You did it. Today, we put a 4K Fire Stick TV we got for Black Friday and everything worked. The few shows we watch that would stutter (not a buffering issue) that were small (<10GB, 1080P) are now flawlessly playing. I pulled out half my hair trying to figure this out. Wifi, LAN, Router, Plex Server powerful enough? And so on. Fire Stick TV 4K… $25 BF Deal. Wish I had done this sooner. Also, the app has many more nuanced features for settings over the Tizen Samsung App.
It’s not ‘being on Wifi,’ it’s not because you didn’t twiddle some PMS setting just so, it’s not what version of servers or clients, it’s not your router or server hardware either (unless you’re running PMS on some really underspec’d box).
The Samsung TV Plex app is HOT GARBAGE! Plugging in a Firestick 4K (or a Roku) solves it.
I’m running Plex on the latest LTS Ubuntu, on a machine with dual quad core CPUs and 16 GB of RAM, the devices are either on gigabit wired ethernet, or 802.11N. PMS and all clients are up to date.
It’s just the Samsung TV Plex app that has this problem, regardless of how it’s networked. No problems with different Galaxy phones, different iPhones, Rokus, Firesticks, Surface tablets, insanely old Macs, really old PCs running Linux of some kind, Fire Tablets, iPads, or TCL TVs (yes, I have all of those). They playback perfectly. The Samsung TV app wouldn’t play back a 480P SD video without endless buffering no matter what I tweaked, upgraded, or rebooted.
Do yourself a favor and either take back the Samsung TV, or buy a Roku/Firestick for it. This has been an issue for well over two years and it is still not fixed. If I’d known, I would have got a different set, but here we are. The streaming sticks are cheaper than dry cat food, fortunately, and their navigational interfaces are better anyway.
Samsung TVs are not very good. They are excellent at making panels and have really improved on the humble LCD display, but the actual TV part and software, they are full of display issues and bugs that never get fixed. I wish we took our TV back for a refund soon after having purchased it when problems arose, but assumed the issues would be fixed by firmware, but never were. They could get new firmware out no problems when they wanted to start showing adverts in the UI, but not with any fixes. Never will I buy another Samsung TV.
Our Plex app does work on the TV, but there are corrupt frames appearing all the time and more stutters than we usually get on the TV. Plex on the Nvidia Shield doesn’t have the same issues.
One of the sell points of Plex is that it runs on everything. If the Samsung sets themselves are so bad, how is it that every other app (Netflix, Prime Video, YouTube, etc.) run just fine on it? Plex clients run just fine on every other Samsung device I’ve ever touched as well. If the Samsung TV can stream 1080p or better from Netflix or Prime, but not Plex, is it because the TV sucks? I don’t think so.
FWIW, the Samsung TV Plex app can’t reliably stream an SD video on the same wired network PMS is running on. I can do that at the same resolution with any client I’ve tried from the same PMS over an LTE connection.
So please, explain to me in technical detail how the TV is the garbage here and not the app running on it.
It comes down to support. Samsung don’t care to fix it and they don’t listen to complaints from their customers. Plex has no incentive to fix it either, they have enough problems getting it running elsewhere and Samsung runs on on Tizen which is Samsung’s own operating system which has more security holes in it you can shake a stick at, it doesn’t get good press either.
I think it has been said here that Plex no longer support Tizen, or at least it gets a very low priority. Have a look around Samsung’s own forums and read about the issues on their TV whilst you have the chance to return it and get something else.
I’m sure the TV is fine, I never said it was garbage, but the software leaves a lot to be desired, if the only bug you notice is Plex not working, you are doing better than many.
The picture is good, the apps other than Plex work fine, but their navigational interface is just goofy. It’s fine after you hook a roku, firestick or something (anything?) else to it to it and just avoid it’s “smarts” altogether.
I’ve never tried out an nvidia shield, but I quite like the Roku. Easy, clean, intuitive, and easy to customize. And the apps actually work.
One of the more compelling things about it for me had nothing to do with Plex. I run an openHAB server and there is a binding for Samsung TVs. That, at least, works well, and I can set up scenes to dim or turn off lights, shut blinds, and turn on the TV, with one voice command. And the basics like muting it, play/pause, volume up and down, and TV on/off work well. Just too bad the TV OS itself is so horrid.
