I’m loving the Plex HTPC experience. But I’m finding that every time the app updates, the audio settings are reset to default. This has happened every update.
My audio connection is eARC HDMI passthrough with PC → TV → Sonos Beam soundbar. All codecs are correctly passed through once I set things up in the Plex HTPC audio settings. I can’t go PC → soundbar → TV because the Beam has only one HDMI port.
By default, Plex HTPC doesn’t realize what the soundbar supports, probably because I can’t connect PC → soundbar and so it reads support from the TV. I can manually set up the sound in Plex HTPC (number of channels, codecs supported, etc), and then everything is passed through and works perfectly. But once the HTPC client updates, everything goes back to the default (auto recognize sound, which wipes away everything I previously set and defaults to very little in terms of audio features because I think it’s recognizing the TV). Is there something that I am missing? Can the audio settings in HTPC somehow be made persistent between updates?
The audio settings do persist across updates. Could this be that the app is not able to actually save its settings (due to permissions being broken or something) and the settings are being lost on each launch and not related at all to updates?
Thanks for the reply. Strangely, my video and other settings (HDR pass through, etc etc) do persist across updates. It’s only the audio settings that reset. That’s why I thought it might be a bug of some kind.
Is it possible the audio settings being reset is not due to an update but rather due to the TV being turned off while Plex HTPC is running? I ask because I have observed very similar behavior to what @jcorn is describing and I thought they had hit on the cause. But then I noticed there had been no updates to Plex HTPC, but I was still seeing the audio settings “reset”.
My setup is HTPC → AVR → Projector. I power off my AVR when I shut down my theater, but I usually just let the HTPC go to sleep with Plex HTPC still running. I noticed that the Exclusive Audio setting would persist even when the Audio Device was getting “reset”. So, it occurred to me that perhaps Plex HTPC/Windows was seeing the Audio Device (the AVR) I had configured “go away” and thus returned to the default Audio Device.
@gbooker02 is there a way to “force” Plex HTPC to continue to try to use the configured Audio Device even if it is not present/goes away for some period of time? Alternatively, could Plex HTPC either periodically check to see if it has come back and auto-switch back to it? Or, at a minimum, can it at least remember the related audio settings that have been configured for it? It’s annoying enough to have to go re-select the Audio Device, but even more annoying to reconfigure the HDMI, channels, and supported audio formats.
Apologies if this is taking things in the wrong direction, but the initial description of the problem seemed exactly like what I thought I was seeing.
First, great to hear that I’m not going crazy and that someone else sees the same thing. Second, that’s a great idea. I have a similar setup: I leave my HTPC on but the TV turns off. The HTPC then sleeps after 15 minutes of inactivity. So it’s possible that what I thought was settings getting reset after an update could be happening more often when the TV turns off, and I’m just not noticing it because I don’t think to check the settings all the time.
It already does this and has done so for years. It’s not polling but has an event listener set on changes to audio devices. It remembers all the audio devices which have been configured until they go unseen for a long period of time (I think it’s a month or 3). It also remember the order is which they were selected by the user so it uses the most recently selected device of those present.
@alphafoxtrot Do your video settings also reset? Mine are persistent even though my audio settings reset. Curious if that’s a common theme.
@gbooker02 Is there a way for us to find the log of devices that Plex remembers? I’m needing to completely redo my audio settings every time. Maybe Plex keeps thinking it’s a new device each time the settings reset?
@gbooker02 just so I’m sure I understand, you’re saying that Plex HTPC remembers all of the configuration for each of the Audio Devices it has seen. And, further, when an Audio Device it has seen that has been more recently selected by the user “reappears”, it will automatically go back to that one? If so, that would be fantastic.
However, that is definitely not the behavior I am observing. Every time the Audio Device goes back to the default (“Autoselect device”), I have to go in and change it to the AVR and then re-configure all of the AVR-specific settings because they have been cleared:
Audio Device Kind – Basic → HDMI
Audio Channels – Auto → 7.1
Select all of the audio codecs
The only settings that seem to correctly persist are unchecked Normalize Multi-channel Audio and checked Exclusive Audio and those are probably not Audio Device-specific. The rest all get cleared when Audio Device goes back to Autoselect device and the Audio Device is changed.
@jcorn My video settings do not reset that I have ever noticed, just the Audio Device going back to Autoselect device. Which I find amusing, because whatever it is selecting isn’t the right thing. I usually notice because my AVR reports it is receiving PCM rather than the proper audio codec–that’s my tip-off that the Audio settings are no longer correct.
I would also be interested in knowing if this is something that can be seen in log files and/or in some other debugging information somewhere. I vaguely recall in my last theater I encountered a somewhat similar situation where the configuration was: HTPC → Lumagen Video Processor → Projector and AVR and that if I changed settings on the Lumagen, PMP (or maybe even Plex Home Theater) would think it was a different audio device. But I may have that all mixed up as that was a number of years ago in another house, but it does stick in my mind that there was an issue along those lines. However, I don’t recall it being as big a hassle as Plex HTPC is currently with this. Might be a total red herring and if so I apologize.
This is exactly what I’m also seeing. Video settings persist, but for audio it switches to auto select and I need to set each of the things you mentioned and not Exclusive Audio.
Plex HTPC resides on a 2700X/RX580X Windows 11 Pro machine that is on 24/7 (apart from updates). No Sleep or Hibernate.
Feeds via HDMI to a Denon AVR and then via HDMI to our TV. The AVR is on 24/7 (but uses ECO mode to limit power output).
Audio settings are unaffected by rebooting the HTPC, powering off and on the AVR.
As I said, the only time audio settings on Plex HTPC are reset to default is after an update to the GPU drivers.
I can also use my BT headphones and Plex changes audio device to BT and after switching back to my home theatre speakers, Plex HTPC also switches back to the HTPC audio device.
That’s very interesting. I would have expected you to see similar behavior to what @jcorn and I are seeing at least when you power off and power back on the AVR. Is my understanding correct the BT headphones are synced with the HTPC and not the AVR?
When you switch to the BT headphones, I assume your Audio settings change to something like:
Audio Device – Headphones
Audio Device Kind – Basic
Audio Channels – Auto or 2.0
And when you switch back to the AVR:
Audio Device – AVR
Audio Device Kind – HDMI
Audio Channels – 5.1 or 7.1
and then most or all of the audio codecs checked
Is that correct? And that switch/setup happens automatically? That seems like ideal behavior, but not in line with what I’m seeing.
I wonder, when you power off/on the AVR, are you already using the BT headphones? What happens if the BT headphones are off and Plex HTPC is using the AVR?
My AVR is on 24/7. However, I do power off and power it on at times and see no loss of audio settings in Plex HTPC. I just tried it for you and audio settings are intact.
Plex HTPC switches to BT headphones when they are turned on as the headphones become the primary audio device. When I power off the BT headphones, Plex HTPC switches back to my home theatre speakers as they are the primary audio device.
Plex HTPC shows the correct audio settings incl HDMI Advanced and passthrough settings and correct 5.1 setting.
Edit - please note that all my inputs run through the AVR and then to the panel. I do not have separate audio in to the AVR and separate video signal to the TV.
I am running HDMI 2.0b.
Again, the only time I’ve seen a loss of audio settings is when my GPU drivers get updated (HDMI audio drivers are included in that driver set update).
Not sure if this has an impact and very much doubt it but I manually update Plex HTPC.
I disabled auto update some time ago, tried to implement it again without luck so now just watch the notification thread and manually download and update as necessary.
I’d suggest your issue and that reported by another user are outliers. I’m not aware of widespread reports of your issue on the forum but could be wrong.
What OS are you running ?
As you use the sleep option in your OS, I’d be looking at that as a possible issue, not Plex HTPC. I do not and never have used sleep on my HTPC. Too many issues with sleep/hibernate/fast startup.
Thanks for the info @JohnAlex! I am really perplexed as to what is happening–my setup is actually fairly similar to yours, as I run all my inputs through the AVR and then to the projector and likewise everything is HDMI 2.0b.
To answer your questions, I do have auto updates on, but Plex HTPC doesn’t update that often, which is why I began to suspect that wasn’t the exact cause. I’m running Windows 10 Home. I hadn’t actually intended to have the PC go to sleep, but it has actually worked really well.
I was poking around in my log files and just did a search for “audio” and found some messages where it lists the audioDeviceList, which appears to have some key-value pairs with a description and a name. I’m not on my HTPC, but on my main computer I see all of the name values are of the form: wasapi/{some-kind-of-unique identifier}, and I wonder if the problem is, as @jcorn suggested, perhaps that Windows/Plex keeps thinking it’s a new device each time the AVR powers on, which results in the cleared settings. Any idea how Windows assigns the wasapi unique identifiers and/or why they might be different each time the AVR comes up?
I’d really like to avoid leaving my AVR on all the time because it doesn’t have a sleep/low power mode and is a bit of an energy hog even at idle. I’ll try to look into the logs on the HTPC tonight to see if the unique identifier really each changing each time.
@gbooker02 I was able to pull up the log files on the HTPC itself and looked at the most recent one and an older one and sure enough, in the audioDeviceList the wasapi/{unique identifier} values were different for my AVR in the 2 files. I tried turning the AVR off and then back on again while in Plex but the settings persisted correctly, so it seems like it is something more than simply power on/off resulting in the settings being lost (which I’m now assuming correlates with the unique identifier changing).
I think there are 2 key questions at this point: 1) is the change in the unique identifier the reason Plex HTPC seems to “lose” the settings (because it thinks it is a new/different Audio Device) and 2) why does the unique identifier change?
Perhaps a solution lies in either Plex being more “resilient” in recognizing already-configured interfaces (by using the description rather than the name) and/or forcing the unique identifier to stay constant (harder to do without knowing why it is changing in the first place).
Having dug this far, I’m at a loss as to how to proceed.
Excellent detective work, @alphafoxtrot. If it’s not caused by AVR power, maybe sleep is our issue. Does the wasapi device change if you manually put the computer to sleep, turn off the AVR, and then bring everything back up? Or sleep and leave the AVR on? I’m out of town today but might be able to check this tomorrow on my box if I don’t get back too late.
