@“MovieFan.Plex” My issue has been the playing of music over plugged-in headphones, both streamed and synced, with the screen off and the phone unplugged. Under these conditions, playback will stop mid-song after around 5 to 15 minutes.
I have not used Plex in a while due to this issue, so I will do some testing today to confirm whether all of these conditions are still problematic, or only a subset.
Here are some test results for a bunch of different test cases, reproducing the issue of playback stopping in the middle of a track and requiring “Next Track” in order to resume. This was reproduced for both streaming and synced content, as well as with WiFi/LTE connected and in airplane mode. The screen was off and the phone was unplugged in all cases (i.e. my typical use-case). I have added the com.plexapp.android*.log files for each of the failed test cases.
Device:
Server:
Test 01:
Test 02:
Test 03:
Test 04:
Test 05:
As others have described, it looks like keeping the screen on makes the problem go away for both synced and streamed content.
Test 06:
Test 07:
Test 08:
I have a Google Pixel and experience the same playback issue. Here are a few things I’ve learned in recent months about it, at least in my usage:
The StayAlive! app is an effective workaround, but it’s not ideal.
The StayAlive! workaround did the trick for me too. An hour commute with no problems. It was bliss.
Thanks tmeitner for the suggestion!
Welp, I’ve once again cancelled my Plex Pass subscription, probably for good this time. The automated email claims they are sad to see me go, but frankly I don’t believe it.
This bug was opened 10 months (!!) ago, and I’ve been trying to assist with debugging it for 2 months now. The symptoms haven’t changed in that entire time – both streamed and synced content stop playback when the screen is off – and they haven’t even added additional logging to try and suss out the problem.
I simply don’t understand how the developers are unable to reproduce this issue unless they just aren’t testing on stock Android and/or Nexus/Pixel devices.
Edit: In another thread, @BigWheel seems to indicate that (s)he can reproduce this issue. In the same thread I see that @“Chris C” was asking for both Android and server logs covering the same incidents – is that actually valuable? Should I reproduce my above test suite and collect server logs for each of the failures as well?
Edit 2: I’m not sure how useful server logs will be, since the failed test cases included SYNCED content (i.e. running off local device, not the server) and airplane mode (i.e. not even connected to the server).
Same issue.
Playback stopping in the middle of a track and requiring “Next Track” in order to resume)…
Like others have noted, it only happens when the screen dims. So it’s probably a problem related to the power-saving bug.
My phone Pixel XL fully updated on Android 7.1.2.
@elan can you give this a look for us? This has been going on for 10 months now.
I have the same issue, same symptoms (stopping near the end of the track), can’t restart without going forward one track and then back.
ZTE axon 7, Android 7.1.1.
Same issue here with music stopping screen off (Issue #1)
Nexus 6P, Android 7.1.2, lineageos (w/root).
Edit: got it to reproduce the issue with alogcat running as root, dropbox.com/s/gc345f5yxyadyuz/alogcat.plex_01.txt?dl=0
It seems to be a buffering issue in the actual player backend, and it isn’t getting communicated to the plex frontend (hence why the controls act wonky until you tell it to go to another song). I had alogcat set on verbose (log everything) from when I started playing music until about 3-5 seconds after it stopped (as fast as I could unlock screen and pause it). I hope this proves useful, if you need more, poke me.
Just ditched the Plex app on Android to go back to Google Play Music. Hopefully they’ll get their act together at some point.
OnePlus 3T with Nougat - (though it’s had the issue through any updates).
I too have ditched Plex for audio playback on my phone. In the several months I’ve managed to upload all 10,000+ songs to Google Play Music over my paltry internet connection, but this bug still isn’t fixed.
Possible debugging tip: I was traveling yesterday with battery saver enabled, and the issue seemed to be reproduced much faster than my previous tests. That is, I wasn’t able to get through a single 5-minute song with battery saver enabled, as compared to my previous tests which were in the 10-15 minute range.
This may help developers reproduce the issue more readily and more efficiently.
Hi All,
Just wanted to share my findings regarding this issue. I have been following this thread for about 2 months now, because my wife was experiencing the same issue with her device. A Xiaomi Redmi Note 3, with snapdragon sock and running latest MIUI 8.2.4.0 based on Android Nougat.
Because some of the test results in this thread were pointing to android memory management, I was thinking this issue could also be occurring on devices running other audio streaming software. (for example Spotify). So I started searching issues with Spotify that described the same symptoms. (And there where a lot of issues reported out there.) One of the threads on the spotify issue pointed me to an article on XDA: Link
Setting the option “Memory Optimization” to Off seems to be a working solution. I am now able to play synced and online albums without any interruptions. (so far at 5 albums in a row). Before this workaround I was only able to play 5 songs in row at most!
I’m not sure how to translate this workaround to other Android devices, because this option doesn’t seem to be available on my Samsung S6 device.
Hope this will help others to work around this bug too.
Cheers,
Emiel
Thanks @suzmiel, I don’t know if the devs have access to a device running MIUI but that looks like a very interesting data point, especially when combined with keeping the screen on. Understanding the intersection of those two cases could help narrow the search space.
FWIW, I am not able to locate such a setting on stock Android (Nexus 5X) either 
Back to top !!
Need a fix !!
Any updates?
Were my tests and logs from last week and the week before that useful? Is there any other information I can gather that would help?
Is there a way for me to collect logs similar to @DemonfangArun without root? I could re-run my tests with those logs as well, see if I’m seeing the same buffer underrun issue.
Google Maps tells me that Plex has a location in Los Gatos, CA. I am in San Jose. I would be happy to drive down and show you the issue in person if that would help.
Since Sony pushed out a system update focused on battery life and to roll the phone onto 7.1 1 playback has been fixed. Still having artwork issues though.
I was thinking this morning on the back of another comment, if I was coding for battery life and didn’t want to have to build in every music player to be recognised how would I do it…I would do it two fold, where is the app pulling it’s data, aka file location and second, type of file being used, equals…keep that app live and running. As the sync folder is completely hidden and not in the normal music location (no idea why) I’m wondering if stock android just doesn’t spot that its music is being played and stops the app. I could be talking utter rubbish however.
@4Meadway said:
Since Sony pushed out a system update focused on battery life and to roll the phone onto 7.1 1 playback has been fixed. Still having artwork issues though.I was thinking this morning on the back of another comment, if I was coding for battery life and didn’t want to have to build in every music player to be recognised how would I do it…I would do it two fold, where is the app pulling it’s data, aka file location and second, type of file being used, equals…keep that app live and running. As the sync folder is completely hidden and not in the normal music location (no idea why) I’m wondering if stock android just doesn’t spot that its music is being played and stops the app. I could be talking utter rubbish however.
I have other music apps that don’t make the music available and they play back just fine. Good thought though.
