Plex Web Client not direct playing FLAC Files

Plex Players Desktop Players
1

Server Version#: 1.15.4.993
Player Version#: Web Client

I am having some issues with the Plex Web Client not playing music 2.0 FLAC files directly. The server is a linux setup with Plex within a docker and I have tried playing these FLAC files both in the local network and remotely within the web client.

All times the files show as FLAC files being transcoded to AAC which you can see below:

image
image819Ɨ611 153 KB

The files play fine and direct play on other devices such as a Nvidia Shield without any issue. Any help on this issue would be greatly appreciated. If logs are needed just let me know which to gather and I can post the results.

1 Like
2

EDIT: Modified Plex Web XML profile as shown in github, then restarted PMS. Audio still transcodes to AAC stereo when using Chrome v74/Win10.

Long standing request (March 2017) to add FLAC support to Plex Web.

Looks like there is a way to modify the Plex Web profile:

3

There is no need to mess around with client profiles.
Direct play of flacs is working since years in the web app, even in high bitrate and surround.

Restore all client profiles to their defaults.
If you have placed modified copies of the profiles into your Plex data folder, remove them.

I make the Docker setup responsible for this. Perhaps your server is still behind the NAT of the container, so no client can reach it directly?

4

Thanks for the info.

FWIW, Iā€™m also seeing FLAC transcoded to AAC. Running PMS 1.15.5.994 natively, no docker/vm, on a DS918+. Using Chrome/Win10 on a PC connected to same Ethernet switch as the DS918+.

In PMS Settings -> Web Client -> Debug, both Direct Play and Direct Stream are selected.

From the logs (attached):

MDE: Who Drove the Red Sports Car?: Direct Play is disabled
MDE: Who Drove the Red Sports Car?: media must be transcoded in order to use the dash protocol
MDE: Who Drove the Red Sports Car?: no direct play music profile exists for http/flac/flac
MDE: Cannot direct stream audio stream due to codec flac when profile only allows aac

Plex Media Server Logs_2019-04-29_01-57-24.zip (85.1 KB)

5

Try DISabling
Settings - Web App - Quality - ā€˜Automatically adjust quality (Beta)ā€™

6

Which web app?
Are you using a reverse proxy, custom domain name or other shenanigans?

7

Iā€™m using app.plex.tv, v3.97.3.
I see the same results if I point Chrome directly at PMS (https://192.168ā€¦), which is v3.95.2.
Auto-adjust quality is not selected.
No shenanigans, Ad blocker disabled, etc.

Who Drove the Res Sports Car.xml.txt (2.4 KB)

8

This is fishy:

<Part accessible="1" exists="1" id="103574" key="/library/parts/103574/1488786773/file.flac" duration="340026" file="/volume1/Media Server/Plex/test music/Van Morrison/Bang Masters/13 Who Drove the Red Sports Car_.flac" size="60250155" container="flac" deepAnalysisVersion="3" hasThumbnail="1" requiredBandwidths="2147483647,2147483647,2147483647,2147483647,2147483647,2147483647,2147483647,2147483647">
<Stream id="218116" streamType="2" selected="1" codec="flac" index="0" channels="2" bitrate="1412" albumGain="-0.31" albumPeak="0.950775" albumRange="8.602772" audioChannelLayout="stereo" bitDepth="16" gain="2.49" loudness="-20.49" lra="7.36" peak="0.749451" requiredBandwidths="1393,1393,1393,1393,1393,1393,1393,1393" samplingRate="44100" displayTitle="Unknown (FLAC Stereo)" />
<Stream id="218155" key="/library/streams/218155" streamType="4" codec="txt" format="txt" provider="com.plexapp.agents.lyricfind" displayTitle="Unknown (TXT External)" />

A bandwidth of 2147483647 bits per second for the flac container will trigger transcoding.

Can you instruct Plex to ā€˜Analyzeā€™ the album, wait a few minutes, then try again?
Do you let the butler ā€˜Upgrade media analysis during maintenanceā€™?

9

Yes.
Re-analyzing now.

10

XML didnā€™t change. Other songs in album have same info. Iā€™ll Plex Dance the album and also add another FLAC album to the library.

1 Like
11

Plex Dance fixed it. FLAC music files are now direct playing.

Good catch on requiredBandwidths. After dancing the album that info is no longer present in Plex XML. It is also not present for the two albums I added after dancing the Van Morrison album.

Not sure why that showed up in the XML. There is no such info in the metadata in the file.

Thanks for the help. Greatly appreciated.

Who Drove the Red Sports Car v2.xml.txt (2.0 KB)

MediaInfo - Who Drove the Red Sports Car.txt (3.0 KB)

12

Wait after the nightly maintenance has run.

Still, it notes 1418 bps as the bandwidth for this track, which is suspiciously close to the theoretical maximum of an audio CD. Are you sure that this is a stereo recording and not one of those "DTS-CD"s, which have actually a DTS stream instead of raw PCM data in them?

If this is really stereo audio, then someone has loudness-maximized the **** out of itā€¦

13

Thank you everyone for the help so far. It seems whatever issue I am having, itā€™s still not the same as FordGuy.

I noticed the server only transcodes certain FLAC files yet plays others directly without issue. I followed the suggestions up above and have made sure that ā€œUpgrade Media Analysis during Maintenanceā€ is checked, and I have the ā€œWeb App Qualityā€ quality set to Auto (Beta).

The version of the Web App I am using is also 3.97.3 for app.plex.tv and in Chrome or Opera using a direct IP, the version is 3.95.2

Below is a screenshot of a FLAC file playing over web without needing transcode:
image

Also, below are two XMLā€™s, one is the file in the image above and the other is a file from the same album as my first post which requires AAC transcode instead of direct play.
Lauv - I Like Me Better.xml.txt (1.8 KB)
Novo Amor - Silvery.xml.txt (1.7 KB)

Neither of these files have the RequiredBandwidth option called out as in the other posts above so I am not sure what is happening here. Also for note, I donā€™t have any reverse proxy, custom domain name, or other odd network setups. Itā€™s a linux server running on a Supermicro Intel MB wired to the router.

14

Yes, they look very regular (although both are ā€˜unmatchedā€™ but that is a topic for a different day).

I assume we need server logs from the time when a playback was started.

  1. activate debug logging (not ā€˜verboseā€™!)
  2. quit Plex Server
  3. wait 1 minute
  4. start Plex Server
  5. wait 2 minutes
  6. play one track for ~ 20 seconds
  7. wait 3 minutes
  8. fetch log files and attach them here

Please fetch the log files immediately after playback. Donā€™t wait longer than a few minutes.

15

@OttoKerner Iā€™ll check things again after nightly maintenance. Source is a standard audio CD, ripped using dBpoweramp. There were no special loudness, etc settings in the software (That I remember, anyway. I ripped the discs several years back). Iā€™ll dig out a couple of CDs, double check settings, re-rip, and see how Plex handles them.

@ZeroGravitas23 Thought we were experience the same problem. Wasnā€™t trying to hijack your thread. Will be interesting to see what is happening with your setup.

16

No problem FordGuy61, it could have easily been the same issue for all we knew originally.

@OttoKerner Attached is the log file following those steps youā€™ve listed above. Take a look and let me know what you think.

Plex Media Server Logs_2019-04-29_17-05-23.zip (2.5 MB)

I dug into them and in the server log file it does point to a transcoder not being available for web profile flac/flac but I am not sure what or how that is set up.

17

Does anyone have any ideas given the log files attached?

18

Would it be possible to edit the web profile of the server and force it to direct play all FLAC files such as what FordGuy described above? Itā€™s very odd that the server is choosing to direct play some files while transcode others even though the files use the same extension and filetype.

19

Alright, I wanted to follow up on this since I did find the issue out. Iā€™m sharing this in case anyone also has the same problem.

First, it was not due to the web profile in plex. While plex doesnā€™t have a defined music profile in the xml for flac audio, creating one did not fix the issue.

As it turns out the issue really is the music tags on the files. While some flacs were playing perfectly fine others were always transcoding.

The solution/problem was the ID3 tag attached to the flac file itself. For flac to be recognized by plex server correctly the tag for a flac file needs to be free from any ID3 tags.

The correct tags for flac are flac tags (really Vorbis tags) only. This can be caused by programs such as EAC automatically attaching ID3 tags to files converted from disc.

I hope this helps anyone searching for issues with flac playback on plex.

20

You mean ā€œfree from any ID3 tagsā€, right?

Technically, the proper tags in a FLAC file are called ā€œVorbis tagsā€.