[nVidia ShieldTV 2019] Playback fails to start

Plex Players Streaming Devices
,
1

Server Version#: 1.25.6.5577
Player Version#: 8.30.2.31202 (ShieldTV 2019 Pro)

Hi :slight_smile:
Since a few weeks that nVidia Shield Experience 9.0.1 (aka Android 11) was released on my nVidia ShieldTVs at home, I got a serious playback issue on some mediasā€¦

This is the hardware installation :
Server : Lenovo tiny PC (Core i5-9400T / Intel UHD 630 / Windows Server 2019 / NVMe SSD)
Medias : SMB shares on a Synology NAS, 480p to 1080p films and episodes
Client1 : Samsung M5500 (2017 / 1080p / Tizen) + nVidia ShieldTV 2017
Client2 : Samsung ES6300 (2012 / 1080p / Orsay) + nVidia ShieldTV 2019 Pro

The Client1 setup (as well as my mobiles / Plex Web / Xbox One app) works perfectly, all medias stream like a charm.

On the Client2 though, it is a bit odd.
After a cold start or a reboot of the ShieldTV 2019 Pro, everything is working fine, but after a few minutes idle or when I switch on the setup from sleep, I got several issues :

Those are not the only 2 shows affected, I can reproduce the issue with other medias (movies & TV shows).

The server runs WS2019 since a few days. Right before, I had the same issue when it was running Windows 10.

What I have tried and didnā€™t change anything :

  • disable IPv6 on my router and my ShieldTVs
  • disable UPnP on my (+ manually NAT the 34200 port to the Plex server machine)
  • disable video hardware transcode
  • disable the whole hardware transcode

I am pretty sure the issue is caused by the last Shield Experience update on my ShieldTV 2019 because everything was working fine before I installed itā€¦ but I canā€™t figure to find any clue inside the logs I provided earlier.

If anyone has an idea that would help me a lot !
Thanks in advance !
Damien

2

I posted to another similar thread, but I had the exact same issue, and assumed it was a Plex problem.

Then, Netflixā€™s app started having similar issues - it would buffer up to a certain %, and then fail out. Like Plex, Netflix worked on my other devices. I have 1 GB Ethernet from my home server (with ample processing power) to the SHIELD, and 1 GBps internet service (fully hardwired) soā€¦ itā€™s probably a SHIELD problem.

As I was poking around settings, I noticed that my SHIELD reported <1 GB free internal space - ODD, as I have an SD card inserted and most apps migrated to it - no media on ā€˜internal storageā€™, so there shouldnā€™t be more than 1 GB used out of the ~6GB the SHIELD has. There was 250+ GB free on the SD card. I tried moving apps back/forth, etc. Uninstall / Reinstall apps, etc. but couldnā€™t account for the missing internal storage.

Finally, I bit the bullet and ā€˜Factory resetā€™ the SHIELD. It had been running for the last several major overhauls to the SHIELD Experience (or whatever they call their UI), and figured with modern accounts sharing most settings, re-setup would be quick. Interestingly, after the factory reset of the SHIELD, it reported an error ā€œIncompatible SD Cardā€ and that the SD card wasnā€™t useable. However, in the settings, ā€˜Format for internal storageā€™ was available - since there was nothing on the SD Card that wasnā€™t on my storage server, I gave that a try - success. Finally, all the apps went back on as expected, and once signed in, I gave it a try.

  • To my surprise, that seems to have completely fixed (for several days now, at least) all my problems with Netflix and Plex (buffering happens near instantly, if at all). The SHIELD reports >4.5GB free internal storage, and things are going great.

I can only speculate (and since I did factory reset the device, any logs are lost to the ether), but I believe that between the major updates of the SHIELD UI (which is when things started going wroung), they (meaning SHIELD or maybe Android itself), made changes to handling SD Card storage and/or internal Storage file systems, resulting in some sort of storage memory leak, or just left too much junk in storage.
I think the problem is caused when the device sends a write to disk (storage flash) that doesnā€™t complete, or subsequent reads fail in an unexpected way, the Android system may not report those well to an app like Plex/Netflix, and just leave the app waiting until either an App watchdog times out the process, or the user aborts. This would explain why the problem is so hard to reproduce, and leaves such ambiguous symptoms in the logs - it depends on the particular deviceā€™s update history and state of the storage file system.

  • Anyway just my 2 centsā€¦ I had been hating my SHIELD for a while now, and had tried the usual suspects (device reboots, checking switches/wiring) and gone with half-measures like reinstalling apps a few times, but a full factory reset seemed to be the only thing that made an improvement. So, Iā€™d recommend a full factory reset and reinstall everything - it might just be worth your time.
1 Like
3

Thanks Dan for your answer.
I will give this solution a try and hard reset my 2019 ShieldTV (the other one doesnā€™t have the issue).

4

Hello there.
Soo I did hard reset the 2019 ShieldTV, and reinstalled all my favorite apps.
Right after the configuration I launched an episode and it played flawlessly !

ā€¦ then I left for work and came back a few hours laterā€¦ and was unable to launch that same episodeā€¦
This time I couldnā€™t even launch some other episodes for my daughter until I resumed a previously started movie :

17:34 : Episode : Dragons Rescue Riders S01E10 : failed to launch
17:36 : Movie : Disneyā€™s Aladdin 2 : failed to launch
17:37 : Movie : Disneyā€™s Lion King II : resumed OK
17:38 : Episode : Dragons Rescue Riders S01E10 : launched OK

Here is the complete PMS log regarding these few minutes : https://files.diberie.com/HFR/Plex/PMS-KOOK-14032022.txt

I begin to suspect an issue with my A/V installation (codecs ? HDMI passthrough ?..) or my local network somehow ?

The only thing I know for sure : the factory reset of the ShieldTV didnā€™t fix the issue :frowning:

6

Hi,

I had the same issueā€¦ infinite loop and nothing.
No problem with Tizen client, Amazon firestick, etcā€¦ only on the Shield

Then I completely firmware downgrade and install the shield experience 8.2.0 from 2020ā€¦ and no issue anymore with the latest plex client version.

Well my issue was basically when the NAS HDD was spun down, the time itā€™s getting up from idle stuck the shield client on the infinite loop, event though the HDD was ready few sec laterā€¦

Now itā€™s kindly waiting the disk is getting up and start the media without any issue

1 Like
7

Thanks Pr4y for your answer.

My media are stored on several NAS HDDs too so that could be the explanation !
I will take a look at that downgrade process but Iā€™m afraid of bricking my ShieldTVā€¦

Have you heard of any setting or threshold that can be set on the ShieldTV (or maybe on the NAS itself) to avoid that looping state ?

8

Hi,

Not at all regarding the settings.

The strange thing is for my case, downgrading the firmware does work, but the Plex client is the most recent version from the android store and no issueā€¦

Yes before downgrading, I tried fully a factory reset, and full reinstall, issue remained

If I spin up the drive before starting a media, no issue (transcode or direct stream). Or if I read a media from the SSD cache.

Itā€™s definitely related to this shield experience 9 / android 11, no idea why.

Before trying anything, just try to spin up all of your HDDs and start a media
Then spin them down and try again

If you have an other client (smart tv, apple tv etc) give also a try, like I said no issue at all with my Samsung TV (tizen client)

9

Hello Pr4y,

Thanks for your answer.
I did a couple of tests during the last week.

My videos are stored on a Synology NAS (with SMB shares) and I set the NAS to let the disks spin all time. That didnā€™t change anything, still at first launch, most of my media canā€™t start.

I have a few other clients (Tizen (M5500) Samsung TV, MS Xbox One, Xiaomi MiBox, smartphones and even a ShieldTV 2017). All theese client work perfectly including the ShieldTV 2017 (upated to Shield Exp 9 too). The only device causing the issue remains my ShieldTV 2019 Pro (plugged to an older Orsay (ES6300) Samsung TV).

Both of the ShieldTV 2019 (Plex client) and the Windows PC (Plex server) did receive a bunch of updates since I first opened that thread, still nothing changed.

By the way, did you find anything relevant in the log files I provided ?
I didinā€™t manage to find anything but maybe I missed something obvious ?

10

Bump !

Both my ShieldTV have installed an update today (9.0.2 official release).
Still Plex canā€™t launch half of my media on the ShieldTV 2019 Pro.
Iā€™m starting to feel a bit ā€¦ frustrated about this situationā€¦

2 Likes
11

Little update here : I just turned off video transcoding and the problem seems to be gone.
Strange, but as long as it works for all of my clients, why notā€¦

12

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