Server Version#: 1.30.2.6563
Player Version#: Multiple
Tuner Make/Model: HDHomeRun CONNECT QUATRO
Please just come up with a subscription plan or upgraded license that I can pay for and actually be able to reliably use simple Live TV & DVR functions. I don’t think it is too much to ask.
Generally speaking Plex behaves when just playing back my media library. That is as long as I don’t do too much in terms of FFD/RWD etc. That is NOT the case with Live TV and recordings I do with my HDHomeRun Quatro. It’s a crapshoot at best regardless of which client I use.
Want to start watching something that is still recording? Good luck with that. Pretty good chance that the client will crash and restart. Want to fast-forward through a commercial? 80% chance of a crash/restart or nothing happening at all.
I have a Shield, 2 FireStick 4ks and an Apple TV. None of them work reliably with LiveTV or DVR functions.
It seems like each update makes it worse. Please don’t add ANY new ‘features’ until you can make the very basic functions actually work. No need pile garbage code on top of garbage code.
Please just charge whatever it costs to hire some coders and make it work. Channels works, Tivo works, hell, even Comcast’s DVRs run circles around Plex and that’s from Comcast.
3 Likes
I feel your pain.
Unfortunately, the only way to try and get issues resolved is to clearly document a single fault each time, with clears steps to reproduce, and provide full logs from client & server & ideally sample files - and then hope/pray someone from Plex assists.
The Plex app for Roku works great for Live TV. Might wanna check it out.
All the Android clients are still garbage.
The little mouse in the corner told me Jellyfin works too.
I’d be happy to get all the details etc. It is easy to reproduce the trouble but… I suspect that Plex can reproduce the trouble pretty easily on their own because it is so consistent.
I will hope and pray for all of us that they do something sometime.
Thanks!
Sadly, I used the Roku for about 6 months but fast forwarding seriously stinks. Or maybe that has changed? I still have the Roku in the closet - I’ll break it out and give it another shot.
The trouble I had with Roku was constant ‘spinning’ and using fast forward/rewind was more painful than just watching the commercials. If I wanted to fast forward like 10 minutes I’d give up and watch something else.
I’ll give it a go - thanks!
I have been using Live TV for a couple of years now with very little issues. I do not use a HD Home run but a Ceton 4 tuner cable card in my server. I also have a beefy NAS Server running Plex in docker and my temp storage for my DVR is a 1TB NVME.
Might check your hard drive that you are using for DVR and see if it is requiring multiple read requests which indicates a failing drive and cause slow data retrieval. Might try using a SSD for your DVR temp folders.
Thanks for the suggestions. What are you using as a client(s)?
I also have a beefy server and am using an SSD for the temp folders. I even tried running the server on an i9-13900k based computer with 32gig of RAM and a 2TB NVMe SSD. It did appear to help but still the same troubles - just not as often. I could still easily crash the client app just by trying to fast-forward in an in-progress recording. I even tested it with only the server, the HD Homerun and the client on the wired network - no other devices - and could still crash the app by trying to fast-forward in an in-progress recording.
Very interested to hear what you are using for the client and if you can get consistent results fast-forwarding through commercials of something that is still recording.
Thanks again.
Unfortunately, the only way to try and get issues resolved is to clearly document a single fault each time, with clears steps to reproduce, and provide full logs from client & server & ideally sample files - and then hope/pray someone from Plex assists.
Sadly that just seems to be a fools errand. Plenty of people have submitted very thorough reports on the various bugs with the live TV/DVR offerings over the last several years. Many of those issues are still outstanding, and many that were finally fixed took years of complaints before Plex would even acknowledge them. Plex has made it painfully obvious over the years that this isn’t ever going to be a priority for them.
It does work sometimes, believe me.
What is guaranteed not to work is just posting how rubbish it is, how it fails, but providing no real details or logs to help investigate.
1 Like
I hear what you’re saying but… Anyone at Plex can easily just use the basic functions of LiveTV and DVR to see that it has serious problems. It does partly work but as soon as you try to use FFD or RWD or even pause in some cases, at least in a currently recording program, it isn’t going to behave as advertised.
I don’t see how there could be any chance they don’t know about these kinds of problems after all this time. They just don’t seem interested in addressing them. They are more interested in other ‘features’ like becoming some sort of new free, ad driven, version of Netflix. I’d be happy to pay some sort of subscription fee if they could make the basics work reliably. Please Plex, take my money but I expect at least the most basic of functions of LiveTV and DVR to just simply work.
@Mike_Mike I’ve not had time to read this thread carefully, but from what I’ve read of your posts here your issue is more to do with the low powered devices you are using to stream with Plex than actually Plex itself.
This is something I discovered very quickly when I started using the live TV and DVR, so didn’t bother using firesticks or other such devices for long (yes they are great for basics, but don’t have enough power to do the DVR functions fully).
In the end I’ve been using cheap mini PCs (Beelink), found them the best and not had any issues with fast forwarding during live shows since.
Yea, sounds like you may have missed this part since the Nvidia Shield and Apple TV are definitely not “low powered devices”. The 4k Firesticks are generally pretty good as far as performance goes too, much better than the older non-4k ones.
@CodeCat5 As the Nvidia Shield is based upon a CPU from 8 years ago, it’s now showing it’s age in comparison to even modern mobile CPUs and yes it might have not have been considered to be low powered when it was launched, but that’s then, this is now.
The Nvidia Tegra X1+ processor wasn’t released until 2019. The Nvidia Shield is still widely regarded as one of (if not the) best and most powerful streamers that you can buy. Only a couple of other manufactures are starting to catch up and come close to it in recent years. It’s not under-powered by any means; if anything it’s still overkill for streaming. Apps like Channels DVR, Emby, HDHomerun don’t suffer the same kind of issues that Plex has been plagued with. This clearly isn’t an issue due to “under-powered” client devices.
2 Likes
Majority of the time my Firestick 4Ks work fine with LiveTV & DVR.
@CodeCat5 What has been mentioned so far in this thread is the Nvidia Shield, which has the Nvidia Tegra X1 processor (no mention of the pro version)
Not that the processor version is even actually relevant to this discussion since either one is overkill for the use case, but the X1+ is in both the pro and standard 2019 models.
@CodeCat5 Even compared to a cheap mobile phone the X1+ gets left behind. As I’ve pointed out, the DVR functions work perfectly if you’ve got the right hardware.
I use a Nvidia Shield Pro for the client hard wired on a 1 GB Lan. I do not use any of the beta versions just the released versions. I used to use the TV as the client as well as Fire TV but had to many issues which went away when I got the shield pro.
