Hi,
I was able to determine the problem. I purchase movies via iTunes and then I strip the copy protection using Tunekits and transfer to Plex. That’s what causing the problem. I discovered after I remove the copy protection and convert file through another program using the same format the problem disappears.
Thanks,
Kirt
Plex offers the ability to change the level as some devices report the incorrect level, and there is some wiggle room on some videos. But usually the limit has been set by the manufacturer for a reason, the profile level describes the complexity of the encoding and the computing required to decode and render that video. For some encodings at a high profile they could play back perfectly and then you find one video that won’t despite using the same level and encoding. This could be caused by colours in the video, or just the complexity of the frames.
I’m not saying the profile level could be the cause of this particular issue, just pointing out that it could cause some issues.
What changed when you played the Shark documentary without issues? Was the device on a different TV or connected to the network differently?
Plex on the SHIELD should definitely be working, so you’ve definitely found a bug somewhere. Would you be able to create a sample from one your encoded videos so I can test them on my SHIELD?
This is interesting, it should definitely not be using that much data. I have a feeling your videos might be badly demuxed and FFmpeg is struggling to play them without a mass of IO seeks. If you could provide a sample or a full file (DM me), I can take a peek.
I’m still investigating the issue, as well as pestering others to constantly test and we haven’t yet been able to work out what is going on and why for some users the player struggles but for others, with the same devices and similar setups it’s perfect. Any extra samples and logs would be appreciated, especially any extra information like the bandwidth usage.
A little off topic, but related to issues with Plex on Android in general… since the upgrade back in January? to ExoPlayer v2, .srt subs are completely broken. I try to play them with .mp4 video files and all it does is display “Chapter x” when playing instead of the subtitles, unless I choose to burn in… Which sucks. I sent you a sample file awhile back. Can I do ANYTHING to help with this so it can be resolved? There are a lot of folks on the forums with the same/similar issues.
I’ve tried to create a sample with the plex transcoder method, it gives an error and the output file is not playable, the original plays fine tho in window default video player or vlc.
the error from the transcode: [mp4 @ 00c74a00] Unknown hldr_type for text, writing dummy values9 bitrate=6501.5kbits/s speed=1.11x
frame= 2879 fps= 27 q=-1.0 Lq=-1.0 size= 104321kB time=00:01:59.99 bitrate=7121.9kbits/s speed=1.11x
video:80717kB audio:23438kB subtitle:0kB other streams:0kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead: 0.158865%
I’ll try to make a split with another tool.
Since there seem to be little progress, could you add the option to use the native Player of the device (like plex offers on Android Tablets) in the Android TV app? This shouldn’t be insanely difficult to do since I assume the TV and Tablet app share the same codebase.
I don’t believe it’s the native player but MPV that Plex uses to play local files in the android mobile app.
For what it’s worth I have had this same issue off and on with all 3 of my devices (Shield, Mi Box, and Fire stick) using the Plex app. Last night I remembered that there is an official Plex add-on in Kodi/SPMC and I reinstalled it on all the devices. Long story short everything seems to play without any of the stopping and starting. When the official Plex for Kodi came out it was Plex Pass only, I am not sure if that is still the case but I can confirm that using it will resolve all the playback issues. I think it works because it uses Kodi’s video player and not the exoplayer2
I don’t believe it’s the native player but MPV that Plex uses to play local files in the android mobile app.
Whatever it is, it works a whole lot better with my files using Direct Play than ExoPlayer.
For me this problem only applies to my Apple TV. It plays just fine using the web interface on my iMac.
I was having this problem today with some MP4 files on my new NAS I installed yesterday, even directly on my Plex Server (NVidia Shield Pro). I also experienced it on my Pixel 2 (WIFI - pulling ~150 Mbps with speedtest app), my other NVidia Shield (1 Gbps MoCA connection), and my FireTV (WIFI). After lowering the maximum H264 level to 3.2, all devices are streaming perfectly.
I would say the fact that I’m seeing it on my Plex server confirms it is a player issue, as there is no streaming aspect there, right? I could FTP one of the MP4 files to my server directly to eliminate the NAS component as well, but I don’t see how that would affect this, as the speed from the NAS would need to be the same regardless of maximum H264 level I think. The only content I have directly on my server is DVR content. The live TV streams are very demanding, which is why I upgraded to MoCA adapters for both Shields to my router.
Update: I’ve had to turn down the max H264 level to 2.0 now to get some older (smaller 480p MP4 files) to play smoothly, the larger 1080p files play smoothly at 3.2 though.
I am having this issue also. It happens with files that have subtitles. If I strip the subtitle and leave audio and video untouched they play fine. I’m not even using the subtitle when the issue occurs. If I fast forward the video it plays fine but I miss the opening 30seconds or so. This is my first experience with Android and Shiled TV. I’m in the Apple ecosystem and purchased the Shield for better audio passthrough options. It’s been painful so far.
I’m having a similar problem but only with certain media - but it only appears to happen with ones that were originally encoded with VC-1 (at least that’s what I think). I’m running the Nvidia Shield as the PMS. For example, none of the remuxes I created for Avengers movies or Harry Potter series ever get his problem. When I first enable subtitles it will give me the error, but it will be fine afterwards.
However, the remuxes I created for The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, Solo all give me this error and pause every 2 minutes or so, with or without subtitles. I read somewhere that VC-1 does not allow more than one processor to decode (thereby defeating the benefits of having a multi-core processor) - is that correct? If that’s true, is there some way of getting around the problem other than re-coding it completely to something else?
Notably, these issues do not arise when I use my old Western Digital Live - so I’m convinced it must be a problem with either 1) the Nvidia Shield (highly doubtful as it is powerful); or 2) Plex.
I am seeing the same thing but only on my Firestick. I am running the latest Firestick beta app. My Firestick is connected directly to the WAN and gets 25Mbps down. Not great but should be fast enough for a high def movie. I just tested with a second Firestick with and without the wired ethernet adapter using both the latest GA and beta builds and all of the configurations eventually failed the same way. The problem is definitely with the software or the Firestick product.
FWIW, the same movie plays just fine using the Samsung beta app, using the iOS app on my iPad, and using the web app from the server.
I had the same issue when watching Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Also encoded VC1 in an mkv container. I downgraded my Android player to 6.12 and it works fine now. Hoping exoplayer is fixed soon but tbh, I’m not a fan of the new android look anyway.
I check the threads out of curiosity from time to time. Seems the plex devs still dont think there is an issue. My workaround btw is to use the Plex addon in Kodi. That works because it uses the Kodi Player instead of ExoPlayer2. So this should give the devs some thought one would think. But it apparently doesn’t. Well, imma check back in a few month, just for the giggles.
I am going to try the 4k Fire Stick Amazon is releasing at the end of the month. If that does not work I am going to give up on the Fire Stick and buy Apple TVs. Considering I need to buy 5 to replace my existing boxes, I would really like to see the MUCH cheaper Fire Stick work, but at this point a broken client is as useless as not having a client.
Disabling direct play and using Direct Stream worked for me…
I was monitoring the network usage vs the Network cache size with Direct Play. If you set your network cache on the PC player (not the web player) to Normal you will see a 200-300Mbps spike when the stream starts, what I suspect is triggering that message to appear because it cant get its initial pull fast enough. If you set it to the largest size, I saw spikes up to 600-700 Mbps. Small (tiny) cache only produces a ~20Mbps spike. Lowering the network cache Seems to fix the problem on the PC Player for me, but I found a better option. The Best way to fix it for me is to Disable Direct Play. It will use “Direct stream” if direct play was an option, which does transcode, but uses very little CPU on the server. It made the playback almost instant on my Xbox One. I have to transcode down 720p 4Mbps to use the android mobile app or my Nvidia Shield.
I do wish disabling direct play on Android mobile and Android TV was an option (or on the server!). Would save a lot of server strain by not having to do full transcoding.
My Stats:
iPerf3 speed test between my Note 8 and server ~300Mbps.
iPerf3 speed test between my Test PC and server ~800Mbps.
Shield is also Gigabit wired so lets say 800 as well 
Just thought I would share my experience. Use Direct Stream lol
Same issue. Works with tv android player simply does not work. The previous version did…version 6.
I’ve got an Nvidia Shield TV I use for streaming, and I’ve recently started using Plex on it. Unfortunately every single file I try to watch tells me “Your connection to the server is not fast enough”. I know this to be horse poop because I direct play all of my stuff through Kodi on it just fine.
I have the Plex server configured for Maximum quality and the client to play in Maximum or Original quality. I’ve tried it hard wired on a 1Gbps network. It always gives this error, even though the files are encoded at 2500kbps at 1080p.
My Plex server is hosted on a Synology (v1.14 as of this writing) and the PS4 Pro client works fine (latest version as of this date), as does the web client. Only the Android TV on the shield doesn’t work (latest version as of this date). I just bought a Sony TV and will be testing it on that Android TV as well once it arrives, and it really better work when I get it.
It doesn’t seem to be trying to transcode. I’m only getting 8% CPU usage on the Synology while it’s “playing”. The “Now Playing” section shows Direct Play.
Can we please get some feedback on this issue? I like Kodi and all, but Plex has less maintenance and am leaning towards using it if I can.
I have a brand new Nvidia Shield TV as well - I keep receiving this error “Your connection to the server is not fast enough”. It doesn’t matter what file I play…
