Server Version#: 1.25.8.5663
Player Version#: 4.1.0
So I’ve got a longstanding issue with Plexamp and playlist playback over a Chromecast that’s finally annoying me to the point of wanting to post and see if there’s a fix. I’m not quite sure which might be at issue here…perhaps both.
I use Plexamp on my Android, click on the stream icon at the top right to select my Chromecast, then I’ll select a Playlist and hit shuffle. After a while of playing music, the Android automatically disconnects from the Chromecast (perhaps this is part of the issue?). At this point Android no longer properly reflects what song is playing. So I click the stream icon at the upper right and select my Chromecast, and now it’s showing the song that’s playing and I can control playback again. When I’m done playing music, I’ll typically pause playback, then disconnect from the Chromecast. Usually I’ll repeat this process the next night, and typically it resumes without issue.
Seemingly more often than not, I’ll go to start Plexamp and connect to the Chromecast, and nothing will be playing. So now I have to start the playlist over. With playlists that have 1000+ songs, this is extremely frustrating…I’d like to continue listening to the playlist from where I left off. I have not yet figured out any rhyme or reason to this. Sometimes I can resume days later, other times the very next night it resets. My phone is not rebooting nor is Plexamp closing/re-opening when this happens. Chromecast is also not resetting/powering off…it’s powered by a UPS.
Anyone know if this is a Plexamp or Chromecast issue? Is there a setting that controls this? Are there any settings related to saving playlist state that might help?
Plexamp is never killed. I always exit when I’m done using Plexamp just by using the Android back button, and if you pull up the list of open apps (App Overview button in Android?) it shows Plexamp in the list.
Are you looking for logs from Android or on the server side?
Here’s how it typically works for me:
I’ll open Plexamp and start streaming to my Chromecast. I’ll select a playlist and select shuffle to start playback. Once I’m done listening, I’ll pause playback. Usually I’ll manually click “Disconnect” from the stream section and then close Plexamp. Lately I’ve been trying to perform all my steps consistently to reduce variables in troubleshooting this.
When I want to continue playback, I’ll open Plexamp again. Testing again now after having stopped playback about 2 nights ago, here’s what Plexamp looks like when I open it.
So that’s how it works when it’s working. I’ve seen two different behaviors when it’s not working:
When I re-open Plexamp, click stream, and select my Chromecast…it will not show the song that I left off at, and acts as if I’m just starting streaming for the first time. I have to restart the playlist and I lose my ability to resume from the same song in the playlist. This seems to happen somewhat frequently. I’ve experienced this behavior with both Plex and Plexamp.
It shows the song that was paused, but I can’t resume. At this point I have to do some finagling like disonnect/reconnect stream multiple times or continue playback locally on my phone, then stream…and it restarts. Worst case but rarely it won’t resume and I have to kill everything. I’ve seen this behavior in both Plex and Plexamp on Android, but regular Plex was certainly much worse and pushed me over to Plexamp once I found it existed.
As a test, after following the steps outlined above and confirming it was resuming correctly, I restarted my phone, opened Plexamp, clicked stream, and the song was no longer playing…I have to restart playback of my playlist. So this to me indicates it’s something on the Android phone itself. In any case it’s certainly a clue.
Please advise on the logs. I’ll reproduce and capture the logs.
I checked the battery options for Plexamp and changed it from “Optimized” to “Unrestricted”. That’s the only setting I can see that may have an impact, so I’ll see if that changes anything.
I’ve been doing some forced tests and now I’m getting really confusing results. With Plexamp open I click stream and select my Chromecast Audio, then I start a song or playlist. While playing, I pause it, click stream and disconnect. When I click stream and reconnect to the Chromecast, the playlist is empty and nothing is playing. I did that 3 times in a row with the same results, despite my previous post outlining my procedure and detailing how I connected to Plexamp after it being paused for 2 days.
Even stranger, once or twice when I clicked disconnect from streaming, Chromecast Audio dropped off the list and never returned. After 2-3 minutes I opened up Google Home and selected my Chromecast Audio and it connected, then I went back to Plexamp and after hitting the refresh button once or twice it popped back up into the list. Meanwhile the Chromecast Audio never dropped off the network as I sent a persistent ping to it from my desktop during this whole series of tests and not a single packet drop.
As a last test instead of pressing disconnect on the stream, I clicked on “This Device” and the audio continued playing through my phone. Then I clicked stream and selected Chromecast Audio and it continued playing it that way. So initial short tests are showing a workaround may be to transfer the playback over to my phone before pausing. I will be testing that over the next few days.
Any specific logs that may be of interest? And if so, on the Android or the Plex Media Server?
Testing my workaround, I randomly checked my phone once or twice over the past couple days to ensure it was still paused on that specific track, which it was. It still showed the same placement in the playlist playback. This morning I checked and when I opened Plexamp it was no longer showing a track playing or playlist in progress…everything was reset. Nothing out of the ordinary on my phone, no shutdown, reboots, etc.
As a note, I also have the issue where playing via Chromecast the Android system kills the Plexamp app during playback so the media controls don’t reflect what song is playing. Have changed every battery use option but nothing changes this behaviour.
Most of the time when I open Plexamp again it shows the ‘logo’ as though it is starting up and then ‘reconnects’ to the cast devices and opens the playback screen. However, sometimes it will require me to select the device again in the menu at which point it picks up the stream again. And on the odd rare occasion reopening the app simply kills the casting playlist altogether. Has been this way on both Pixel 3 and now on my Pixel 6. I cast to either a Chromecast device hooked in to my receiver or a Nest Mini. Happens on both.
Thanks for the info on the Plexamp logs. I never did get an answer regarding which logs, so I uploaded both (Plexamp and Plex Media Server).
As an FYI - “The Herbaliser - Time 2 Build (feat. Blade)” is the track that I was playing when I paused and tested various methods of disconnecting the Chromecast stream/switching to local playback. Once I found that if I simply switched playback to my local device (Android) it would retain it’s placement, and I spot checked over a period of time and it retained it’s placement. Except on April 3rd where I tested again and found that it wiped the active list and nothing was showing as playing. So perhaps you can just search for “Herbaliser” in the logs, look for the most recent instance, and follow the trail from there.
Hey, I don’t have an answer for you, but I’m posting a similar thread with slightly different specifics. You didn’t mention anything about Google Home (which I assume you have because Chromecast). I have similar problems to yours, but mine seem to revolve around Google Home stealing focus, as in, PlexAmp stops showing it’s connected to whatever, but if I open the Home app and choose media the currently playing song shows, and it may or may not allow me to pause, skip, etc.
