No Dialogue (Voices), just background sound and music

Plex Players Streaming Devices
1

Server Version#: 1.18.1.1973
Player Version#: 7.21.0.12323

There are no voices in the Amazon TV Stick playback. Audio is set to 5.1, but the tv only supports 2.0, but I cannot find a way to force the app to only stream 2.0. What should I do?

What I tried so far.

  • Clearing data and cache
  • Reinstalling the application
  • Factory resetting the ATV stick and installing everything from scratch
  • Forcing encoding of the video to a lower quality.

Audio works find with amazon content and Netflix content, so it seems specific to the Plex App.

2

There is currently only one way - downmix 5.1 to 2.0 OUTSIDE of Plex.

The FireTV App is dumbstruck when faced with this issue, does not downmix in the app and nothing you do will force Plex to do the downmixing in a transcode.

If you have, and can run Xmedia Recode - it can happen in moments.

3

It works with my Fire TV Stick 4k on another TV. I would really rather not have to re-encode audio streams.

4

Then you’ll have to use it on the TV it works on. There is no other option at this time.

I have a FireTV (box-V1). I also have a cheap Chinese TV, but this one downmixes 5.1 flawlessly (for some reason). If for any reason the audio slips into transcode - the voices disappear 'cause Plex won’t downmix.

5

Isn’t this some kind of bug? the ATV stick works fine with Netflix, and Amazon content. This seems like a plex app issue to me.

6

Netfits and Amazon have downmixed stereo audio all ready to go any time it’s needed and the FireTV knows which audio to play for you.

It’s absolutely an app issue - the app can’t downmix 5.1 and it also can’t tell Plex to do it in a transcode.

You can try the same thing everyone else does about this time - start fiddling with everything possible in the Plex App Settings (HDMI Passthrough being popular) and also the FireTV Audio Section - outside of Plex.

It you find a magic combination - do tell.

7

Is the Plex team aware of this? It sounds like a fix needs to be done for this to the App.

8

@anon18523487 <—If he shows up - you can ask him.

(He may also know The Magic Combination, or a Work-Around I am unaware of)

9

Did you turn off the passthrough option in the app?

10

I threw him a clue up the thread a bit - he may not have tried it yet - but this guy did without resolution (and still awaits official aid):

11

My mother in-law uses plex on a gen 2 fire stick. It was working fine till I forced her into an update. She went from version 6.4.1.1644 to most recent. I got a call that night to say when watching movies was only hearing background sound. So I had a play about and the new update is removed some kind of setting that would change 7/5.1 down to 2 channels. I restored the app back to 6.4.1.1644 and the issue went away.

I have a firestick myself but it’s connected to a surround so never noticed this with the new update myself.

12

The newer app will ask if you want to use passthrough the first time it encounters a 5.1 audio track. It’s likely your mother-in-law saw this and picked yes. You can always change this in the app settings, but if you answer yes and don’t have a surround system, then you can run into this issue.

13

I encountered the same issue after upgrading the firestick software.

I had uninstalled plex from the amazon fire stick and reinstalled, updated the plex server on the pc and still experienced the same issue. Upgraded the fire stick to the 4k version today and the issue is now gone. For kicks, plugged the old fire stick back in, uninstalled and reinstalled the plex app and the issue is there. Hope this helps anyone that is still experiencing the issue.

1 Like
14

This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.