Playback pausing due to massive bandwidth spikes - caused by new settings sync option

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
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Server Version#: 1.29.1.6316
Player Version#: Roku Plex app Version 7 Build 19

I was attempting to watch a TV show on my own local Plex server. I have all of the appropriate settings set for it to be recognized as a local player (and it was). Playback would work fine for the most part, but anytime I would start a new episode, within a minute or two of the beginning, the episode playback would freeze (also seemingly at random throughout the episode). Not buffering. Not paused. And the Roku would still respond to commands. If I backed up 20 seconds or so, and hit play again it would resume as normal for a bit. It would eventually stop again, just not at the same spot.

What I did notice happening during these halts, was HUGE bandwidth spikes on the Plex server basically completely capping my Network despite having strict bandwidth limits (8 Mbps) in place for both local streams and remote streams. This single stream would push 80 Mbps. I restarted the Plex server (Desktop PC - Windows 10), I restarted the Roku, I did some database maintenance (cleaned the trash, rescanned, etc.) and none of it seemed to resolve the issue.

What I found that DID fix it: Turning off the new “Settings Sync” option that was recently introduced. By turning off this setting, the bandwidth spikes have completely ceased, and my Plex server is now back to operating normally.

Has anyone else experienced this? Is this a known bug? I wasn’t able to find anyone else having this issue either on these forums or via Google searches. I was stumped and just kept poking at settings until something fixed it.

2

Same problem, I’m going to try your solution, to see if I solve it, it’s driving me crazy

3

The Settings Sync option isn’t new, it has been in the web app since 2019, and it only affects the web app and desktop app player settings.

Are you setting those in the Roku app?

4

The bandwidth limits I’ve set are in the Plex Server itself. Under the “Quality” section I’ve set both local and remote streams to be limited to 8 Mbps.

And if the settings sync isn’t new, why did I get prompted with an option (with the most recent upgrade) asking if I wanted to turn on Sync? Is that a different sync? I am running on Stable channel.

5

These only affect that instance of the web/desktop app have no bearing on other apps. Turning on Settings Sync only matches it on other instances of the web/desktop app. So for example if you sign into a browser on a new computer.

Every app has its’ own group of settings for quality. On Roku they are under Settings>Video.

This image below is the quality settings of Plex Web. Server settings are below the name of your server.

Plex
Plex722Ă—693 155 KB

That was probably Watch State Syncing which is an account level setting available in all apps. On Roku is it under Settings>General. It does not affect streaming quality. It was a new feature released in August. More info on that here. https://support.plex.tv/articles/sync-watch-state-and-ratings/

6

I see the watch progress sync now, thanks for clarifying.

Well it doesn’t make any sense to me either, but for some reason, after upgrading to this particular version of the Plex server, my TV show watching on the Roku was being interrupted by these spikes in bandwidth (and it had never been a problem before). Which was why I tried rebooting both my PC and the Roku before tweaking things. But reboots, refreshes, cleans, none seemed to correct it.

For some reason, turning off the Settings Sync stopped the bandwidth spikes. Darned if I know why. Makes no sense, I know. But as soon as I turned it off, I was able to watch multiple episodes in a row without interruption. And it was the only setting I changed at that time. (I work in IT, I know not to change more than one thing at once ^_^).

So unless something else magically changed at the same time (or in the background), I don’t know what else it could be.

7

Here’s a screenshot showing the crazy amount of bandwidth from my one single local stream. This is an abnormally high level for my setup and it was causing the playback to halt intermittently.

Screenshot_20221105-194617
Screenshot_20221105-1946171041Ă—480 56.6 KB

Normally streams to my Roku sit at around 6 Mbps.

8

What are your Local settings on that Roku under Settings>Video .

9

Local was set to 20 Mbps, 4K.

I’m assuming this is an “up to” measure since the TV that this Roku is connected to only goes up to 1080p. The 60-70 Mbps are still well in excess of that setting.

10

During playback, what does the server’s Now Playing dashboard show? Is it Direct Play, Direct Stream, or Transcoding?

If it’s Direct Play, try disabling that on the Roku. Change Direct Play to Disable.
(Keep Allow Direct Stream enabled.)

11

It shows as direct stream (the setting is auto). I can try setting it to disabled but it looks like this particular media is not using direct play.

12

I was hoping that Direct Stream would help because it allows the Plex server to repackage & remux the media streams. Sometimes Direct Play can be problematic with imperfect files, including “tons of bandwidth” as a symptom.

Can you share the media info xml for that file?

https://support.plex.tv/articles/201998867-investigate-media-information-and-formats/

13

It wouldn’t let me attach the xml, so I have pasted it below. The file in question is a BluRay rip, but it was more than just this one. It was multiple in this series, and never in the same spot. I could back it up a few seconds, and resume and it would continue to play normally for a while.

<MediaContainer size="1" allowSync="1" identifier="com.plexapp.plugins.library" librarySectionID="2" librarySectionTitle="TV Shows" librarySectionUUID="fadb5482-3d63-4060-a1f3-bfc9e00fe743" mediaTagPrefix="/system/bundle/media/flags/" mediaTagVersion="1666186268">
<Video ratingKey="2821" key="/library/metadata/2821" parentRatingKey="2819" grandparentRatingKey="2790" guid="plex://episode/5d9c11bdba6eb9001fc0cb24" parentGuid="plex://season/602e6681d17ae1002dc10706" grandparentGuid="plex://show/5d9c0862ffd9ef001e993174" type="episode" title="Chapter Two: Rebirth" grandparentKey="/library/metadata/2790" parentKey="/library/metadata/2819" librarySectionTitle="TV Shows" librarySectionID="2" librarySectionKey="/library/sections/2" grandparentTitle="The Legend of Korra" parentTitle="Season 3" contentRating="TV-Y7" summary="Tenzin, Jinora, and Team Avatar travel toward Ba Sing Se in order to find the new airbenders. Stopping at various villages along the way, they hope to recruit them in order to rebuild the Air Nation, though with little success as they were only able to convince a young boy named Kai to join them. Meanwhile, Zaheer travels the four nations to free his fellow criminals from their prison. After freeing Ghazan and Ming-Hua, they set course for the Northern Water Tribe to free their last member, P'Li. Upon learning of their escape, Lord Zuko sets course for the Northern Water Tribe himself in an attempt to stop them." index="2" parentIndex="3" audienceRating="7.6" viewCount="2" lastViewedAt="1667537102" thumb="/library/metadata/2821/thumb/1667200043" art="/library/metadata/2790/art/1667181273" parentThumb="/library/metadata/2819/thumb/1667182053" grandparentThumb="/library/metadata/2790/thumb/1667181273" grandparentArt="/library/metadata/2790/art/1667181273" grandparentTheme="/library/metadata/2790/theme/1667181273" duration="1355091" originallyAvailableAt="2014-06-27" addedAt="1476682732" updatedAt="1667200043" audienceRatingImage="themoviedb://image.rating" chapterSource="media">
<Media id="27864" duration="1355091" bitrate="2815" width="1920" height="1080" aspectRatio="1.78" audioChannels="6" audioCodec="aac" videoCodec="hevc" videoResolution="1080" container="mkv" videoFrameRate="24p" audioProfile="lc" videoProfile="main 10">
<Part accessible="1" exists="1" id="27918" key="/library/parts/27918/1667181835/file.mkv" duration="1355091" file="P:\TV Shows\The Legend of Korra\Season 3\The Legend of Korra (2012) - S03E02 - Rebirth (1080p BluRay x265 RCVR).mkv" size="476782283" audioProfile="lc" container="mkv" deepAnalysisVersion="6" hasThumbnail="1" indexes="sd" requiredBandwidths="6599,5215,5215,5215,5215,5215,5215,5215" videoProfile="main 10">
<Stream id="63106" streamType="1" default="1" codec="hevc" index="0" bitrate="2815" bitDepth="10" chromaLocation="left" chromaSubsampling="4:2:0" codedHeight="1080" codedWidth="1920" colorRange="tv" frameRate="23.976" height="1080" level="120" profile="main 10" refFrames="1" requiredBandwidths="5923,4597,4597,4597,4597,4597,4597,4597" width="1920" displayTitle="1080p (HEVC Main 10)" extendedDisplayTitle="1080p (HEVC Main 10)"> </Stream>
<Stream id="63107" streamType="2" selected="1" codec="aac" index="1" channels="6" bitrate="436" language="English" languageTag="en" languageCode="eng" audioChannelLayout="5.1" profile="lc" requiredBandwidths="453,453,453,453,453,453,453,453" samplingRate="48000" displayTitle="English (AAC 5.1)" extendedDisplayTitle="English (AAC 5.1)"> </Stream>
<Stream id="63108" streamType="2" codec="aac" index="2" channels="2" bitrate="80" language="Spanish" languageTag="es" languageCode="spa" audioChannelLayout="stereo" profile="he-aac" requiredBandwidths="80,80,80,80,80,80,80,80" samplingRate="48000" displayTitle="Spanish (HE-AAC Stereo)" extendedDisplayTitle="Spanish (HE-AAC Stereo)"> </Stream>
<Stream id="63109" streamType="2" codec="aac" index="3" channels="2" bitrate="80" language="English" languageTag="en" languageCode="eng" audioChannelLayout="stereo" profile="he-aac" requiredBandwidths="80,80,80,80,80,80,80,80" samplingRate="48000" title="Commentary" displayTitle="English (HE-AAC Stereo)" extendedDisplayTitle="Commentary (English HE-AAC Stereo)"> </Stream>
<Stream id="63110" streamType="3" codec="vobsub" index="4" bitrate="19" language="English" languageTag="en" languageCode="eng" headerCompression="1" requiredBandwidths="21,21,21,21,21,21,21,21" displayTitle="English (VOBSUB)" extendedDisplayTitle="English (VOBSUB)"> </Stream>
</Part>
</Media>
<Director id="49140" filter="director=49140" tag="Colin Heck"/>
<Writer id="49134" filter="writer=49134" tag="Bryan Konietzko"/>
<Writer id="49135" filter="writer=49135" tag="Michael Dante DiMartino"/>
<Writer id="49144" filter="writer=49144" tag="Joshua Hamilton"/>
<Guid id="imdb://tt3797652"/>
<Guid id="tmdb://991203"/>
<Guid id="tvdb://4907427"/>
<Rating image="themoviedb://image.rating" value="7.6" type="audience"/>
<Role id="49117" filter="actor=49117" tag="Skyler Brigmann" tagKey="5d7768408a7581001f12ed5e" role="Kai (voice)" thumb="https://metadata-static.plex.tv/people/5d7768408a7581001f12ed5e.jpg"/>
<Chapter id="646" filter="thumb=646" index="1" startTimeOffset="0" endTimeOffset="492659" thumb="/library/media/27864/chapterImages/1"/>
<Chapter id="646" filter="thumb=646" index="2" startTimeOffset="492659" endTimeOffset="961419" thumb="/library/media/27864/chapterImages/2"/>
<Chapter id="646" filter="thumb=646" index="3" startTimeOffset="961419" endTimeOffset="1323950" thumb="/library/media/27864/chapterImages/3"/>
<Chapter id="646" filter="thumb=646" index="4" startTimeOffset="1323950" endTimeOffset="1354980" thumb="/library/media/27864/chapterImages/4"/>
<Marker id="16136" type="intro" startTimeOffset="1114" endTimeOffset="18536">
<Attributes id="16136"/>
</Marker>
<Extras size="0"> </Extras>
<Related> </Related>
</Video>
</MediaContainer>
14

Thanks! The requiredBandwidths numbers are pretty darn reasonable and consistent. Nothing that might point to a problem.

Are you still seeing the original issue?

15

Was speaking with someone and the spike in bandwidth may be the roku trying to buffer ahead which would be independent of the quality bit rate of stream. Possibly something is wrong with that but does seem odd that would even matter on a local network.

is your roku wired or wifi?

1 Like
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No, the issue has not recurred since I turned off the Sync Settings option. I have no idea why that setting would be impacting anything on my Roku, and yet here we are.

18

Wifi, but it’s very close to the AP and has excellent reception. My other wifi Roku in the house has shown no issues (which is why I tried rebooting the problematic one).

19

Ah! Are you still worried about it? I don’t think it was that setting, but if everything is working now …

21

Nah, I’m not particularly worried about it. Just thought it was quite odd and I had no idea why turning off the sync settings would change anything, so I posted in case I missed something or maybe someone else had any other ideas or wanted to consult a log in case it was a bug that needed fixing.

For now I’d call it fine since the issue has gone away. If it happens again before this thread auto closes, I’ll be back.

1 Like
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