Server Version#:4.147.1
Player Version#:Plex for LG - 5.93.2 - 9.2.2
In the last year or so, I’m having more issues with playback from my Synology NAS on our LG C3 TV. More of the recent films like to come up with ‘Playback Error - An Unexpected playback problem occurred. Try turning off Force Direct Play and try again’.
I’m not sure what has changed. I use MakeMKV to rip then Handbrake to make the files, which is the same as I always did with the same settings.
Any one have any ideas?
What is even stranger is that it doesn’t apply to all files, it doesn’t get affected if I transfer the exact same file off the NAS on to a USB.
I might have resolved this, it seems certain films don’t like being in an mp4 container. So far one of the films has worked perfectly after being put in an mkv container.
What you discovered is a problem with the format of your original video file. It would not matter if you put it in an .mkv or another .mp4 container, the result would have been the same.
In a lot of cases, Plex does not properly write or access it’s analysis data and that can create the errors you have been seeing.
It also explains why the errors do NOT transfer with the files.
When you encounter such errors, open Plex/Web on your PC and go to the film or episode you were trying to watch.
Click on the ellipsis and select Analyze, then when it completes (usually only takes a few seconds) try playing the file again.
Of course, that wont work if the problem is actually within your file, in which case you should re-encode the file or replace it.
Apart from the fact result wasn’t the same, I had already tried multiple encodes using MP4 as a container and the result was always the same when it came to streaming certain films via either Plex, play back error, or DNLA, not recognised.
I changed no other settings in handbrake, all the same as the MP4 encodes, but just changed it from MP4 to MKV and they worked through streaming. The MP4s worked when on a USB.
If the .mp4 worked when on USB, then that rules out the file as the problem.
It does not rule out Plex and any possible faulty data that it may hold for the file though.
In order to correct that you need to ‘Plex Dance’ the file in question and make sure the database is optimised after removing the file from Plex.
