Plexamp constantly pausing

I’m using a Huawei p20 pro with freebuds pro. Every app i use plays music without issues. But when using plexamp music constantly pauzes and i have to push ‘on’ button on my phone and it instantly resumes playing like nothing happend. Most of the time it only plays 20 seconds max so its unusable.

Edit: So since my thread was hijacked i’m editting here in hope that i maybe get another chance.

So i did further testing…

Plexamp is the only app on my phone who shows this behaviour.

Playing music, no matter if it’s from Tidal, my server or downloaded for offline play, will at a certain moment (random, but almost never before noon???)start pauzing every 20 sec. That’s with both wireless and wired headphones.
When music stops i need to manually resume it to play again.

Only when i leave the player on-screen (setting enabled) i do not have the issue.

When the issue happens, i tried to open plex dash, but there’s no logs.

This becomes very frustrating…

very strange… does the music pause when the app is left in the foreground with the screen on? do you have any extreme battery saving measures enabled?

For now i only use my plexamp when riding a bike to work, so the screen is not on. Its in my pocket. Music stops and i push thru my pants on the button and it resumes straight away. Phone is mostly above 50% battery and i have no savings measures enabled.
Tomorrow i’m going to try with the plex app and see if that has the same issue.
I’ll also try to keep plexamp in foreground with screen on when i have the time. Is that with setting ‘keep screen on’?

i just meant try it on your desk with the screen on so you can see if it pauses.

otherwise also a debug log (settings > advanced > debugging) after your ride might be illuminating.

it’s not an issue i’ve heard about before, definitely not normal.

I’m getting music playback issues both in Plex and Plexamp. Thought to make a video rather than explain this. Can’t see anything in the logs that would indicate an issue.

Is it the same issue as me? I cant acces the file so i don’t know

the video isn’t accessible to us, and the logs would show more.

I’ll have to take some time out to download logs and go through them. Seeing the issue mainly in Plex Player on the Shield when skipping from an existing playing song to another.

I’d be curious if anyone knows how many times the Plex player tries to load/play a music file before it gives up.

@elan agree its an issue with access to the file but since the entire setup is gigabit cabled and video files load flawlessly (even 60 gig 4K files load very fast) it’s unlikely to be bandwidth/connection issue…

So far im leaning toward:

  1. SMB (Shield/Synology NAS issue like there is/was with opportunistic locking / simultaneous file access limit etc as the music library is usually being scanned most of the day due to size)
  2. Database issue (FLAC types, library size etc)
  3. Shield performance issue
  4. Synology NAS performance issue

Device: NVIDIA Shield Android TV P2897 2017
Android TV: 8.2.1[32.8.435.31]
Plex: 8.11.0.22186
Plex Server: 1.21.1.3830 (smb)
Plex Server External Storage: Samsung 1TB T5 Portable SSD (Connected to Shield via USB3)

I’ve tried my best to summarise it and narrow down the logs. @elan hope someone can help as this has made my Plex player unusable for Music atm.

  1. Open Plex
  2. Navigate to Music
  3. Select a track within an album (plays fine)
  4. Select another track within the same album (plays fine)
  5. Navigate to another album (while the previous track is playing in the background)
  6. Select a track (fails to play)

The album art for selected track from step 6 appears on the Android TV Plex player but Plex Server Dashboard still shows the previous track (and is counting as if it is playing). I waited for a few minutes for the track on Dashboard to get to the end and when it does, it skips back 20 seconds then counts again to the end and finally disappears from Dashboard but my chosen track never plays or appears on Dashboard. The same tracks that do not play will play if I exit and re-enter the Album.

P.S. The tracks/albums are chosen at random - don’t judge me they are just tracks for testing :wink:

Plex Media Server Logs_2021-01-12_18-25-26.zip (4.4 MB)

Just had it happen on podcasts so I am guessing its not a local library issue. Also just finished a factory reset of the NVIDIA Shield and reinstall of Plex / Plex Server.

After a factory reset, pretty sure now this is a performance issue - would be nice if the player re-tried to play the source file but guess not… Unsure if this log is related but was the only thing I could see.

Retrying to play the songs by going out of the album and back in seems to make it eventually work.

Jan 13, 2021 23:30:18.540 [1307] Warning — MDE: unable to find a working transcode profile for video stream
Jan 13, 2021 23:30:18.541 [1307] Warning — MDE: unable to find a working transcode profile for video stream
Jan 13, 2021 23:30:18.540 [1307] Warning — MDE: unable to find a working transcode profile for video stream
Jan 13, 2021 23:30:18.541 [1307] Warning — MDE: unable to find a working transcode profile for video stream
Jan 13, 2021 23:30:19.408 [26123] Error — Unknown metadata type: folder
Jan 13, 2021 23:30:19.408 [26123] Error — Unknown metadata type: folder
Jan 13, 2021 23:30:21.771 [26637] Warning — Held transaction for too long (../Library/MetadataItem.cpp:3685): 0.130000 seconds
Jan 13, 2021 23:30:21.771 [26637] Warning — Held transaction for too long (../Library/MetadataItem.cpp:3685): 0.130000 seconds
Jan 13, 2021 23:30:24.183 [26637] Warning — Held transaction for too long (../Library/MetadataItem.cpp:3685): 1.110000 seconds
Jan 13, 2021 23:30:24.183 [26637] Warning — Held transaction for too long (../Library/MetadataItem.cpp:3685): 1.110000 seconds
Jan 13, 2021 23:30:26.473 [26637] Warning — Held transaction for too long (../Library/MetadataItem.cpp:3685): 1.110000 seconds
Jan 13, 2021 23:30:26.473 [26637] Warning — Held transaction for too long (../Library/MetadataItem.cpp:3685): 1.110000 seconds
Jan 13, 2021 23:30:39.827 [26637] Warning — Held transaction for too long (../Library/MetadataItem.cpp:3685): 1.070000 seconds
Jan 13, 2021 23:30:39.827 [26637] Warning — Held transaction for too long (../Library/MetadataItem.cpp:3685): 1.070000 seconds

the player retries if disconnected, and continues to buffer in the background.

if you’re still seeing dropouts, either:

  1. server can’t transcode fast enough
  2. network connection isn’t fast enough

please post plexamp logs right after you see the buffering and we might get a hint.

thanks for your help, to clarify @elan

Plexamp issue has been solved and is working seamlessly now.

Plex for Android TV is the one having the issue described.

  1. Open Plex
  2. Navigate to Music
  3. Select a track within an album (plays fine)
  4. Select another track within the same album (plays fine)
  5. Navigate to another album (while the previous track is playing in the background)
  6. Select a track (fails to play DASHBOARD sits on 0:00 forever / No errors in log)
  7. Getting out of the Album that fails to play and going back into it again usually works and the music plays.

I do not agree with it being a network issue as I can without a problem view Movies with a 90Mbps bitrate and they pretty much open instantly and never buffer.

LAN is cabled, both Shields gigabit, NAS 4 gigabit with HP ProCurve switch in between.

Device1: NVIDIA Shield Android TV P2897 2017 (Server & Client)
Device2: NVIDIA Shield Android TV 2019 (Client)
Android TV: 8.2.1[32.8.435.31]
Plex: 8.11.0.22186
Plex Server: 1.21.1.3830 (smb)

Thanks for the clarification, and that makes sense.

Any chance of app log right after the playback?

Plex App 8.12.1.22702 (73b01953)
Android 8.2.2(32,6.509.0)

Did a fresh re-install on my 2019 Shield just to be sure and captured the logs as requested.

Played 3 song from different albums, when I got to “Why would I Stop - Detroit 2 Big Sean” the Plex App crashed/restarted (how ironic)

Then again I played approx. 4 songs from other albums and then “Disclosure - Energy (2020)” it sat there not playing.

shield_bedroom_logs.txt (796.5 KB)

from the errors in there, it looks like it’s having trouble playing some of the files:

01-28 18:18:26.760  e: [Treble]: BASS: Error [ret = BASS_StreamCreateFileUser((DWORD)STREAMFILE_NOBUFFER, flags, &proc, context)] - 41

i’ll pass the logs along to the android team.

@elan I think its important to add; the files which do not play the first time around, will usually play if you exit and re-enter the same album.

in that case we’d just use a local player so that makes some sense. i think the bug was fixed in subsequent versions of the player so i’ve asked that team to work on upgrading it.

thanks for the hijack btw

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