Server Version#:1.15.2.793 Windows 10
Player Version#: 4210X2
Recently my PC PLEX media server prompted me to run an update. I did, and now I"m having all sorts of weirdness going on. PLEX takes forever to load from the ROKU home page, and all interactions with PLEX are very slow, delayed, or don’t connect at all. And I’ve had programs stop mid-play, Here I have to go out to ROKU home page > PLEX > select show > select TV episode > Play > resume/restart. Most of the time this will work.
PLEX now will fail to locate server on attempted start up or even during a continuing viewing session with a “failed to connect” type message. I’ve not been having any of these problems prior to my PLEX update and nothing has been changed on my PC. In fact, during one of these PLEX/ROKU crashes I checked the same show on PLEX at my computer and it was working fine at the PC (?).
Oh, an did I mention that the picture quality is significantly degraded? None of these symptoms show up on any other ROKU channel, just PLEX. Inasmuch as this is what I watch the most, I"d really appreciate some guidance on how to normalize PLEX performance, please.
I’ve haven’t experienced this issue in quite some time, but for multiple versions, whenever I had Plex update itself (using the prompts that notify us there’s an update, which it sounds like you used) I ran into the exact the issues. In my case, it ended up being the ‘Plex Update Service’ was running out of control in the background on my server. I’d reboot the server and the issue would start right back up again.
If you’re not experiencing any issues on other devices, only Roku, then it’s clearly not the same thing.
But, if it’s everywhere or you only use one client, you might try running Task Manager on your server and see if ‘Plex Update Service’ is drawing a lot fo the either the CPU or Memory. (I forget which I was having issues with, but I think it was using all of the CPU.) If I killed the task, everything went back to normal and downloading the current install file and installing myself fixed the problem overall.
Like I said, it happened for quite a few versions, so I would always manually install, but after awhile, I started letting Plex update itself and it worked fine.
Thanks so much for your reply, Andrew_Sr. I have no other devices, only Roku, so I checked to see if Plex Update Service was running and it was! I stopped the process but haven’t had the time to check for any results. Am I currently running the latest version of PLEX? If not, how would I find and download the current install file and do a manual install?
Thanks for your comments, ljunkie. I checked the Plex settings and found the Advanced setting already set “on same network.” Will attempt your logging test next…
After clicking to open PLEX it is almost painful to wait, and wait, and wait until it finally opens. This is the case upon making a channel selection and an episode also. Anyway I finally completed the procedure as you outlined. The test was completed at about 6:50PM EDT today. My user name is “weybrew.”
con’t from my earlier reply… I see no improvement in PLEX behavior, maybe some improvement in picture quality. While in Task Manager I also found 3 Background Processes PLEX related:
Plex Media Server (32 bit), Plex Media Server DLNA Service (32 bit), and PlexRelay.exe (32 bit). I am running Windows 10 Pro 64 bit.
The roku is connecting to your server over a relay connection, which will limit the connection speed to ~2mbps. From what I can tell in the logs, the server is not responding to direct request, which is why the relay is needed.
roku ip: 192.168.1.8
server ip: 192.168.1.3
The roku and the server are on the same subnet, so I’m thinking that there may be some form of AP Isolation enabled on your router/access point. This could prevent wifi connection access to other resources on the network.
ERROR (GeneralTask) Timeout! -28 GET http://192.168.1.3:32400/identity - 15399ms
The error above is the indication that the Roku could not reach 192.168.1.3, specifically http://192.168.1.3:32400/identity.
I don’t have a clue how you got to the logs…magic, I guess. 192.168.1.3 is my primary computer and is where PLEX is installed. My simple home LAN has 2 PCs, my Roku, and a printer, all ethernet connected. So how can I correct the problem? Do I need to uninstall PLEX completely and then reinstall?
The Roku is plugged into the LAN, not using wireless? here are a few things to verify.
Is the roku physically plugged into the lan, or using wireless? Also worth checking the Roku settings. Settings -> Network -> About and verify the connection type.
Possible the primary computer has a firewall enabled blocking access? You can check by going to another computer on the network and trying to load http://192.168.1.3:32400/ in a web browser. If you are not able to hit that website, then the Roku wouldn’t either.
Thanks for hanging in with me…Yes, the Roku is set to “wired.” I tried to connect with my #2 computer and could not. I checked and disabled the private network firewall setting. Then I could connect with PLEX on #2 computer!
So, should I leave the firewall disabled on Private Network. When I checked the apps allowed firewall access, the Plex Media Server was checked as allowed on private networks. Should it be checked for public networks also? Is there another setting I should modify?
Update…I tried enabling Defender firewall, making sure Plex was an allowed program, but picture quality was not good nor was there any improvement in the connectivity problems. Today I have manually added the Plex ports to the firewall and will see if it runs as well as when I had Defender turned off for my local network.
You may still be running into a relay connection. You can try with the firewall disabled, as a temporary test. Adding the right ports in the firewall would be a good idea. As long as your second computer is able to reach http://192.168.1.3:32400/ on your second computer, then the Roku should be able to connect directly too.
I also forgot to mention, that you can see if the connection is local, remote, or relayed by:
Open the Plex channel
Click on your username
Go to Media Server Status
You server should be listed as Nearby (specially not Relayed connection)
Added the Plex ports manually and enabled Defender again. All seems to be working like it should. I’m keeping my fingers crossed. I also checked and confirmed that Plex Media Server was “nearby.”
Thanks again for your comments and guidance.
I would believe this must be the exact issue I’m having. a relay connection would explain most of its behavior, from how long it takes to load some of the screens to timing out… but one thing that is strange is that sometimes when I try to launch live tv, it crashes the roku app altogether.
I disabled both domain and private firewalls in windows defender, and nothing changed. on top of that, I already had it set to allow insecure connections
looking at my router, I don’t have any VLANs set up. I’m at wit’s end here. please offer more help or any ideas at what else to check
that is what remote logging was for.