Plexamp skips tracks

Plex Labs
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1

Plexamp v4.12.4 on Galaxy A34 Android 15 / OneUI 7

Docker server running Version 1.42.2.10156 of plex server.

When trying to play tracks with plexamp, some tracks just try to load, then skip to the next track without playing. Specifically, it seems to be any track using a 96Khz / 24bit album in a .m4a format.

expected beavhior: The server should transcode it to something that would play on my phone.

Playing the same file using symfonium or the web player on the same device seems to work.

Logs from plexamp attached.

On the server, I do notice something weird in the logs, where I get the error “[Req#b029] Could not convert “state” (“error”) to the correct type” I also see the log spammed with something akin to the following:

Audio Stream: 89710, Subtitle Steam: -1
Selecting best audio stream, for part id 14234 (language: )
We're going to try to auto-select a subtitle for account 1
Selected a foreign audio track:
Audio Stream: 89711, Subtitle Steam: -1
Selecting best audio stream, for part id 14235 (language: )
We're going to try to auto-select a subtitle for account 1
Selected a foreign audio track:

Share Debug Logs 2.zip (845.9 KB)

2

It looks like the file format is unable to be read by the decoder.

Oct 14, 2025 23:29:53.486 [0x926b15f0] ERROR - BASS: Error [ret = BASS_StreamCreateFileUser((DWORD)STREAMFILE_NOBUFFER, flags, &proc, m_context.get())] - 41

You should upload a sample, because there aren’t any known issues with that format.

3

Forum only allows 8MB - here is an example of a file Download 06. Muse - Falling Away with You - Copy.m4a | LimeWire

4

That file is in a weird format, it’s FLAC inside M4a.

  Duration: 00:04:39.69, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 2306 kb/s
  Stream #0:0[0x0]: Video: mjpeg (Progressive), yuvj444p(pc, bt470bg/unknown/unknown), 320x320 [SAR 300:300 DAR 1:1], 90k tbr, 90k tbn (attached pic)
  Stream #0:1[0x1](und): Audio: flac (fLaC / 0x43614C66), 96000 Hz, stereo, s32 (24 bit), 2302 kb/s (default)
      Metadata:
        handler_name    : SoundHandler
        vendor_id       : [0][0][0][0]

If you remux it to using FLAC container, it should work fine. Or convert to ALAC inside M4A.

5

Oh damn! Thanks for the quick response :slight_smile: A lot of my library is in this format, and if possible I’d like to keep it that way for now. Is there an alternative approach I might be able to take, other than just sticking with symfonium or the web player?

6

You should be able to batch convert them. Our MP4 demux/decoder is not something we have control over, and in many cases it’s the OS’s.

1 Like
7

Tried converting them to .flac, works on mobile now :slight_smile:

Weird it works in symfonium and the webplayer then - anyways, Im going to make some scripts to convert them. Thanks for the tip :slight_smile:

For anyone in the same problem, here is my current script that takes dir as its first argument and uses ffmpeg to convert:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
# Converts all .m4a (with FLAC audio) in a directory tree into .flac and removes the originals.

dir="${1:-.}"

find "$dir" -type f -name '*.m4a' -exec bash -c '
for f; do
  out="${f%.m4a}.flac"
  echo "Converting: $f"
  if ffmpeg -y -i "$f" -c:a copy -map_metadata 0 "$out"; then
    rm -- "$f"
    echo "âś” Removed original: $f"
  else
    echo "âś– Failed to convert: $f" >&2
  fi
done
' _ {} +
8

As a sidenote, if the plexamp is unable to play a file format, like if the underlying OS can’t play it, wouldnt the correct behavior from plexamp still be to ask the server to transcode it?

9

ffmpeg can decode it, so it’s not crazy, not sure what those other players use under the hood (e.g. Chrome uses ffmpeg i think???)

It’s not a terrible idea; generally speaking it checks for codecs it supports and assumes (usually correctly) that if it can’t play, there must be something wrong with the format (which, technically, there is).