Plex Media Server: 1.20.1.3252
Plex Media Players: Multiple
Windows 10 Pro X64: 10.0.18363 build 18363
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600X
GPU: GeForce GTX 1050 Ti
MEM: 16GB DDR4
Server Logs: Plex Media Server Logs_2020-09-04_13-11-57.zip (7.0 MB)
Hi, As a Plex Pass member I’m very pleased with Plex overall. I’m experiencing one issue though: Playback of SD content.
Untill now all my playback is working fine, including 4K and HD video, Dolby Atmos, DTS, subtitle formats etc. The only content that is constantly stuttering, or not playing back at all is SD content. I’ve tried different containers like MP4, MKV and AVI, used different codecs like X264, X265, uncompressed from a DVD, and tried different type of audio streams and channels in AAC and AC3. Also I’ve tried different subtitle formats like SRT and VOBSUB.
On different type of players like iOS, Android TV, Xbox One the SD content won’t play properly while I stream it from my server. Even when I’m at home. I didn’t experience issues when I download the content to a device like iPad. I feel like I’m out of options. Searched the forums and tried (to my limited knowlegde) every thing I could to find out where the problem is.
Does anyone have a clue what this can be? It is a large library (around 55TB of content) stored on external HDD’s, but like I said, all HD and 4K content is playing fine. Help would be very much appreciated so thanks in advance!
Edit:
Direct play from Windows 10 Plex Player works fine. (This is the same computer on which the server is running.) Only streaming and transcoding seems to make playback stuttering. This goes for streaming locally or from outside my own network.
Plex doesn’t seem to like avi files. I have the same problem. You said you have the issue during a transcode as well as direct play. I haven’t seen that problem. Normally When movie is playing you can change setting to convert automatically and it will transcode instead of direct play. That has fixed the stuttering issue on all my firetvs. It’s a bit of a pain to do for every episode of a show but at least it makes it watchable. It tends to have a frame rate issue as well. The stuttering stops but it might skip a second after awhile to adjust the frame rate. Not that noticeable compared to the stutter. Emby does not have an issue with Avi files like plex does. I used to watch my old shows that were avi on emby to bypass problem but I don’t like switching back and forth. Shield TVs don’t have the stuttering problem like my fire TVs do though. My setup is maximum quality remotely on video and original quality on audio. No auto adjust. Not sure those settings are required but once I set it up that way and then selected convert automatically while movie or show is playing it took care of problem for me. If not do a trial for emby and see if it’s worth it. I have lifetime pass for both so I have a backup in case an update causes problems with plex. Plex is my go to but emby is a great backup.
Thanks for your reply dudemandude. It looks like Plex is always transcoding the SD files. And it’s not just in an AVI container, also with MKV and MP4.
It’s also not just the video that is stuttering, it actually makes my whole computer crash from time to time. While 4K and HD is playing fine!
How can SD content be such a heavy load and HD and 4K not? Even when using the same codecs (x246 or x265) for all the content.
No you are not. Even though I don´t know if it´s not just a similar issue but for different reasons.
Since like 2-3 months ago I can not play any SD content anymore.
When I try on my TV, it gives an error message saying “The file associated with this item is not accessible by the server. Please verify that the file exists and the necessary drive is available”.
No, my dear Plex server! The file is totally accessible, like it always was with no change except maybe some Plex update which screwed things up!!
Which is my suspicion indeed. But why the hell would Plex break playback of SD files?
Anyone having the same problem?
when I try playing the file on my computer which is the server host, it says “server is not powerful enough to…” you know, the infamous Plex mantra, which shows up for the most incomprehensible reasons. Strangely, often the plex app on my iPhone is able to play those files. The same files that Plex on my Smart TV is just refusing to play with the aforementioned error message, saying “the file is not accessible” (yeah right, dumb piece of …) … I have to say, those things show a lot of things going wrong in the programming of the Plex software, there is quite some things to be fixed. Which is a pity as it´s such an amazing entertainment platform (when it works)…
I am using the free version, but I´d be willing to pay if all those things would not occur and destroy the experience from time to time, having to look for workarounds or use other servers/players, just to play files that Plex is refusing to do so, for incomprehensible reasons like it doesn´t like SD content in AVI format, some x265 formats, and having to demux files and convert VOB subs to SRT formats, just because Plex doesn´t like the most common subtitle formats used in videos…
I have to optimize SD files to play them.
I can use the Plex app on the servers computer but not from any device and not even Plex Web Player on the servers computer.
I rarely play the SD files but all my old stuff is SD and sometimes I would like to play them.
Optimize every file will be pain in the ass.
It worked fine some time before. Long time ago.
That was a good suggestion as I was never thinking of the optimization function.
Even though an app like this should be able to play formats like this just like that.
There´s just one downside. The function is not only changing the file format to mp4, but also hardcoding the VOB subtitle file which had been muxed in the mkv container in the original file, which I really don´t want to happen (guys, just make the software offer options and ask).
So I was figuring I´d just do a conversion to mp4 myself, and that also worked.
I have to switch the VOB subs off though for playing, otherwise it won´t play the video. This is a complete other complaint territory of course: Plex´s unbelievable unability of playing VOB subs… horrible. Why…?
Just one weird thing. After doing that conversion to mp4 on my own for one of my TV shows, suddenly the other shows that wouldn´t play were working again. Those are in avi format though, in contrast to the files I converted before, which had been mkv (but all of them being SD videos). I was installing a server update in the meantime, maybe that one was fixing the problem for avi files?
Would be nice to know.
