Server Version#: 1.25.1.5286 (Synology)
Player Version#: 1.35 to 1.40
Hello.
For the past couple months, the Plex player app on my laptop has been hanging extremely frequently :
when launching videos (including h264)
when starting the app with a video already open, as it tries to autoplay it
Symptoms : the video playing UI opens, and the spinning circle that says it’s loading freezes after a couple seconds. Nothing else happens until I try to click somewhere, at which points Windows tells me the app isn’t responding. Waiting doesn’t change anything, I have to force kill the app.
I haven’t been able to reproduce the issue consistently, but it happens at least a couple times every time I try to view a video. The app can even play a video correctly then freeze on the next during the same viewing session.
The issue started appearing with 1.39 I think, but reverting to 1.38 and 1.37 didn’t change anything, nor did updating to 1.40, even after a full reinstall (uninstall, cleanup of the %appdata% plex folder and the registry keys, reboot then reinstall).
I’m currently back to 1.35, I’ve had freezes as well but less frequently.
I’ve attached player logs, any help would be appreciated as this is beyond frustrating…
Also, on the laptop, using the “skip intro” function always hangs the player.
I’m having no issue at all on my desktop using the latest 1.40 version, so maybe there’s something on my laptop that doesn’t play nice with Plex. It’s a Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 9310 (late 2020), with a core i7-1165G7 and Iris Xe graphics card.
Again, any idea would be appreciated, I’ve been using Plex for about 10 years now and I don’t fancy going back to VLC and copying files …
Me too! This is kinda new fenomenom for me and it feels like 100% chanse it will freeze (the whole app, untill dialog says plex is not responding and ask if I want to terminate). When I jump around in a video it is more risky to freeze. I too uses a laptop. I have tryed to reinstall the plex for windows app. My other stationary PC that also runs plex for windows is not having thiss issue at all.
Note that the app can freeze anywhere, not only on playback. Sometime when viewing labrary etc.
Ah, nice to see I’m not alone!
I’m also having the same issue where jumping around a video (or trying to skip intro) is much more likely to freeze the app.
Going back to a much older version (1.29) seemed to help a lot, but that means going back to an older UI as well, so I’ve more or less given up on the Plex app for Windows.
The Plex HTPC app seems to work flawlessly, though. The interface isn’t as good for my touchscreen laptop as the Plex app itself, but at least it works.
I’m having similar issues on Windows 11 live TV. The TV guide opens up with no problem but when you load a channel the audio starts immediately but I get the same spinning circle and the screen freezes of a poster of whatever show was playing on that channel. It will hang like that for several minutes then live TV begins to play but none of the controls are available, and it just stays locked on live TV. The only way to exit is to bring up the task manager and end task. I tried reinstalling but to no avail. I noticed yesterday the player started running sluggishly and now today this. Plex is a pain in the ass with these constant issues just to watch TV and movies. Seems like I waste more time troubleshooting then enjoying.
