Server Version#: Windows 10 Pro 21H1 on AMD Ryzen 7 5800X
Player Version#:
Recently I got a new PC, and had to reinstall the Plex server (currently running Version 1.33.0.2444-a220eae4). After configuring Windows services and rebuilding libraries I started to stream , and got a problem . I used the Samsung smart TV Samsung TV QE85Q95T as a playing device. Working with the older Plex version and this Samsung TV, I saw that TV accepted only MKV video files, so I used a special software “Wondershare UniConverter” for Windows to convert any kind of video files (mainly mpg) to MKV. Everything worked fine in the past.
Now I’ve got the problem - the TV shows video (Movies, TV Show, Videos) library items with old file names - with mpg extensions and 0 file length. These files on PC were converted to mkv, old files deleted, the library metadata updated, I see no traces of old files in Plex server and library, but still somehow they are transferred to the TV. So when I click to play it, the TV player crashes with an error “Can’t find the file”, as there are no mpg files exist anymore.
This happens only with playing the library on TV. I installed VLC on iPhone and Android, and play this library on both devices without a problem.
I tried to fix this problem by deleting a library, a server, a folder in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Plex Media Server , by deleting HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Plex, Inc. registry key, and recreating everything with new names. Also I ran a “Device Maintenance” procedure in my TV, checking it, and deleting old data and cleaning its cache.
It didn’t help. I still have this problem, and can’t use the Plex Media Server with my TV, which was the whole point of this project. And there was no such problem a moth ago.
I tried both the Plex App and the Web UI. The media server version is 1.24.1.4931. Same problem in both cases, as the media server is the same.
I don’t think the Wondershare UniConverter corrupts the media files. It works fine for all converting scenarion. It puts converted files to its own folder, and then I deleted old mpg files from the Library directory, and moved new mkv files to it.
Somehow old mpg file names with 0 length are still shown during streaming to TV.
Could it be the caching problem in TV - when the first version of the file name is cached, but not deleted from it when the file is deleted from the library. But the list in TV does not have new mkv names added.
I deleted all current entries from the video library, and refreshed it. On TV the library is show empty, no entries.
Then I copied back one mkv file that converted from the mpg file by the Wondershare UniConverter, and refreshed the library. The TV show this newly added file as mpg with 0 length.
Now the question is - what makes the Tizen TV software show the mkv file as mpg?
I found the root cause. It is the new version of Wondershare UniConverter v13, that has a bug in MKV file generation. I installed the older v12, it does not have any problems.
