I believe wholeheartedly it is an Exoplayer issue. I have one of Plex’s competition’s server set up along side of my Plex server for redundancy that uses Exoplayer for Google tv and it is the exact same behavior despite being a different server architecture.
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If this is true, and I do agree that it is the exoplayer, how do we fix it?
Does version 8.11.0 not use the ExoPlayer? Or an older version or…?
I’ve just tested every version between 8.11 and 8.16. I uninstalled each version before installing the next. I used the same five episodes, skipping to ~20 seconds from the end each time then allowing it to play to the end, letting the countdown finish and starting the next episode. This is what I’ve recorded …
8.11 - works’ish
8.12 - initial error. subsequent plays go to blurry screen (countdown in background?) before starting next episode. black screen for first 10 seconds or so before playing normally.
8.12.3 - initially works normally with countdown. subsequent plays go to blurry screen (countdown in background?) before starting next episode. black screen for first 10 seconds or so before playing normally.
8.12.4 - initially works normally with countdown. next play shows countdown before disappearing to blurry background then playing with black screen for a few seconds before playing normally. subsequent plays go to blurry screen (countdown in background?) before starting next episode. black screen for first 10 seconds or so before playing normally.
8.13 - different fault on each play
8.13.1 - pretty much works as expected except with the first 10 seconds blank on subsequent plays.
8.13.2 - same as 8.13.1 except sometimes starts blank, sometimes starts normal.
8.14 - same as 8.13.1
8.14.1 - same as 8.13.2
8.15 - crashes
8.15.1 - same as 8.13.2
8.15.2 - same as 8.13.1
8.16 - introduction of the stretching/crashing bug
Although still buggy, I would reccommend 8.15.2 as probably the best version to install to get around the stretching bug. It may still crash occasionally but most of the time it seems stable in my testing.
The downloads (armv7a versions) can be found at Plex for Android - #382 by marekszulik
So v8.16.0 has this fix.
- Player: bump ExoPlayer to r2.13.1.
As best I can tell from the release notes the previous version may have been ExoPlayer v2.10.3
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Just to add to this, I had this happen with an HEVC movie yesterday with prerolls enabled.
- Started the HEVC movie.
- 3 seconds of the movie played normally
- Black screen for a second then the preroll video played normally.
- Then the movie started again but super zoomed in.
- Exit the movie
- 5-10 seconds later the Google TV Chromecast reboots itself.
So preroll wasn’t inserted into the queue until the movie had started already (issue 1). Then going from non HEVC preroll to HEVC movie seemed to trigger the zoom issue.
I will try to duplicate later and send logs.
UPDATE: Can duplicate on demand. Playing HEVC movie causes above behavior and restarts Chromecast every time. Log attached. Last play/reboot was at 8/11 at 10:48 approx in the log.
logging.txt (4.9 MB)
Still having the issue
CCwGTV
LG oled
LG soundbar ARc
Synology server
I’m doing the same thing, and the competitor (starts with E) is playing the same files that Plex is struggling with perfectly. So it may not be ExoPlayer causing the issue?
I’m just chiming in that I also have this issue.
Also have this issue. It’s very frustrating. Seeing how old this thread is with little sign of an end has me considering alternatives.
I gave up on the Google tv. This, plus various other irritations. Pulled the trigger on a shield. No more issues with the same content. Not necessarily Plex’s fault, but still upsetting. Wish it would be fixed as I still have Google TVs elsewhere in the house, just not used for Plex as much.
My concern about how much (relative) yelling and screaming it took for this one to actually be treated seriously. Is there some better mechanism for this?
Same issues here, thought it was a faulty device, until i found this thread.
Hope this gets fixed soon.
I have various things that buffer or error out in my plex client on CCwGTV that play perfectly on other apps, which is a real shame…
This is related to later versions of ExoPlayer and that device. Google have been able to reproduce the issue, and are investigating it from their end, as noted in this GitHub Issue
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Well its good to know I’ll be able to watch the Simpsons on autoplay again sooner than later.
I appreciate the reply, however the first thing that stands out with your link is it specifies this only happens with an AVR. I have 2 CCwGTV that are doing this without any AVR/Soundbar. The issue report also appears to be saying this always happens with HEVC video, however in my experience I only have issues with plex when it auto plays the next episode in a series. If I select a specific episode that is HEVC it works fine, however when plex auto plays next episode I have the issue. If I switch to casting video from plex on my phone to my tv as a chromecast, the video plays with no issue, as well as when it auto plays the next episode it also plays with no issue. So I am skeptical that the issue is the same thing people are experiencing in this thread. Fingers crossed though…
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It was easiest to replicate with an AVR, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other times it happens too. We’ll need go wait and see what Google are able to do to fix this. Casting it won’t be using ExoPlayer, so you won’t be seeing the ExoPlayer related issue then, which is why that works.
I have an issue on my ccwgtv, was playing a movie, direct play mkv, HEVC, AAC 5.1 exoplayer 12.13.1 changed the quality from convert automatically to original quality, kicked me back to movie overview page so I clicked play again and it rebooted
yes, that’s just another of the issues with HEVC. Another one is if you start playing a movie and turn on/change/turn off the subtitles, crash.
after using 8.11 for a while it didn’t work very well and i have just gone back to the most recent version.
however i did find casting instead of watching directly does seem to work around the issue.
