MKV movie format no longer playing

General Discussions
1

Hello All,

I’ve seen a few people post a similar issue over the last few years, but not sure I’ve read of a definite fix yet.

I have almost 200 movies in my Plex Server. I have converted all from Blu-Ray disc in both mkv and mp4 format.

All the mkv files have played just fine for the last year or so until the last few weeks. I’m not sure if there was a software rev change or what but my mkv movies now act like they are buffering a lot or will play a few minutes at a time, but then buffer again. I can’t think of anything that has changed on my end.

Every movie seems to get stuck at the same spots. It will get stuck loading at 13%, then maybe like 33%, then etc. No idea what this is about. They are behaving as they did before I figured out that you couldn’t stream mkv (even over my own network) over WiFi. Months ago I added my back bedroom to LAN too and things worked great on both TVs (until recently).

I’m running a WD MyCloud EX2 Ultra as my server and a Roku Premiere+ and Ultra in 2 different rooms as my client. Everything on my network is connected via LAN (not WiFi). Again, all my movies played just fine in mkv format until recently.

Has anyone seen this before or have anything for me to try?

Yes, the mp4 formats will still play just fine, but the mkv formats are much better than mp4 IMHO.

Any feedback or suggestions appreciated!

-Mike

2

Do your MKV files have embedded PGS subtitles which are Forced or selected by default? If so, transcoding will be invoked automatically if the player can’t process them and IIRC, the MyCloud EX2 isn’t strong enough to do that.

3

Hasn’t that been the case for a long time? Was there a recent change?

4

@mcgogators said:
Yes, the mp4 formats will still play just fine, but the mkv formats are much better than mp4 IMHO.

Interesting comment.
I am a mp4 fan and convert everything to mp4.

Considering very likely the mkv and mp4 are using the same x264 codec .
I can only think your mkv being 'much better" has to do with the original converting settings.
If they are ripped or conveted with the same codecs etc they are the same!

Maybe your mp4 have lower resolution or bit rate or compression rate!!

5

Hello All,

Thanks for the feedback, but I’m still really lost. Something must have changed. My 200 movies in mkv format played just fine before. Yes, I’m aware my WD Ex2 Ultra can’t transcode, but it shouldn’t need to. It has played all 200 movies in fully uncompressed mkv format for months and months without issue. Recently though, I started noticing one after another of these movies no longer played in mkv format.

Also, to clarify, I’m fairly new to Plex, having started this process just under a year ago. I saw some people online were converting blu rays to mkv format with the MakeMKV program, then converting that mkv file to mp4 using Handbreak. So that’s what I’ve been doing. So using these Handbreak defaults, my original mkv file is generally large (for example 25GB) and the mp4 file much smaller (maybe 4GB). So, yes, the mkv file is much larger, has higher bit rates and looks better than the mp4 format.

Anyway, you can imagine my current frustration getting these movies into this format and now the mkv files won’t play at all.

HELP!!!

-Mike

6

If you believe it’s a new rev for Roku then I would install the classic version and try. If classic plays fine, I’d say the new Roku version may be the issue. This test shouldn’t take more then a few minutes to try. Worth a shot… I guess…

7

A set of log files, having captured the failure, would go a long way too. Avoid the guesswork

8

It sounds like your MKV are straight Rips while your MP4s are rips that were compressed. If you go view the file information on two exact files (MKV,MP4) you will see the bitrate needed is much lower for the MP4 files.

Yes Plex HAS CHANGED in recent versions and I do think this is causing you grief if my hunch is correct.

What operating system are you running?
If windows would you be open to some one on one help/diagnosis via Teamviewer? I can help you quickly diagnose if my hunch is correct or not and then show you how to resolve this.

If my hunch is wrong we’ll still get good logs to help diagnose the problem.

If you want to do this send me a PM with a good time and we’ll arrange it from there.
Carlo

9

Hello All,

Thank you for the helpful feedback.

I think we’re possibly getting somewhere and maybe on to something.

The bottom line is I think my setup USED TO direct play my large mkv files just fine. I think recently something changed either in Plex or in Roku (or both) so that they don’t seem to direct play correctly any more.

Just for grins, I uninstalled Plex and reinstalled to an older rev. Then when I tried to play the original, uncompressed mkv format, I got a strange error message something about I didn’t have the right CODECs installed to play that. Again, I used to direct play these mkv files for months and months (my entire 200 movie library) without issue.

Anyway, I am working today, but when I have time later, looks like I have a BUNCH of suggestions to try.

By the way, my Plex Server is a WD EX2 Ultra (8TB mirrored), so not the easiest server to work with. I’m also thinking of changing this altogether if this fun keeps up.

-Mike

10

Do us a favor. Play back one of the files that has to transcode that used to play. As soon as it starts to play stop.
Then go to /settings/server/help and grab the log file zip and post it here.

This way we can read the logs and tell you what Plex thinks is the problem. You should be able to do this remotely. :slight_smile:

11

I keep rolling back to old versions of PLEX, because the Updates are breaking MKV-playback on my Mac-PMS (OS X El Capitan) too. Version that still works for me & all my MKVs is 1.3.4.3285.

*** Update to Version 1.5.5.3634 fixed the mkv-issues on my machine ***

12

@tiki-plex said:
I keep rolling back to old versions of PLEX, because the Updates are breaking MKV-playback on my Mac-PMS (OS X El Capitan) too. Version that still works for me & all my MKVs is 1.3.4.3285.

Really would like to know, what has been changed within PLEX to get these issues.
Been using PLEX for many years, and never had that before.

1.3.4 is unsupported. You are required to use 1.5.1+ and above now.

13

Hello and thank you again all for the follow up posts and suggestions.

Attached is the zip of the log files.

Another clue… I was able to successfully play a short music video (ripped from a kids movie blu ray) in mkv format OK yesterday. This morning, it actually played 1 kids movie in mkv format, but barfed on another. It’s acting as though I’m not connected to my WiFi via LAN.

Anyway, any additional tips / feedback appreciated.

-Mike

14

Hello All,

I think I should also clarify that it is “Direct Play” that I’m after for these large mkv files. I watch movies (or really my 2 little ones do) 95% from my own home network which is connected via high speed LAN. There are some very specific settings on the Roku for direct play, so hopefully these haven’t changed.

It would be simpler for me if both Plex and Roku and simple buttons somewhere that just said “Direct Play”. I have the much smaller mp4 format (converted from Handbrake) if my larger mkv files don’t play that I can default to.

-Mike

15

UPDATE…

After I captured the zip file log above, I made a change. Not sure if that was part of this fix or not, but maybe that did something. I’m not sure. Now I would say most (but not all) of my movies now play in the larger mkv file format now. I tried a bunch and most (but not all) play OK now. I can tell when they will play as Roku has dropdown on the movie menu called “Play Version…”. When the larger mkv file (and bitrate) version has been determined by Roku that it can play that version, it puts an asterisk by it. Most of my movies have this again now. I do still have a few movies that have the asterisk by the lower bit rate version (the smaller mp4 file). When I try to play the higher res (and size) mkv files for these movies, they buffer and stutter and won’t play correctly.

The change I made (not sure if this was it or not) was to delete one of my larger movie libraries, disconnected the external 4TB seagate drive from the back of the WD MyCloud EX2 Ultra, then plugged it back in again. I then added the library back into Plex.

By the way, yes, these mkv file formats are just huge, so I need a LOT of disk space! So I have the 8TB x 2 on the MyCloud EX2 Ultra plus another 4TB external Seagate off the back.

Anyway, if I had pick a number, I would probably say 90% of my movies seem to play the mkv format now. I’m not certain what caused the issue or this partial fix.

If that log reveals anything, please let me know. If there is another experiment I should try, please let me know that also. Thanks!

-Mike

16

I don’t have time to dig through the logs…but if you are doing bit-for-bit transfers of Blurays, my first inclination is that it’s related to DTS-HD audio. Up until recently, Plex on Roku was able to direct-play DTS-HD files by simply playing the core audio (Lossy DTS). Recent Roku firmware updates, however, have caused that to only work intermittently. The Plex on Roku developer has had to get around this by setting DTS-HD files to transcode to AC3 or AAC 5.1. So…now your DTS-HD files are having the audio transcoded where they were being direct-played in the past.

When you try to play those files that don’t work…look on the plexweb interface to see if the audio is being transcoded. Does the WD Mycloud have enough CPU capacity to transcode audio? I honestly don’t know.

17

Hello DFury,

Thank you for the feedback.

From what I can tell, this does NOT seem to be a DTS-HD Audio, but I do think you’re on to something that it’s a strange formatting thing between Roku and Plex that I can’t figure out at this point.

I have too many movies (200+) to go through all of them, but I did come up with a list of about 10 movies in my collection (so far) that will not direct play that used to. Just in the last few days, I tweaked some settings in Roku to try to force them to direct play and maybe that has helped some. I would say maybe 80% of my mkv library will direct play now.

Unfortunately, of the 10 movies I have in mkv format, I have confirmed that there seems to be no consistent pattern in terms of audio format, bitrate, etc. I also have a bunch of movies in DTS that will direct play just fine (I confirmed that as well). The list of 10 movies that will not direct play in mkv format have a variety of audio formats (DTS, Dolby Digital, AAC 2.0, etc).

Back to your post… you said… “When you try to play those files that don’t work…look on the plexweb interface to see if the audio is being transcoded.”

**Sorry to be a bit of a Plex newbie, but what exactly do you mean by “…look on the plexweb interface to see if the audio is being transcoded”???
**

Now that I have identified at least 10 movies that will not play in mkv format, I can take a closer look at these (if I knew what you meant and how to do that).

Where you are clearly right though is for whatever reason, these 10+ movies that will not direct play in their native, uncompressed mkv format. Whenever I try to play them, I can immediately hear my WD MyCloud Ex2 Ultra whirring, spinning and no doubt straining to transcode them. So there must be a subtle formatting issue with these movies I’ve identified that no longer play in mkv format.

It is also worth noting that I specifically remember playing these 10+ movies in the past in their full glory mkv format, so yes I agree with you that SOMETHING has changed (I’m still just not sure what).

-Mike

18

Mike,

Please cut me off about 45 seconds from the front of one of those movies which fail and upload or DM to me (include link to this thread too please). I will analyze it here and try on my Roku 3. I can also dig into other things too difficult to detail in a post.

https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/201035968-Generating-Sample-Files-from-Media

This document shows MP4 files. Please keep the MKV extension.

19

@mcgogators said:
Hello DFury,

Thank you for the feedback.

From what I can tell, this does NOT seem to be a DTS-HD Audio, but I do think you’re on to something that it’s a strange formatting thing between Roku and Plex that I can’t figure out at this point.

I have too many movies (200+) to go through all of them, but I did come up with a list of about 10 movies in my collection (so far) that will not direct play that used to. Just in the last few days, I tweaked some settings in Roku to try to force them to direct play and maybe that has helped some. I would say maybe 80% of my mkv library will direct play now.

Unfortunately, of the 10 movies I have in mkv format, I have confirmed that there seems to be no consistent pattern in terms of audio format, bitrate, etc. I also have a bunch of movies in DTS that will direct play just fine (I confirmed that as well). The list of 10 movies that will not direct play in mkv format have a variety of audio formats (DTS, Dolby Digital, AAC 2.0, etc).

Back to your post… you said… “When you try to play those files that don’t work…look on the plexweb interface to see if the audio is being transcoded.”

**Sorry to be a bit of a Plex newbie, but what exactly do you mean by “…look on the plexweb interface to see if the audio is being transcoded”???
**

Now that I have identified at least 10 movies that will not play in mkv format, I can take a closer look at these (if I knew what you meant and how to do that).

Where you are clearly right though is for whatever reason, these 10+ movies that will not direct play in their native, uncompressed mkv format. Whenever I try to play them, I can immediately hear my WD MyCloud Ex2 Ultra whirring, spinning and no doubt straining to transcode them. So there must be a subtle formatting issue with these movies I’ve identified that no longer play in mkv format.

It is also worth noting that I specifically remember playing these 10+ movies in the past in their full glory mkv format, so yes I agree with you that SOMETHING has changed (I’m still just not sure what).

-Mike

To access your server’s plexweb from a web browser…you can go to http://((your server IP)/web…you’ll need to input your server’s IP address, of course. Or, you can go to www.plex.tv and press the “launch” button on the top right. That will bring you to the server’s web interface, where you can view the status of currently playing items…which will show you if the files are direct-playing, or if components are being direct-streamed or transcoded. That should help you narrow it down. I highly recommend you get familiar with the web interface…as you can also access the “media info” on each file, which includes more in-depth specifications.

Another option to find out what is being transcoded is through the Roku itself. When you play a file, the on-screen display (OSD) should show up. In addition to the fast-foward/rewind buttons/etc…you’ll see a settings option on bottom left hand side of the OSD. Under settings, you can go to “stream info”, which will show you the same information as you’d find on the web interface. It will show you what is being transcoded.

Once you know specifically what is being transcoded, you can narrow it down to see where the issue with those files is. It could be not only audio, but video as well. Even within the supported H264 codec…Roku will require transcoding if the file was encoded using too many “ref frames” (more than 5 on 1080p material)…or if the H264 “level” is too high (higher than 4.1).