For me (QNAP) 1.14.0.5470 is the latest. I agree about their focus being on adding crappy features instead of fixing what they’ve got.
Also I don’t believe they have a very good development process. As a developer professionally, we have other coders review our code before it goes into staging. Then testers run it through unit testing and hands-on testing to insure everything works as expected before it goes to the master branch for distribution. Then, if a bug does sneak out, we revert the problem commit test on staging and deploy as an emergency patch. It appears Plex has a bunch of developers all doing their own cool pet thing and no one wants to make the features that they currently have work correctly. And it really seems they have serious problems with their development process.
Yup, I was one in Software development till I started losing my sight and we had the same routine as you have, but it seems Plex has the Microsoft mentality of just issuing updates without proper testing.
I stand corrected to my version, I’m running the same as you are on Ubuntu 18.04 on my i5-3330k and 8Gb RAM with the GTX750ti which I know transcodes 720p and 1080p movies and shows correctly across the other devices that use my PMS, but as for live TV, it just folds and falls to it’s knees, and each time I post my logs nothing gets looked at, it even took me early November to point out where the error was after running it through my screen reader… It took me days to stop hearing the logs in my head!
Anyway, I do hope they pull their act together and get this sorted soon, but I doubt it, and we’ll just see more features that we don’t want added and other sections not fixed!
With enough searching, I found someone’s link to older versions of Plex server and I was able to downgrade. I did some testing and here’s what I experience…
1.14.0.5470
1.14.0.5468
Both of these maybe work once or twice after I restart Plex server, then they NEVER work again, not even overnight. Using the HDHomeRun app I can access every channel quickly and without any issue.
1.13.8.5395
1.13.7.5369
Both of these versions work much better. I still have about 25% of the channels that just refuse to play, and it was consistent for those channels for each of the above versions even after rebooting Plex server. But again, the HDHomeRun app works perfectly to view those channels.
I tried changing a few settings, like turning off live TV transcoding and skipping commercials. But I still couldn’t play certain channels.
A couple months ago, I had zero problems playing live TV, but it seems that for the last few months it’s been getting worse and worse, up to the point of 1.14.0.xxxx being totally non-functional.
If you need the links to download 1.13.8.5395 or 1.13.7.5369 for Ubuntu 64 bit here you go:
@teckel Many thanks for the links, the other issue I found that got blown to one side was using Plex Web through the browser, where the transcoder would throw all channels out with a “Playback Error” after a random amount of time.
The other issue I’ve noticed with the current version is that the transcoder on some channels gets choppy.
I have a feeling Plex will never listen anyway, and I did notice that @sa2000 pulled someone else’s thread for putting the links to older versions of Plex on the forums, but if this corrects issues then it’s a plus!!
Just adding another data point: I saw this on Friday using the Plex client on the Fire TV. Hadn’t seen it in a while prior, but it has always been a little random in the past.
Using Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-955Q tuner. on Win 10
Updated to 1.14.0.5470 and only get “Playback Error - Unable to tune channel” when trying to view live.
I reinstalled DVR & restarted the machine but no luck.
I’ve got the same problem. I downgraded my PMS installation on my Qnap NAS to 1.13.5.5332 due to buffering timouts from my HDHomerun prime, that worked fine. I just added a HDHomerun Quatro and added it to the PMS with the Premium Channels and now get the “Unable to tune channel (no parts)” error when trying to play a channel.
I removed the HDHomerun Prime and no problem playing a channel. I added the Prime again and the error reoccurs.
So it seems that Plex PMS cannot handle 2 HDHomerun units connected at the same time??
Just an update, I removed the HDHR Prime from PMS via control panel and shows from HDHR Quatro running their Premium TV run fine on my Roku tv. I added back the Prime channels but ONLY 2 non-HD local channels. These showed up fine with no errors.
I then removed those 2 channels and added in the HD versions. Went back to my Roku player and bingo! those channels produced the error right away, not able to play from the Prime unit.
It seems that PMS cannot handle HD content from 2 or more HDHR boxes.
@sa2000 do you have any thoughts on this and a way to mitigate? I plan to send back the Quatro to Silicon Dust on Monday since it’s unusable with current PMS
Thanks
I suggest you have a controlled test after enabling debug logging and restarting the server and just do the test - no other streaming / playback on the server. Also enable roku app network logging beforehand with logging level in settings set to DEBUG
Just adding my name in the hat for people experiencing this issue as well. Plex Media Server has been pretty hassle free until this whole TV debacle. It’s been struggling to do live TV for months. Different machine, fresh OS as well as plenty of other things many others have mentioned here.
For real…Plex Support…are you listening? The only reason I got a Plex Pass was for DVR. It’s been months now that we’ve been paying for it and time is about up for me personally.
Same issues, same versions. Was hoping the cord-cutting to be a more seamless experience. Please let us know what we can do as consumers to help you improve this product beyond the mammoth this thread has become.
I’m now in the same boat too. The curious thing is that the onset of symptoms (some HD channels won’t connect anymore) just started and the timing wasn’t related to any software changes that I’m aware of…
We have not been able to reproduce your tuning failure issues after deleting DVRs. The entries do remain in that table but that should not impact tuning for the live DVRs.
Are you in a position to provide diagnostics for the problem ? Logs and a zipped copy of the database for failure when the deleted dvr entries are in the media_provider_resources table and then logs and db for success after removing the entries
