Server Version#:
Player Version#:9.0.6.31998
A recent and very annoying issue has popped up on my nVidia Shield Pro. When I try to play movies or TV shows, I get nothing but the yellow spinning circle. Regardless of how long I wait, nothing happens. If I look at the Plex Dashboard on my laptop, there’s no activity and nothing being played. I’ve tested this with all types of content (HD, 4K) and nothing happens. These are all videos that had previously played on my Shield. I’m able to play all these same videos on my AppleTV 4K with no issue (but don’t want to since it doesn’t support lossless audio passthru). Not sure if this was a recent OS update that broke Plex or a Plex update that broke playback. I’ve tried rebooting and resetting the Shield to factory settings. Really frustrated and would love some help. Server is running on a Windows PC and is fully up to date. All connections are wired. Thanks!
join the party
My party’s worse. Nothing plays even after a reboot or force close.
This would happen to me if my NAS had put my hard drives to hibernate, but if I would backout of the playback and start the video again it would work fine. Another solution was to stop having my NAS put my drives into hibernate.
I thought that could have been the problem but mine never stops. Even if I restart the player it just keeps spinning. It’s worked perfectly for the last 2 years. Something changed recently and I can’t figure out what it is.
I fixed the problem on my ShieldTV by clearing the cache for the Plex app.
either upgrade the player to the recent beta version or downgrade it.
None of the suggestions here work for me. Things I tried:
- Installing beta
- Clearing cache
- Force quitting
- Backing out/re-playing
- Restarting the Shield
I only seem to have this issue with 4k HDR content, and only certain files. One file refuses to play (infinite buffer). Another skips the first 3 minutes no matter what I do.
I’m attempting to play them via direct play.
If I use DLNA and VLC on the Shield, the files play just fine.
My issue started with a 4K HDR remux for a specific file but then all of my files stopped, both 4K and HD. I rebooted and same thing. I factory reset the shield and it’s hit or miss on what plays and what doesn’t. Plex needs to address this. I’ve heard the beta fixes this particular issue but introduces several others som I’m reluctant to try it.
Have you guys tried this with the 9.1 version that just came out today? The Google Play store listing still has 9.0.6 listed on the page but I just updated two Android phones and 9.1 was the version there.
I’ve recently had issues similar to this, but it was the WiFi of the Shield. I made a post about the bug, but ended up using a small travel router in repeater mode right next to the Shield. With a wired connection everything was fine.
I have this same thing also on player versions 9.0, 9.1 and now 9.2, none have solved it. The only thing I notice when viewing the media info in the Plex app for items that wont play is that it lists the audio bitrate as 0. I haven’t been able to identify any other commonality as to the files. (Other than being 4K HDR)
In my setup is it 100% reproduceable with a specific show, and one specific movie. All of which work fine in VLC.
Not sure what info to gather or where to send it to try and help identify the root cause?
I have this exact same issue. Unsure what I can do to help or try to narrow down, but I’d thought I’d post so the devs can see it doesn’t seem to be an isolated incident.
**** I tell plex to transcode it to 1080p it works, but that defeats the point.
That audio bitrate sounds like a deep analysis is needed. That or it needs to be remuxed again.
The newest version is broken guys! I have the same frustrating issue with some files not being played as well. So in Plex’s fashion it is unusable again with every new update! Try to roll back to the old version 8.26.0.28833 and you can play all files! I tried it and keeping this version! You can download the older versions here:
You can download all the versions from the release thread.
Same issue here, 2017 shield with external plex server, wired connection, 1080p content. Happens every day and I have to reboot the shield before I can start playing things and then I’m good until tomorrow. No other (non-shield) players are affected (roku, ios, android, web). I even factory reset my shield trying to solve it (some reference was made to this being important after 9.x) but it didn’t help. I’ll try rolling back, but I surely hope there’s a fix coming (or at least some acknowledgement from the dev team).
Did a bit more analysis of things with issues and it seems it’s HDR10+ content that wont play regardless of the audio inspection issues.
3 different media files with HDR10+ get stuck on the yellow circle, other regular HDR10 content plays fine. The HDR10+ also plays in VLC on the Shield through DNLA on Plex no problem at all.
Confirmed, rolling back to 8.26.0.28833 fixes my playback issues with the HDR10+ content and the same HDR10+ media that will not play on 9.0,9.1,9.2 plays back instantly on the older version.
If we could get a version that fixes the pause/skip functionality AND plays back the HDR10+ with HDR10 fallback properly that would be nice… 
Edit:
Audio bitrate reports correctly now as well after the version rollback…
Edit 2:
8.27.1 Also works for me, But going up to 8.28 breaks it again so seems around that time the HDR10+ issue started.
Thanks for testing! 
Is there any way to alert the Plex devs about this?
