Server Version#: 1.19.4.2935 (I have the plex pass)
Player Version#:8.2 0 (android plex app)
Hello, I’m at a loss, I’ve been at this for many hours and I need help.
I have a Synology DS218+ with 6GB of ram, soon to be 8GB, and the hard drive is a Seagate IronWolf 8TB NAS Internal Hard Drive HDD – 3.5 Inch SATA 6Gb/s 7200 RPM 256MB Cache, my internet speed is 940mb/s up and down.
Streaming within my home wifi network all is great, looks perfect. When I stream something outside my network, transcoding takes over but it always changes from 1080p (original quality) to SD. I don’t know what SD stands for, I assume standard definition, but the quality on my android phone is what I would consider maybe 480p quality, watchable but it looks like a vcr maybe a dvd is playing on an HD tv.
Before I got the plex pass, it was doing software transcoding and the quality was what I described above. I then bought the plex pass and it now does Hardware Transcoding but it still says 1080p to SD, I think it’s slightly better than the software transcoding but still no where near HD, I’d still say it looks like 480p’ish. I only have 1080p files, nothing is greater quality, I have some pictures of what I’m seeing here. Click the image, there are 3.
I bought the Synology because from what I read the hardware transcoding should be good for at least a few streams of 1080p. I can share any other settings or screenshots.
Your connection is Indirect, which means you are connecting via Plex Relay. Plex Relay is limited to 2 Mbps for Plex Pass users and 1 Mbps for non-Plex pass users.
Make sure Remote Access is set up and working correctly.
Suggest you use manual port forwarding instead of uPnP. Manual port forwarding is a bit more work to set up, but is generally more reliable.
You can verify connectivity via canyouseeme.org. It will confirm if your Plex server is reachable remotely. Access the site from the same network where you Plex server is installed. Enter the port number used for remote access.
Other things to check for remote access:
Check the settings in the Plex app on your phone, Settings → Quality.
Automatically adjust quality = Off. Enabling can force a video transcode. Use if you’ve an unreliable or slow connection.
Limit Cellular Data = Off.
Remote Streaming = Maximum. On many apps this defaults to a lower value, such as 4 Mbps.
Check the setting in Plex Media Server → Remote Access. Specifically Internet Upload Speed and Limit Remote Stream Bitrate. Make sure they are set appropriate for your Internet connection. Note Plex will limit the rate before you hit the limit. So, if you set the limit to 20 Mbps and stream a 20 Mbps video, it will transcode to a lower speed.
Thank you guys so much for all the advice. I think my main problem is the indirect connection. I won’t be able to tinker with this until later tonight, but I’ll start with port forwarding and see if I can get a direct connection.
All the other settings I already had set, unlimited upload, not limiting cellular data, remote streaming at maximum, and I entered my upload speed in plex as 900mb/s.
Im not sure if the Automatically adjust quality thing is checked but I’ll make sure to double check that when I figure out the port forwarding.
I’ll report back, thank you guys again, appreciate the help.
Ok, so I am using the Eero mesh wifi system and I have CenturyLink Fiber.
I set up port forwarding in the Eero and it didn’t help, so I did some research and I had to setup a port forward on the Centurylink modem to the Eero over that port as well. Once I did that I finally got a better test. Instead of a 1080p file being transcoded down to SD quality, it is now using HW transcoding but it’s going from 1080p to 1080p, and it only took about 10 seconds for my video to start playing and instead of using 99% of my NAS cpu, it uses 15-60%, fluctuating a lot, so I’m assuming direct play failed since my phone can’t directly play that exact type of file?
Or should I be expecting Direct Play more often? The phone is the only thing I have to test, because I can use LTE so it’s not on my home network.
I had a thought, I can direct play files on my phone while on my home wifi network, so clearly my phone can direct play the file, so why can’t I direct play the file on my phone when not on my home wifi network?
Also ever since adding the forwarded port on my modem, when I sign into my plex server it says it’s not secure.
I’ve already changed all of those settings, Everything is set to maximum and my upload is 900mb/s.
My friend with the exact same phone (Oneplus 8 pro) and even cell provider (Verizon) can Direct Play from my plex server, but my phone uses hardware transcoding. We even tested the same file.
Well, there’s no way in your app - if it’s Android - to Display Information. So you can’t get a detailed reason why it’s transcoding - unless you attach the client logs for someone to read.
Maddening, ain’t it?
It’s pretty easy to Display Information in an Android Device App (not mobile) - to simply read the reason for the transcode, so you can perhaps do something about it.
Plex has been head over heels on a quest to make Display Information useless - so it’s impossible to know why something is transcoding - and now they’ve developed Display Information right out of the Mobile App.
Android has some of the most detailed reports when something is transcoding and Plex takes every opportunity not to use it.
Not sure what quest they’re on, but I’m pretty sure I’m on a different one.
I might need a new topic. I’ve figured out my porting issue, and now my friend can direct play from my plex and his, but when I connect to mine or his on LTE I get direct play failed.
I just uninstalled the plex app on my phone and reinstalled it, the only thing I changed was in the quality setting.
Automatically adjust quality = OFF
Limit Cellular Data = OFF
Remote Streaming = MAXIMUM
These 2 I didn’t touch.
Home Streaming = Recommended
Remote Streaming = Original
Then use lower quality on cellular was already OFF
My friend confirmed he has the same settings.
What kinds of things prevent Direct Play, could it be some sort of security thing? I have a PIN on my account as well as a password? I’m literally grasping at straws now.
No subs, not even a sub file for this movie, also my friend played the same move from my server and he got directplay. I also did a speed test from where I’m sitting with my phone and I got 99mb/s down and 33mb/s up, so it’s not my connection.
What does the Playback Info show for a transcode reason?
The other option is to look at the Plex server log files.
Set your server for debug logs only. Server Settings -> General. Check the box to enable debug logs. Do not enable verbose logs (it causes the log files to wrap too fast).
Preferably with no other users streaming, play a movie that transcodes. Subtitles disabled. Let it play for 15 - 20 seconds. It makes it easier to read logs when only one person is streaming.
Stop playback. Wait 30 seconds for server to settle down.
Pull the log files. Server settings -> Troubleshooting.
Look in the Plex Media Server.log (and .1, .2, etc) files for lines that contain MDE:, which stands for Media Decision Engine. Those and lines near those will give you a reason for the transcode.
Look for lines with info like bit rate limit, too many audio channels (ex: 6 > 2), etc.
If you like, post the ZIP file to the forum and others can look as well. The files contain your e-mail address and public IP address. No passwords, tokens, etc are in the files.
Ok, so I think I found the culprit, but I don’t know how to fix it, or why my friend doesn’t have this issue.
DEBUG - MDE: Deadpool 2 (2018): Direct Play is disabled DEBUG - MDE: Deadpool 2 (2018): media must be transcoded in order to use the hls protocol
DEBUG - MDE: Deadpool 2 (2018): Direct Streaming is disabled, so video stream will be transcoded DEBUG - MDE: Deadpool 2 (2018): no remuxable profile found, so video stream will be transcoded DEBUG - MDE: Cannot direct stream video stream due to profile or setting limitations
DEBUG - Codecs: testing h264 (decoder) with hwdevice vaapi
DEBUG - Codecs: hardware transcoding: testing API vaapi
DEBUG - Codecs: Testing with profile ‘High’
DEBUG - Scaled up video bitrate to 3225Kbps based on 1.500000x fudge factor. DEBUG - MDE: Deadpool 2 (2018): Audio Direct Streaming is disabled, so video’s audio stream will be transcoded DEBUG - MDE: Cannot direct stream audio stream due to profile or setting limitations
That was from the main log, all the others repeated this. DEBUG - We’re going to try to auto-select an audio stream for account 1. DEBUG - Selecting best audio stream for part ID 17320 (autoselect: 0 language: en) DEBUG - Audio Stream: 45931, Subtitle Stream: -1 WARN - MDE: unable to find a working transcode profile for video stream
So did I apparently messed up an audio setting when I initially setup my plex account?? I don’t recall changing anything but I definitely could have, I didn’t know what I was doing the first day, shoot, I guess I still don’t.
Question: If I click the reset Plex web Settings to default, that won’t mess with all the metadata in my Libraries right? I feel like I must have screwed something up at some point, I just don’t know what.
Well, get ready for this one. I cleared the cache and storage for the plex app (even though I’ve tried re-installing it earlier today) and I signed in with a 2nd plex account I made and gave access to my Libraries. That account on my phone could play direct play. So I signed out, and signed back into my main plex account, and low and behold, it now is playing directplay, I tried with the same troublesome movie and a new one.
I’m baffled, but I guess we can call this solved, and I’ll never touch a setting again.
