. I’ll link the post here:
Hi, thanks again for getting back to me. Apologies if my previous message come across as rude. Not my intention!
I’ve tried tinkering with the above and it still fails to load. (hardware transcoding / disabling encoding and the universal version) I’ve even tried threadfin again and it still fails to load.
Strangely enough after swapping to the universal version the s1001 (network) error didn’t appear, but was swiftly replaced with a ‘check your tuner‘.
Doing a bit of digging into the console logs I think it might be an audio codec issue. Mainly the fact that it either fails to load correctly or OS X 26 (apple silicon) doesn’t have compatibility…
I’ve since bumped the PMS back to the latest version and tried some stream profiles in Dispatcharr, mainly around the audio codecs, I’ve even forced no audio via the stream. But I’m out of luck as they all still fail.
I could try my luck for the Plex team to hopefully! read this thread and raise it as a bug and fix it. Not sure how much luck I have as Dispatcharr isn’t an approved service / office support. Just annoying as it works on Windows fine.
If you randomly come across anything on your travels, feel free to remember me!
Again massive thank you for your support here. Really appreciate the time and effort you went too.
Not sure if this will fix your issue - but it did mine. In Dispatcharr stream settings, make a new stream, use FFMPEG and VLC as agent. Put this in arguments. Let me know if it works for you!
