I’ve seen this all over the forums, however it doesn’t look like there’s a fix yet, or a fix is being discussed? Basically trying to play anything that’s of a beefy quality causes Plex to “stutter” in Chrome. It’ll play around 5 seconds fine and jump 2 seconds, it’ll play 5 seconds find and jump 2 seconds, and it’ll repeat this constantly.
The problem doesn’t occur when watching it from the Plex App on NVIDIA Shield. I can only replicate it in a web browser such as Chrome.
Edit: When I say stuttering, it’s not buffering. It’s simply just ‘skipping’ a bunch of frames / seconds of the video.
Plex Server OS: Windows Server 2016 AND Linux Ubuntu 20 (I’ve tested and replicated on both)
Plex Version: The last ~2+ years of releases (long as I’ve been using it).
Use one of the Player Apps that doesn’t run in your browser:
Plex for Windows/Other - at Devices/Apps link bottom of this page.
Plex Media Player:
I basically use Plexweb to see if the transcoder is working.
If I actually want to watch something - I’ll use a Player.
…and there’s even this:
not sure how relevant that is…
If you can use Plex For Windows - I would - it looks exactly like Plexweb so you’ll be right at home.
Plex Media Player has a boat-load of enhanced settings within it’s TV View you might find useful, but are more designed for the home theater folks. I use both - as necessary.
I have the same problem with playback in Chrome. Looks like it starts happening at around 30Mbps. Playback in Windows Plex app is fine, same for 2016 Samsung TV and iOS app on iPhone.
Thanks for those, just tested with Plex Windows app and the issue doesn’t occur, it does seem to be only with Plex Web.
I appreciate it may be better to use the Windows App instead of web, however my whole ‘setup’ is very browser orientated. Apart from games and a password manager, I have nothing installed on any desktop/laptop. I just simply sign into chrome and off I go so having Plex Web being able to handle the higher quality streams would be much better.
@ChuckPa Just tested - It happens on both direct and through app.plex.tv
I can also confirm the issue doesn’t happen if you force transcode the video, it only seems to happen when playing in original quality / direct stream. Quality of video just tested = Original (31.8Mbps, 1080p HD)… Audio = English (TRUEHD 7.1).
I’m currently running Version 1.19.3.2764 - however it’s been an issue for as long as I’ve been using Plex.
I can confirm this, however it is not bound to any bitrate but the reason is rather the fact that audio has to be transcoded while video does not (DTS or Dolby). Still happening with 2935.
I can provide logs if needed, please resolve this issue, as my way of fixing it is to convert it to the highest available quality.
Landed here as I’ve been dealing with stuttering issues as well (long time). I do notice that while my video isn’t transcoded (direct play), the audio is showing it is transcoded - so you may be on to something.
I’ve tried what I thought could resolve it on my own (running 10GB of memory as my transcode repository using RamDisk on the server to increasing wireless speed, different browsers, etc) and this is the first time that I found what could be potential possibility. I have used hosted/web/player and all of them do it…I think the player does it the least but could be a placebo.
Curious if I have both transcode or have neither transcode if that will resolve it. Since the last reply here was back in June - have there been any updates on this issue? I really would like to resolve this as it’s been driving me nuts for what seems like at least a year.
Found a fix. For me anyway, in the Plex Web settings, under Debug, there’s a new option:
“Use alternate streaming protocol for video playback”
Experimental workaround for Chrome, Edge, and other Chromium based browsers which may avoid unexpected skipping during video playback. The workaround will not be used if automatic quality adjusting is enabled.
@ChuckPa - Not sure who owns this functionality but using it has resolved a problem that I’ve had (and others) for years. Multiple videos that used to stutter, enabled that and the problem disappears.
This is happening to me and other users on my Plex as well. The odd thing is, It’s only one season of a certain show. I did a server transfer and used the same Plex config as my old server but replaced this particular show with new and better files that have a higher bitrate. Now, the weird thing is that both other seasons play completely fine through browser while the first season has the exact issue mentioned here but plays just fine on the Plex app with the “Original Quality”. The only thing I’m guessing (could be completely wrong) is that the old files (for season 1 that had a lower bitrate) I had that don’t exist anymore and have been deleted are interfering with the new somehow that is causing the Plex Web specifically to play that 1 season at a lower bitrate even though the dashboard/quality settings are matching with the original quality.
I’m also experiencing this issue. If i try to open the movie directly with vlc it works just fine. On plex it just freezes a couple of seconds each random minutes. Im already using windows client latest version and latest server.
Medium bitrate (less than 30 Mbps) videos, played through Plex/Web are ok when on strong (4000+ Passmark) player machine?
Higher bitrates in the same web browser stutter?
If this is true, it’s expected. Browsers can only render as fast as the browser and CPU allow.
I have an i7-8809g and even I can’t play above 50 Mbps videos on DirectPlay.
Comparing to a dedicated player app, such a VLC, is an unfair comparision.
Those apps have direct access to the DisplayManger (Xwindows, etc)
They read the raw file, decode the video stream into a bitmap, pass that entire bitmap to the display buffer.
Browers sit 2-3 layers above that and must go through the session managers -AFTER- decoding the https stream.
@ChuckPa I guess that also means, that the Plex Media Player Windows application does not have access to XWindows either, since it’s in a webapp, basically? Because that’s what it is, right? TV mode might have access, but it certainly doesn’t look like PMP has access to the display buffer directly.
And as far as I can tell, it runs in an embedded browser, therefore it probably does not have access to the Windows API and display buffer. Reason why I’m concerned is because of the sheer amount of people complaining about the desktop app on Windows resulting bad FPS. Stuttering, lagging, chugging, etc. I just created a post asking for help to resolve it, but I later found that a lot of people find, that the desktop app is stuttering as well. Like setting your display’s refresh rate to 15 hertz.
