Plex "Buffering" Forever

General Discussions
, , , ,
1

I mostly watch my Plex content from a web browser on my PC both at home and remote, but I do also occasionally view content from a smart TV and a FireTV. Lately, I’ve been having this issue where the video will stop and give me the spinning wheel in the center of the screen, but the stream never starts playing again. Even if I stop/pause the stream and start it again the circle just comes back. I can refresh the browser window and the video starts playing again without issue, sometimes I can go for hours before it happens again, sometimes I can’t go for more than 5 minute intervals. There is only myself and 2-3 other devices that have access to the Plex, it’s rare to have more than one person streaming at a time and this issue has been only recently after years of working fine. Server is wired connected.

Any suggestions on what to look for?

Server Details:
Operating System: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (10.0, Build 19044) (19041.vb_release.191206-1406)
Processor: Intel(R) Core™ i7-3770K CPU @ 3.50GHz (8 CPUs), ~3.9GHz
Memory: 16384MB RAM
Card name: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti
Bandwidth: 1000/50

2

you need to turn on hardware transcoding and increase the buffer time.

FYI the firestick is ok but honestly, it’s the bottom of the barrel for a media player even the 4k version.

3

I will give that a shot. I don’t use the FireStick, I have the FireTV with a wired connection as well, and honestly it’s outperforming all the PC’s I’m viewing on. I nearly never have the issue there, it’s mostly in the SmartTV app and the web browsers.