Hello,
We’ve long used Plex server now and although we occasionally access it via our Android devices, we have typically used Roku. Last year we actually upgraded to the Roku 4 to have more processing power as it seemed as though on our Roku 3 Plex would stop, skip, buffer, or become non-responsive specifically when using the Plex app. This was much better on the Roku 4.
We recently purchased a Fire TV to try out as there are some services such as PlayStation Vue that have a far better interface on the Fire TV. While I understand that Roku will be improving this in the near future, it seemed worthwhile to try Fire TV. I also read that FTV currently has more capabilities with Plex (vs Roku) such as higher audio pass through (7.1 instead of 5.1, etc) and I was excited to try this out.
So imagine my surprise - and shock, when I have nothing but trouble with Plex on Fire TV. In fact, in a week’s time, we’ve yet to be able to watch it once! First time, it takes ages, and I mean ages to load. At least 6-8 times what the Roku takes. But I wait it out thinking that it’s just the first time. So, I sign in and then wait till later to watch something. I click on the Plex app and wait and wait and wait even longer than before only now the app won’t open at all. It said there was an unknown error and I should contact the Plex forums to find out what happened. There was no error message given at all. I went out of the app and tried to open it again but all it would do was to go right back to the random error message saying to contact the Plex forums. After trying this 4 or 5 times, I did a force reboot on the Fire TV. After the reboot, I was finally able to get Plex to (slowly) open and then navigated to an entry that was “On Deck”. We waited about 25 seconds (with a spinning circle) for it to go to the media landing page so I could play it. Once again, this would have taken less than 1 second on any Roku (and we have two Roku 3’s, a 4 and a TV). I finally made it to being able to play the media only to find that it was unwatchable due to the lag in audio being a full second or more out of sync with the video. Extremely frustrated at this point, I flipped right back over to Roku, the media loaded instantly and played perfectly without any issues in audio/video sync up!
At this point, I’m thoroughly disappointed in the Plex for Fire TV experience. I cannot imagine why this would be acting this way since Fire TV has much more processing power and memory than Roku does. The little bit I’ve been able to test of the FTV Plex app it seems to have similar (if not more advanced) functions than Roku. These are accessing the exact same media on the same Plex server and both the Roku 4 and the Fire TV box are hooked up via gigabit ethernet cables so it isn’t just an issue with wifi latency or something similar. FWIW, I’m currently using the full size 4k Fire TV box (not the stick) to try to avoid exactly this type of issue.
Any idea as to what may be happening or why we would be experiencing such terrible Plex performance on the Fire TV? Other apps like YouTube work noticeably better for seeking forward and back, etc. You can really see the added “horsepower” under the hood. That’s what makes the Plex performance so disappointing and baffling. Is this normal for Fire TV? Have others experienced this? What about using Android TV (like the Nvidia Shield TV Streamer or the Mi Box Android TV Streamer)? We were considering switching to one of those even before we knew the Plex app was having trouble on Fire. After using the Fire TV for a bit, we realized that since we use a lot of the Google ecosystem, the Android TV makes a lot of sense for us and keeps us in the Google Home/Assistant product line rather than straddling the Alexa system as well. Are there known issues for the Plex app with Android TV? I don’t want to be as disappointed with the Plex experience on Android TV. Please help me understand what is happening with Plex and why. I’d really, truly appreciate your help! Thanks so much!
