I have several video files that were recorded via the DVR functionality (been doing this for 3 years) and recently the videos that are split into part 1 and part 2 have issues with total play back time.
Plex says a video (with part 1 and part 2 combines) is 2 hours, which is correct, but when I hit play it then says its only 1 hour which is not correct. I have not have this problem before and following the naming convention to ensure they are grouped together.
Screenshot of video showing 2 hours before clicking play:
Play it all the way to the end and it will swap over to the next part. This is how I have my MMA content and Plex does a great job of almost seamlessly just starting the next part. I’m not sure the reason behind this but it plays the two parts as parts even though it shows the movie/show as a sum of its parts.
Move the playback all the way to the end and let it play, it should just swap over to the next file. I checked that it works for me on Chrome, Firefox, Brave, Edge, Android TV, iPadOS, and regular Android yesterday when I replied. The skip button on the playback bar is for skipping episodes. You have to let the first file play all the way to the end and it will then swap over. Not the best way to do it I agree, but it definitely works.
I tried this. On Chrome and Samsung TV it will continue to play past the 1 hour and start playing the next video. But if I stop the video say at 1hr and 25 mins and try to continue playing the video, Chrome and Samsung TV will say the whole video (both) have been played and I cannot start back up at 1hr and 25 mins. I will have to start back at the 1hr mark and watch again the 25 mins before I get back to the spot where I was at.
I tried something. I watched the video until 1hr and 33 mins on my iPhone and stopped it. I was able to start back up exactly where i left off at when starting the video on Chrome and Samsung TV.
BUT if I stop it at 1hr and 43 minutes and try to replay it from Chrome or Samsung TV, it will start back up at the 1 hour mark.
So this means for me on Chrome and Samsung TV I cannot stop and then continue to watch a video past the 1 hr mark (after part1). It will mark the video as already played and will start back at the beginning.
I also noticed that if I fast forward on Chrome and Samsung TV, it will restart at the 1hr mark. This means I cannot skip commercials when there are more than 1 part for a video. it will ways restart at the 1 hour mark (end of part 1 video)
This is frustrating the say the least. I did not have a problem for years and all of the sudden this started to happen. Maybe in the last month or so?
That’s very strange. I don’t really know why that is happening as I don’t seem to have the same issue on any of my content or platforms, although I don’t have any DVR content to test with. I also don’t think I will be able to discover anything in your server logs. But you could post them anyway and maybe someone like @ChuckPa can do a better job then I can.
After some more testing, this issue only seems to be on my Samsung TVs (Smart TV with Plex app installed) and only when skipping forward/backward by 30 seconds.
On Chrome, the video will play through “part1”, load in “part2”, and continue playing like normal. I can stop and resume playing right where I left off also skipping forward/backward by 30 seconds also works as expected.
The problem is ONLY on Samsung TVs (smart TV with Plex app install).
On both my Samsung TVs, I can play the video and it will continue past “part1” when left playing.
The issue is when I try to skip forward/backward by 30 seconds after the first “part” video loads. Meaning when I am 20 mins into watching "part2’ of the videos (eg 1hr and 20 mins into the total 2 hours for both “parts”) and try to skip forward a few times to skip commercials, it will start back as the last 3 seconds of “part1” of the videos.
In short, Only on my Samsung Smart TVs using the Plex app installed, I cannot skip forward/backwards when the video loads past “part1” of a multipart video. It will re-load the video back at the last 3 seconds of the fist “part” of the video.
