While recently doing a 007 marathon the movie Tomorrow Never Dies stopped playing just seconds before the motorbike jumps the helicopter.
I have checked the hard drive for errors and also the file, watching it in VLC Player all the way through with no issues.
I have tried removing the movie from plex and the server and rebooting the PC and replacing the file and letting plex do its stuff to find that the movie again stops in the very same spot, returning to the menu with no error report, but VLC still plays the entire file with no issues.
Does anyone know what may be going on. to date this is the only movie and file that this happens to.
Thanks for any ideas etc.
If everything plays OK but one movie, then the problem is the movie, especially if it stops playing at the same point every time. It does not matter if VLC plays the movie OK. VLC can play damaged files that will not play in other video players.
The problem could be with the container (mkv, mp4, etc.) or with the video or audio tracks.
If your server is capable, try forcing a transcode (change the bitrate, disable direct play/stream in the client, etc.). Monitor playback via Plex Dashboard → Now Playing + Expanded View to verify Plex is transcoding the file (you’ll also see CPU utilization increase).
If the movie plays OK while transcoding, that point to a problem with the file.
You can either (a) obtain a different copy of the file or (b) try to fix the file.
To fix:
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Remux the movie using MKVToolNix or similar tools. That copies the video/audio/subtitle tracks into a new MKV container and ensures the tracks are properly interleaved.
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If remuxing does not help, then use Handbrake, XMedia Recode, or similar tools to re-encode the movie.
On a hunch… Analyze the movie, via the triple dot menu for it.
