Server Version#: 1.20.1.3252
Player Version#: Plex Web 4.34.4, Apple TV 4K 7.5.1
Not long ago I could watch all my media (4K oder 1080p) with all audio tracks including TrueHD 7.1 and all other 7.1 Audio. About a week ago I had to reinstall the OS on my server and back up the Server Folder and the registry entry like the “How to” on the plex website. After reinstalling Windows Server 2019, setting all up and booting my Plex server everything was fine, except I can not play any content with the TureHD 7.1 or any other 7.1 audio track. I tried local streaming, remote streaming, 4k and non-4k content and all that on Apple TV 4K, Plex Web in Firefox and Crome, on Plex for Samsung SmartTV, normal Apple TV, iPad and iPhone. All return the same result - After two or three seconds lodingscreen the player crashes to an error message witch states that transcoding failed and the transcoder has been stopped. Changing Audio from 7.1 tracks to 5.1 tracks solves the problem - well sort of. I can play all my media as usual, 4k, 1080p, everything except the audio.
I know for sure the playback with 7.1 tracks had been working prior to the reinstall. Next I will try to delete one of the movies with 7.1 tracks and re-add it to the library and see if it is some directing issue.
Maybe anyone else here has an idea what this problme is caused by.
Set your Plex Server for debug, not verbose, logs (see support article linked below).
Play a movie/show to re-create the problem (so it is captured in the logs).
Wait 2 minutes.
Pull the logs and attach the entire ZIP file to the thread.
See this support article for detailed instructions:
Web browsers are extremely limited in their playback capability. Expect that any multi-channel audio will transcode, as will any HEVC video.
It appears someone was playing Homefront using Firefox.
Something, either a setting on the server or the client, is limiting the bitrate to 8000 kbps. The video has a bitrate of 29851 kbps. Plex has no choice but to transcode the video to meet the bitrate limitation.
The audio is transcoding since it is dts 5.1. Transcoding audio is not too much of a hit on the CPU, so it may not be a problem. If you want audio to direct play, you’ll need to get a 2.0 audio stream, probably AAC 2.0, that direct plays in Firefox.
Sep 12, 2020 23:22:24.084 [3996] DEBUG - [Now] Device is Firefox (Firefox).
Sep 12, 2020 23:22:24.221 [7128] DEBUG - MDE: Homefront (2013): Direct Play is disabled
Sep 12, 2020 23:22:24.221 [7128] DEBUG - MDE: Homefront (2013): media must be transcoded in order to use the dash protocol
Sep 12, 2020 23:22:24.221 [7128] DEBUG - MDE: Homefront (2013): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/h264
Sep 12, 2020 23:22:24.221 [7128] DEBUG - MDE: Homefront (2013): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/h264/dca
Sep 12, 2020 23:22:24.221 [7128] DEBUG - MDE: Homefront (2013): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/h264/dca
Sep 12, 2020 23:22:24.221 [7128] DEBUG - MDE: Homefront (2013): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/h264/dca
Sep 12, 2020 23:22:24.221 [7128] DEBUG - MDE: Homefront (2013): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/h264/dca
Sep 12, 2020 23:22:24.221 [7128] DEBUG - Homefront - video.bitrate limitation applies: 29851 > 8000
Sep 12, 2020 23:22:24.221 [7128] DEBUG - Homefront - audio.channels limitation applies: 6 > 2
Sep 12, 2020 23:22:24.221 [7128] DEBUG - Homefront - video.bitrate limitation applies: 29851 > 8000
Sep 12, 2020 23:22:24.221 [7128] DEBUG - MDE: Homefront (2013): no remuxable profile found, so video stream will be transcoded
Thank you for the reply. Can you maybe explain why only the 7.1 Audio causes the crashes? I am very certain that I watched the movies with 7.1 Audio before.
Edit: I removed all the lemitation I could find in the Plex Server Settings using Firefox. Do you know witch exact settings are bottlenecking the stream?
