Hi All -
I’ve updated to the latest HDGrandSlam but both the Plex Program Guide and HDGS are unusable. They now both buffer for a long time, play about 10 seconds of video, and go back to buffering. I’m trying to watch via Roku from a Windows Laptop with an original core i5 chip. I tried this on the latest public stable, then for kicks downloaded the latest beta. Both are no luck. Prior to this week, HDGS had been fine for about 6 months. Here are my questions:
- Is there something in my settings I can adjust to fix this? I don’t need the highest quality transcode.
- Are other people having more luck with updated hardware, or is this a common issue?
I suppose I can roll all the way back to 1.9, but would prefer not to.
What is the cpu usage on your windows laptop while you play? Is it wired? Having the plex server and the Roku both wireless can have problems, as wifi is like a walkie talkie - only one can talk at a time even with 40mhz wifi frequency width setting. I run at 20mhz.
Try enabling hardware acceleration in transcoding settings if you have an i5 that shows up with intel quick sync video (you can check your model on ark.intel.com to see if it has it. My home wifi is just fine with the roku’s on it and the plex server being wired. We can watch live tv on 4 tvs at the same time with my i5-3470. Avoid the current plex beta version it has major problems - I tried it less than a day and reverted and everything is good again, the current version that is like two weeks old is good.
Windows laptop is wired to the router with the HDHomeRun. I don’t think the hardware supports the hardware transcoding. Looked it up before and it only supports your generation & up. Sounds like you’re working fine with slightly newer hardware. Guess I’m going to need to hunt down something newer to run it on…
One other possible issue. I store all my media files on a Synology NAS for my libraries (also wired to my network). Does Plex try to cache to the NAS instead of the laptop? I was poking around in there and it looked like a cache had been used today from that location.
it uses the transcoding directory specified in the transcoding server settings to store it.
What kind of CPU usage does the laptop have while its transcoding? If its 80% max while your watching live tv, its good enough. Its when you have peaks of 100% when it can get behind and cause pauses. It will use slightly less cpu if you lower the roku’s video quality settings within the plex app on the Roku, try the highest 720 bitrate, and lower and watch the resulting cpu usage on the plex server’s processor to compare.
Also, if you have windows 10, watch task manager to see the C drives busy %. If that maxes out and its also your transcoding location you’ll have problems. Spinning disk laptop drives are pretty weak, if your laptop suddenly decides to do something else it can max out the spinning disks io capabilities if its lots of random io.
Thanks for all the info! I forgot the cardinal rule of IT - ‘did you try turning it off & on again?’ My kid started streaming Nick Jr on the Roku with stuttering. I rebooted the Roku and HDGS is working again. I’ll take a look at the task manager and see. I need to upgrade the server, glad to hear it’s working for others. Are you using HDGS or the built in streaming with Plex?
I found the fix for this if you happen to stumble on this feed -
Go into Live TV & DVR settings. Click the gear next to your HDHomeRun and dial the transcoder back to 30fps. That seemed to fix my issues. I believe HDGrandSlam does this in their own settings, which is why I had no problems there and issues with Plex. Hope that helps
