Hi, I’m using FireFox to view the Plex Web Live TV streaming from app.plex.tv/desktop/…
I had it set up and was using it well for at least a month, perhaps a bit longer, and all of a sudden about 1 week ago, again, perhaps a little longer, the streaming player started suddenly crashing.
I tried many different streaming “channels” like NoseyTV, Crime360, and many others, and they all keep dying or crashing randomly after several minutes of viewing. It will reliably crash within about a half-hour to an hour at the most, sometimes it dies immediately after starting viewing, like in 2-5 seconds or so. Other times it will run for 20-30 minutes or a bit more then die mysteriously. It seems to crash at top & bottom (:30) of the hour most often, or some time near then, so maybe it’s ad-related, possibly.
I am afraid this is initiated at Plex’s end in a way to control excess bandwidth usage and try to limit stream usage by kicking viewers. I sincerely hope that’s not the reason; if so, Plex needs to buy more servers!
I have taken logs from 2 different days, I hope that they contain a diagnostic clue as to what is going on. I haven’t seen any other posts here related to this problem, so I am taking from that that it’s not a systemic problem with the streaming channels Plex is offering, but something local has happened to my set up. I use WoW internet, and I have tried VPNs so I don’t think it’s ISP filtering or any internet transport issues. I use one less version of FireFox than the latest and greatest since I absolutely abhor the new “Proton” interface that completely screwed up the UI of the Windows (at least) version of FireFox. I am running version 90.0.2 with updates disabled by system administrator (via a policy). I have tried deleting caches, cookies, etc. I have tried turning on and off ad blockers within FireFox, NoScript and AdBlock plugins are both disabled, and I have tried turning on and off hardware optimization, both in FireFox and in Plex. I am just about out of ideas!
I hope the logs contain a clue. Here’s the list of points of interest in the logs, I noticed the log times are UTC, and the local times I have listed are Central Time:
8/30/2021:
6:09 crashed w no err msg
6:10 resumed
6:14 crashed w no err msg
9/1/2021:
3:36 Debug On
4:27 crashed w no err msg
4:27 resumed
4:30 restarted player
4:51 paused about 5 secs?
5:18 crashed w no err msg
5:19 resumed
6:09 crashed w no err msg
6:10 resumed
7:00 crashed w no err msg
7:01 resumed
7:25 crashed w no err msg
7:26 resumed
7:30 Debug Off
Thanks for your time in advance!
Mr. T
Plex Web Player Debug Logs.zip (39.9 KB)
A quick update - I also tried Chrome and no luck. It keeps crashing, usually very close to the end of the program, usually a minute or two before it ends. With Chrome the crashing seems a little less random and seems to happen more at the ends of shows, so somehow it seems related to that, perhaps?
Another update. It’s worse than ever. At the start and end of shows, usually around the top or the bottom of the hour, the player regularly terminates with no error message. Occasionally, it does put up a generic error message, but it’s not helpful. When the “terminator packet” gets sent at the half-hour intervals, it sends a bunch of them in a row. As fast as I can restart the playback it terminates again, usually about 5 times, then it stops and stabilizes then plays for a half hour again until the next end of show break. This has to be initiated at Plex’s end, I can’t believe there is no one else having this issue! THIS FULLY RENDERS THE SERVICE COMPLETELY UNUSABLE! Having to restart viewing several times an hour is infuriating. I am going to have to abandon Plex Live TV completely and go back to using and recommending PlutoTV if this nonsense continues. If you need to kick viewers for bandwidth, fine - but at least put up an error message or some sort of “Are you still watching” prompt before auto-cancelling the viewing.
