Playback problems for one user but not another

Plex Media Server
1

Server Version#: 1.22.0.4157
Player Version#: Apple TV 7.14 (23007)

Hello, I’ve been pulling my hair out with playback problems for the last week or so. I have checked everything I can think of, and everything checks out fine. But I am getting constant buffering, direct streaming or transcoding when it should be direct playing, streams stopping and erroring out, etc. You name it, I’ve seen it.

This morning, on a whim, I changed the account in the Plex app on our Apple TV, to use my wife’s account instead of mine. All of a sudden, I’m getting buttery smooth playback, direct play, stream starts immediately, everything is perfect.

So I went through and checked the playback settings, everything is identical between the two accounts. Is it possible that the server is somehow limiting playback on my account, but not on hers?

Help!

2

Also, I should point out a few other things… this happens on all devices, including the Apple TV mentioned above, as well as a Shield, iPad Pro and web. So this definitely points toward an issue with the server, and possibly the beta server software.

Secondly, I have a second server, and the problem doesn’t exist there. It is only on my primary server, using my main user account on the client, when this happens. Even when I can get it to play, it typically plays using “Direct Stream” rather than “Direct Play.” And within a few minutes, it will switch to transcoding at a very low quality.

3

What version of PMS is that 2nd server running?

4

The second server is also running the latest version of PMS, currently 1.22.0.4157. But it is running Ubuntu 20.04, while the main server is running on macOS.