Plex App on Mac stutters

Plex Players
1

I only have that problem with one TV show I’m trying to watch, and it’s only on the Mac Plex app. It works fine in the browser and on my other devices, but for some reason, it stutters on the Mac app.

CPU usage also ramps up to 100%. I couldn’t reproduce the same issue with any other file.

It’s a 4K HDR10+ Profile A MKV file.

2

Can you get the desktop player logs after it happened with that file. Hopefully it has the events same time frame as your logs from server. Is the server transcoding or direct play.

3

Do you have low power mode enabled in macOS?

4

No it’s disabled.

5

Direct play audio and video.

1 Like
6

UPDATE
It also stutters on the Windows Plex app, also direct play.

7

yep same here I thought it was just me, I’m on an old mac
iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015), OS: 11.7.10

From my testing, the current build: 1.109.0.329-ea562b95

is like the laggiest interface ever when playing video files, direct or not direct, like I can hear the audio play for a good 5-10s before the video even starts & trying to open UI elements like the settings to change the subs or audio lang takes soo long to respond. even pausing feels like cancer..

purging $HOME/Library/Caches/Plex & $HOME/Library/"Application Support"/Plex

& re-initlise Plex build 1.104.0.241-2164c90a from scratch its all good.

& if I initlise Plex build 1.109.0.329-ea562b95 & just switch back to the older Build before purging those 2 folders it still a laggy mess.

But something happens within those 2 folders on the latest build, it breaks/corrupts something & the UI is non-responsive..

& this does not matter what video file I play, it can even be a low rest 480p 30s clip & it still lags so hard.

here is the old build for mac if anyone wants/needs till plex fixes their broken build.

8

@BigWheel, here are my log files if it helps.

Plex App Logs (1.109.0.329-ea562b95).zip (2.3 MB)

However, I think I found the issue, it’s to do with the UI windowHeight, windowWidth etc found in.

$HOME/Library/Application Support/Plex/plex.ini
deleting everything within the [ui] category & restoring to default window size & it doesn’t seem to lag but as soon as the user resizes the window or goes to full screen its over.

Also on initial setup as in no Plex Folder in app support or caches (for the Mac app, not server)

there is no lag on any video file but as soon as you restart the app & resize window its over, lag city here we come.

1 Like
9

This is the metadata of the video file I tested with normal home video lib in plex

Video
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : VP9
Format profile                           : 0
Codec ID                                 : V_VP9
Duration                                 : 40 min 45 s
Bit rate                                 : 26.2 kb/s
Width                                    : 256 pixels
Height                                   : 144 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate mode                          : Variable
Frame rate                               : 15.019 FPS
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.047
Stream size                              : 7.63 MiB (35%)
Default                                  : Yes
Forced                                   : No
Color range                              : Limited
Matrix coefficients                      : BT.709

Audio
ID                                       : 2
Format                                   : AAC LC SBR
Format/Info                              : Advanced Audio Codec Low Complexity with Spectral Band Replication
Commercial name                          : HE-AAC
Format settings                          : Implicit
Codec ID                                 : A_AAC-2
Duration                                 : 40 min 45 s
Bit rate                                 : 48.0 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 2 channels
Channel layout                           : L R
Sampling rate                            : 44.1 kHz
Frame rate                               : 21.533 FPS (2048 SPF)
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 14.0 MiB (63%)
Default                                  : Yes
Forced                                   : No

I used yt-dlp to DL the lowest quality 76kbps video file: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee4oHnkXRnM

144P video file UI still lags so it don’t matter how big or how bad the video file is quality does not matter.

10

Thanks for the logs and details @XxUnkn0wnxX

12

See Mac Player stuttering video playback - #12 by gbooker02

3 Likes
13

I have the same problem actually. v. 1.109.0, Macbook Pro M1 Pro

14

This has not been fixed with ver: Plex-1.110.0.351-4e48eb83
I’m still using ver 1.104.0.241-2164c90a :frowning:

15

:slightly_frowning_face: ok thanks. bug report shows that is the one it should have been fixed in. I’ll let folks know.

I know you downgraded but since the QA folks could not reproduce anymore is it possible to get fresh logs from 1.110 version

16

Plex App (1.110.0.351-4e48eb83).zip (96.4 KB)

here are fresh logs, but I suspect diagnosing this will be hard, unless you have an ancient mac like I do.

it feels like my whole system lags when video playback starts, like the whole windowserver is about to crash every UI element on the system lags even finder etc..

I get a similar issues when trying to playback 4k video on youtube or trying to render HDR video knowing that my system cannot handle it.

strangely CPU or memory did not spike but still unsure whats causing this lag.

17

Thanks. Just wanted to double check as well. is this only when the window resizes or all the time? only in windowed mode?

18

It doesn’t matter; it lags whether in full-screen or windowed mode.
even resetting the plex.ini file doesn’t help much anymore..

19

it feels like my whole system lags when video playback starts, like the whole windowserver is about to crash every UI element on the system lags even finder etc..

I don’t see the videos stuttering, but there is definitely still a serious performance issue. On my 2019 16” MacBook Pro, the playback lags, the audio and video sometimes get out of sync and the fans systematically run full blast.

On the same Mac, the AppleTV app doesn’t break a sweat playing 4k content…