Playback Hangs Near End of File After FF/RW/Pause - AndroidTV Client

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Win10 Plex Server, NUC, i7, 2 Core, 16GB RAM
AndroidTV as Client (ShieldTV)
Library resides on external drives attached via USB 3 to the Plex server
Cat5e wired everywhere, TOS-Link between TV and Sonos
Optical Passthru/AC3 enabled

When playing back content, near the end of the timeline (within 1-2 mins of end), any FF/RW/Pause action will cause the player to fully hang. Requires full Exit and Resume to recover. 100% repeatable on AndroidTV.

I suspect audio transcoding might be a common element here, E-AC3 to AC3, as my Sonos system cannot handle E-AC3 formats. When I play back via Win10 web client (direct play, no audio transcoding), this issue is not seen.

Note that I also notice very brief audio ā€œskipsā€ or ā€œdropsā€ (small fraction of a second) during E-AC3 transcoded playback. Pretty consistent - every ~30 seconds or so. Annoying, but not a show stopper. May be related to above?

Any suggestions for settings to adjust to avoid this very frustrating issue?

I have contemplated upgrading my NUC Plex server. I wonder if improving performance on the server might help improve things.

Thanks!

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I have experienced these hangs, too. I donā€™t use Sonos or E-AC3 audio. As far as I know, itā€™s happened with MP4 media and AAC 5.1 audio. In my case, it has nothing to do with transcoding because everything I have direct plays. I donā€™t find myself doing FF/RW near the end of a video very often, so I havenā€™t seen this behavior often. But when it does happen (say, I want to back up in a movieā€™s credits to see something I missed), itā€™s annoying. Next time I see it I will report again here and furnish logs (Shield client, running most current beta; Windows server running most current beta).

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Iā€™ve seen this for what seems like forever, and it doesnā€™t appear to have anything to do with transcoding, since nearly all my media is directplayed. Just like boblinthewild, while I donā€™t skip ahead/behind often at the very end of a file, when I do, it happens with 100% regularity to the point Iā€™ve even managed to train my gf who would rather eat rats than be told how Plex works to stop trying to skip back a few seconds to catch a credit or something sheā€™d missed.

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Happened to me again yesterday. As I said earlier, I donā€™t find myself trying to FF/RW near the very end of a movie often, so when it happened again I shrugged it off and didnā€™t think to get the logs.

I continue to experience other ongoing problems with the Android TV client, most of which seem to be ignored after being reported and it makes me think itā€™s one of the least reliable Plex clients there is (at least of the ones I have). I love the Shield for what itā€™s capable of doing, but Plex on the Shield seems like an afterthought and unimportant. Frustrating.

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Iā€™d be keen to hear about some of these issues, and see if they are things weā€™re already tracking, or things weā€™re unaware of. I personally havenā€™t seen this issue, so if you can reproduce and provide logs, it would be much appreciated :plexheart:

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Thanks Dave. I will intentionally recreate this and report back with logs.

Here is a link to another problem I reported earlier. It went away after I refreshed all the metadata in my libraries, but itā€™s now back (see first post in this thread). Iā€™ll try to get logs for this, too, and report as a new problem. Nvidia Shield - very strange behavior viewing movie pre-play screens

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@DaveBinM ā€“ I just triggered the error. I was playing a TV episode and it got to the credits near the end. I pressed ā€˜leftā€™ on the Shield remote and the playback hung. I messed with the FW/RW buttons a bit and nothing happened. Suddenly the episode rewound to the very beginning. Attached are the Shield and server logs.

Plex rewind error.txt (1.2 MB)
Plex Media Server Logs_2021-05-15_17-42-40.zip (6.6 MB)

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Iā€™m on leave for the next couple of weeks, but will look first thing when Iā€™m back (just didnā€™t want you to think I was ignoring your response) :plexheart:

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Thanks Dave. Enjoy your time away.

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I had the same behavior happen to me 2 weeks ago when on vacation. Using the same Shield device, the videos hung if I attempted to skip around near the end of the file.

However, tried it out this week, and the few files I played using it they didnā€™t hang near the end. Havenā€™t tested yet to see if itā€™s because of a specific file, or if the client updated between then and now. Bobinthewild, do you still notice it now?

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Iā€™m the OP on this thread. Just tried a few titles; I am no longer hanging playback while skipping/pausing near the end of the timeline. Nice! I had been carefully avoiding this issue and letting titles play thru, or simply exiting, so I may have missed the actual fix date.

Note: I tested today just AFTER installing the most recent NVidia ShieldTV patch May 28, 2021, and plex Server patch from a few days ago. Not sure if related.

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I havenā€™t seen it since my last report, but with the latest server and client updates I will attempt to verify if it seems fixed.

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I was able to recreate the problem with the first TV show I watched, so this has not been fixed. Running the most current server beta and Shield client beta. Server and client logs attached.

Plex Media Server Logs_2021-05-29_20-18-25.zip (7.4 MB)
Plex Shield logs 2021-05-29.txt (4.3 MB)

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Not sure if this was in response to my posts, but I donā€™t see how the audio codec has anything to do with this. The log shows several entries about trying to seek outside the buffer, and eventually there is an FFmpeg error saying ā€œFailed to seek to requested offset.ā€ Iā€™m not sure how that corresponds to what I was doing on the Shield remote, but once the video playback hung I was trying FF and RW, none of which made the playback continue. Eventually I gave up and hit the return button on the remote. This is pretty much whatā€™s happened every time Iā€™ve had this problem.

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Iā€™d like to know that too. The statement about ā€œunsupported audioā€ from Nyagu doesnā€™t explain what the problem ultimately is. If itā€™s unsupported by the player (Shield) then Plex ought to have transcoded it anyway, which would not result in issues on the player-side. It wouldnā€™t even know its not the original audio then, right?

If itā€™s unsupported by the Plex server, well, it sure seems to run ok anyway. Looking at the file I had the problem on, it was an aac audio, which I think is pretty common?

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I have this same issue using a windows 7 server and both android and appletv. The appletv hangs on video playlists after almost every show I watch. Android seems to play a few but at some point things just stop and I have to quit out the player and go back in. All shows play fine, only after one finishes the next doesnā€™t start playing.

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@jestermgee That sounds like a different problem. Iā€™ve seen other reports of shows not playing consecutive episodes.

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Iā€™ve noticed it too recently, but I agree with Boblinthewild that this does not appear to be specifically related to play-back issues when seeking FF/RW near the end of certain videos.

I mean, sure, theyā€™re both android players, but these seem separate enough that we ought to try to keep the discussion separate.

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@DaveBinM Any progress on this? It happened to me again the other night. Unfortunately I did not capture the logs.

An earlier post suggested this may be limited to content that is transcoding. It just so happens that my most recent occurrence was with content for which video was transcoding in order to burn in ASS subtitles. I went back to my earlier post in which I submitted logs, and I believe the content in question then was also transcoding due to ASS subtitles.

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I donā€™t have anything further at the moment, Iā€™m afraid.