NP. Problem only happens for media that is transcoded to the roku (at least for me anyhow) so when testing check for that.
I’m almost a month now after making this change and have not seen the problem since with multiple roku devices.
The art of ‘The Work-Around’ was invented long ago by Cavemen then evolved into Divorce (more civilized) at some point.
The ‘Work-Around’ for Plex Veterans is what you do when the fix never comes.
Hope for The Fix - While employing The Work-Around.
One thing I am curious about is the buffering size. Default for me was 60. If we bring it down to 15, what is the downside to that? Will the video stutter/buffer more often? I was going to try changing to “prefer quality” first, and leave buffering at 60. I have clients that stream remotely over WAN and some LAN clients as well. I am worried that the remote WAN clients will have a degraded experience.
Please let me know if you have any analysis to share here. Thanks once more.
The buffer isn’t as big, so the transcoder/stream has to fill it more often.
The buffer is the dynamic warehouse for the stream. The stream plays from the buffer at the client. If the buffer can’t stay ahead of the stream the ‘orange spinner’ is what you see while the buffer is being filled.
Typically a larger buffer is better if the default buffer isn’t working very well. <— at least if my logic and Plex’s meet somewhere.
No downside that I have seen. Might use more CPU/GPU cycles depending on your environment.
Downside of not making the change is is plex will cut shows off early 
Ive seen some streams that just fill the whole show/movie in one go, as if the buffer size is infinite. It doesnt seem like the buffer size is followed all the time. Also, if the buffer size in increased, would that make the show stop sooner?
Some device apps don’t have that setting - I assume some ‘default’ size is used in that case.
If ‘Bug Logic’ holds - that seems to be the case - for the time being. Shrinking the buffer is ‘the Work-Around’.
Same issue for me, running latest server version on a Synology NAS, and roku ultra.
Plex needs to actually solve this.
Shrinking buffer, changing quality doesn’t solve it
1 Like
I am having the same problem on multiple Rokus. I have 5 Rokus, and the Ultimate doesn’t seem to have the problem, the lesser ones do. They are all running the latest software (both from Roku and Plex). The server has transcoder quality to “hurt” and the buffer at 15. Still happens.
Anyone else have any band-aids, or … heaven forbid … hope for a real fix?
Just +1 that this is still an issue on roku with transcoded audio. Would love a fix.
I noticed this issue when you stop a movie and then come back to it later and use the resume from previous location option instead of starting from the beginning. I’m not sure if it’s limited to that, but that’s where I notice it.
it also happens if you skip through the opening credits of a tv show, for example. for me it’s any kind of skipping within an item that requires transcoding. really, really irritating, and I haven’t seen plex acknowledge it in any of the many threads posted about this.
changing the buffer length and transcoder quality have no effect for me.
Still can’t believe this hasn’t been fixed – it’s been ages for me, multiple posts here and still nothing. Really sad.
1 Like
I am having this issue as well, but it only seems to happen when I resume an episode. Every other subsequent episode played right after works fine. Very strange.
Using (2) Roku Ultras
1 Like
Plex please fix this!!! Such bullshit constantly getting jumped to the next episode with 3 minutes left when transcoding is taking place. If I go back to the episode again and watch that same part right away it will play fine.
1 Like
I’m also having this same problem with Roku and transcoding. At first I thought maybe the media files were bad but if I rewind the last few minutes play fine. Really irritating!
1 Like
How can there be this many Plex pass owners experiencing this issue for months with no response at all from @elan or anyone on the plex team? This is a core functionality bug with your most popular client?
1 Like
Our Roku app development team hasn’t been able to reproduce this issue locally; it may be specific to certain server or device configurations, or to certain properties of particular media files. We’re going to need all the diagnostic information we can get in order to track it down.
Please enable debug and verbose-level logging in the server, restart the server and client app, reproduce the issue, then provide the following data:
- The server, client app, and client firmware versions you’ve seen this happen on
- If you know, the last version on which the issue did not happen
- The client device model
- Whether the video stream was Direct Streamed or transcoded
- Whether you’d resumed at an offset or started from the beginning of the file
- Whether you’d seeked a substantial distance in the video during playback
- The duration of the file
- The approximate timestamp within the file at which playback cut off
- Whether or not the issue reproduces reliably given the same starting conditions on the same file
- Whether the issue happens for all files, or only some (or most)
- The Plex Media Server logs
- The approximate times (in the server’s local time zone) when playback started and when the issue took place
- If possible, a sample file that reproduces the issue (even if it happens on all files you’ve tried)
- If submitting a trimmed sample file, please verify that the trimmed copy reproduces the issue as well, rather than only the larger file it’s trimmed from
Thanks.
3 Likes
This will take some time, since it is intermittent and does not occur if skipping to the end to reproduce, which is how we all have been seeing the end of cut off playbacks. Thanks for the acknowledgement, and I’m sure we’ll get test cases soon!
will follow up with more data when I can, but my observation has been that it occurs consistently with any transcoded file that has been either resumed from an offset or seeked within (except that it is still possible to seek “close enough” to the end and watch the cut-off part). I’ve not seen an issue either with direct play, or with playing uninterrupted without any seeking from start to finish. Length of the item within 20m-1hr doesn’t seem to influence whether the issue occurs.
edit to add: my transcoding case is any HEVC item to a 3600R streaming stick
