Play Next Episode Doesn't Always Work on Apple TV

Plex Players Streaming Devices
1

Server Version#: 1.40.0.7998
Player Version#: 8.32
tvOS Version#: 17

When watching an episode, attempting to play the next episode fails somewhat frequently on Apple TV. I’ve been able to reproduce it fairly regularly with the following steps (tested on LAN):

  1. Start playing an episode
  2. Reach the “end” section of the episode where hitting the “Back” button will show the “Up Next” with the next episode (usually during credits, etc.)
  3. When the “Up Next” screen is shown, attempt to play the next episode (the “click” animation should play, but the episode won’t play)

For me personally, I’ve most often seen this issue when doing the following between steps 2 and 3 (although sometimes it will happen when watching several episodes without the following steps):

  1. Press and hold the power button to put the device into standby mode while the episode is playing (generally the “Up Next” screen isn’t displayed at this point for me)
  2. Wait until the next day
  3. Power on the device
  4. Hit “Back” since you’re at the end of the episode that you were watching - the “Up Next” screen should be shown
  5. See step 3 in the previous list

Going back to the full episode list and manually selecting the next episode will play the next episode.

1 Like
2

I have had this issue for several months since updating to I believe TVOS 17 (whatever the latest major release of TVOS is) I can fix it by using the apple TV remote and going back to the beginning of the episode. It just shows a black screen and thinks it’s playing, but nothing is shown or heard. Also, using the remote or my phone to go back to the start of the episode does not always work.

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You might be on to something. I’m fairly certain the issue didn’t start for me until I upgraded to tvOS 17.

4

I’m having this issue on my Apple TV for months now and it’s very annoying. When watching shows and when the end of an episode comes up, I have to click the “back/menu” button on the Apple TV remote to get it to minimize and show the “Play Next” episode option. But then you cannot click the next episode. It does the animation like it’s clicking but nothing happens. So you have to go back to the season list and select the next episode.

The other thing I want to add to this is that I use subtitles (SRT) and when it auto plays the next episode (after the 15 second timeout because I cannot click it), subtitles will not show on next episode, even though it’s selected in the menu. So to get them to show up again, you have to disable them, then re-enable them and they will start working.

It’s quite buggy and annoying.

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