Problems with playback

General Discussions
1

Hi

I’ve been using Plex with PlexpPass for many years now and have never had any problems, now all of a sudden I’m getting all sorts of various issues ranging from random items not playing at all, some playing with audio but no video, some saying unrecognised format and sometimes things playing fine. I have various players around the house exhibiting the same behaviour. My Plex server is running on a powerful i7 iMac with a direct attached Drobo (16tb) holding all my files. Im running the latest PlexPass server and have also tried the latest standard server. I’ve run disk check on the drives and everything comes up fine. Things that have changed recently are that I started nearing to running out of space on the Drobo which is when I started having the problems so I added some more storage - this is why my first thing to do was to check the drives didn’t have any errors but everything comes up fine. Nothing else has changed that I’m aware of. Weirdly I have several other people that share my libraries and no one else has reported having any issues.

Hoping someone can see the explanation in the log file that i’m missing?

Many Thanks

Pete

2

if you are having play back issues it is likely an issue with client. especially if it works for for others

May 14, 2017 16:52:46.206 [0x70000a3a7000] DEBUG - Failed to stream media, client probably disconnected: 32 - Broken pipe

could be something simple like needing to replace an old ethernet cable or restart router. obviously that is a totally random guess as i do not know what clients you are using that have issue or how they connected to network

3

Thanks for the quick response, I have tried restarting the router before with no luck and the different clients I am trying are connected in various ways - some wired and some wireless so I don’t think it would be a cable although I will double check this to make sure. Are there any other reasons I might be getting that error at all?

4

Also, I can steam from someone else’s library on my clients without a problem

5

Out of curiosity have you used Plex Media Player for Mac and tried playing something on the the mac the Plex Media Server is on?

6

Just tried this and the result was this:

I tried to play a movie on Plex player on a laptop over wifi and it didn’t play at all, then I tried to play the same movie on the iMac that has the Plex server on and it played the audio but no video (after a longish pause)

I’ve added the log file again

7

Sorry to be a pain, but could you use PMP on the mac again and note down the time you initiated the play and the time you stopped the play. Can hone in on the logs then. Not guaranteeing anything. :smile:

8

oh and post the logs again. lol forgot to say :dizzy:

9

Your not being a pain mate, I’m just happy someone is helping me after spending days pulling my hair out trying to work it out!

I started playing the movie big hero 6 at 17:59:23 once again it played with audio but no video.

10

Another odd thing - if I play it on the Mac with Plex Media Player but in in web view (not sure if thats what its called) it plays with audio but no video, but if I put it into fullscreen mode (loads up Plex media player splash screen) then it fails to play at all saying its an unrecognised format. This one I started at 18:05:30

11

Which Drobo do you have? model?

How is it made available to PMS? usb / network share?

Does the problem persist if you reboot your Mac and Drobo?

Can you try to stream the film with your mac as a file without using Plex?

What transfer rate can you get from the Drobo?

When I played hero 6 my PMS log included the following:

May 14, 2017 18:12:35.382 [0x7fe0607ff700] DEBUG - Content-Length of /media/raid/Plex/Films/big.hero.6.mkv is 5867951866.
May 14, 2017 18:12:35.809 [0x7fe081fff700] DEBUG - Auth: We found auth token (xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx), enabling token-based authentication.
May 14, 2017 18:12:35.809 [0x7fe081fff700] DEBUG - Auth: authenticated user 1 as scorpuk
May 14, 2017 18:12:35.809 [0x7fe081fff700] DEBUG - Auth: Came in with a super-token, authorization succeeded.
May 14, 2017 18:12:35.809 [0x7fe0763ff700] DEBUG - Request: [192.168.1.1:58758 (Subnet)] GET /:/timeline?hasMDE=1&ratingKey=13102&key=%2Flibrary%2Fmetadata%2F13102&state=playing&playQueueItemID=24740&time=208&duration=6112649 (16 live) TLS GZIP Signed-in Token (scorpuk)
May 14, 2017 18:12:35.810 [0x7fe0763ff700] DEBUG - Client [eqsjtfg0kmx3ach3150bxzux] reporting timeline state playing, progress of 208/6112649ms for guid=, ratingKey=13102 url=, key=/library/metadata/13102, containerKey=, metadataId=13102
May 14, 2017 18:12:35.825 [0x7fe05dfff700] DEBUG - Created thumbnail of size 1280x720, has pixels: 1
May 14, 2017 18:12:35.839 [0x7fe0763ff700] DEBUG - We’re going to try to auto-select an audio stream for account 1.
May 14, 2017 18:12:35.839 [0x7fe0763ff700] DEBUG - Selecting best audio stream for part ID 13451 (autoselect: 1 language: en)
May 14, 2017 18:12:35.839 [0x7fe0763ff700] DEBUG - We’re going to try to auto-select a subtitle.
May 14, 2017 18:12:35.839 [0x7fe0763ff700] DEBUG - Audio Stream: 21958, Subtitle Stream: -1
May 14, 2017 18:12:35.840 [0x7fe0763ff700] DEBUG - [Now] User is scorpuk (ID: 1)
May 14, 2017 18:12:35.840 [0x7fe0763ff700] DEBUG - [Now] Device is Konvergo (DESKTOP-JGULB56).
May 14, 2017 18:12:35.841 [0x7fe0763ff700] DEBUG - [Now] Profile is Konvergo
May 14, 2017 18:12:35.841 [0x7fe0763ff700] DEBUG - [Now] Updated play state for /library/metadata/13102.
May 14, 2017 18:12:35.841 [0x7fe0763ff700] DEBUG - Statistics: (453jrfkbq4y63vng7x0q7zxg) Reporting active playback in state 0 of type 1 (scrobble: 0) for account 1
May 14, 2017 18:12:35.846 [0x7fe0763ff700] DEBUG - It took 0.0 sec to serialize a list with 0 elements.
May 14, 2017 18:12:35.847 [0x7fe0817fe700] DEBUG - Completed: [192.168.1.1:58758] 200 GET /:/timeline?hasMDE=1&ratingKey=13102&key=%2Flibrary%2Fmetadata%2F13102&state=playing&playQueueItemID=24740&time=208&duration=6112649 (16 live) TLS GZIP 37ms 421 bytes (pipelined: 10)
May 14, 2017 18:12:35.871 [0x7fe0817fe700] DEBUG - Auth: We found auth token (xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx), enabling token-based authentication.
May 14, 2017 18:12:35.871 [0x7fe0817fe700] DEBUG - Auth: authenticated user 1 as scorpuk
May 14, 2017 18:12:35.871 [0x7fe0817fe700] DEBUG - Auth: Came in with a super-token, authorization succeeded.
May 14, 2017 18:12:35.871 [0x7fe061bff700] DEBUG - Request: [192.168.1.1:58759 (Subnet)] GET /status/sessions (16 live) TLS GZIP Signed-in Token (scorpuk)
May 14, 2017 18:12:35.871 [0x7fe061bff700] DEBUG - [Now] Adding 1 sessions.
May 14, 2017 18:12:35.872 [0x7fe061bff700] DEBUG - It took 0.0 sec to serialize a list with 1 elements.
May 14, 2017 18:12:35.873 [0x7fe0817fe700] DEBUG - Completed: [192.168.1.1:58759] 200 GET /status/sessions (16 live) TLS GZIP 1ms 2180 bytes (pipelined: 9)
May 14, 2017 18:12:35.963 [0x7fe0817fe700] DEBUG - Completed: [192.168.1.1:58754] 200 GET /photo/:/transcode?url=%2Flibrary%2Fmetadata%2F13102%2Fart%2F1493260022%3FX-Plex-Token%3Dxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx&width=1280&height=720 (16 live) TLS GZIP 795ms 246302 bytes (pipelined: 12)
May 14, 2017 18:12:39.620 [0x7fe053fff700] DEBUG - Streaming Resource: Updating client bandwidth to 33323kbps with most recent 33323kbps (4177920)
May 14, 2017 18:12:40.035 [0x7fe05f3f7700] DEBUG - Streaming Resource: Updating client bandwidth to 128235kbps with most recent 1228357kbps (360448)
May 14, 2017 18:12:40.383 [0x7fe05f3f7700] DEBUG - Streaming Resource: Updating client bandwidth to 212435kbps with most recent 1272582kbps (360448)
May 14, 2017 18:12:40.808 [0x7fe053fff700] DEBUG - Streaming Resource: Updating client bandwidth to 282775kbps with most recent 1334359kbps (327680)
May 14, 2017 18:12:41.226 [0x7fe052fff700] DEBUG - Streaming Resource: Updating client bandwidth to 343523kbps with most recent 1224377kbps (360448)

Following your log from similar point at 17:59:23.565, I dont see the bit from mine in italics…(…DEBUG - Completed: [192.168.1.1:58754] 200 GET /photo/:/transcode?url=%2Flibra…)

12

It is a 2nd Gen 4 bay Drobo DRO4D

It was connected via firewire (see below)

I just downloaded kodi to the Mac and it too played the audio but not the video after a long pause

Transfer rate 31.9 MB/s write and 35.5MB/s read (with the firewire)

Seeing that Kodi too showed the same problem on the host computer its looking like the problem is with the Drobo so i switched the firewire for a usb cable and it has started playing Big Hero 6 normally. I will add though that the problems I’m having are quite intermittent and some evenings i have no problems at all so ill have to wait and see if indeed it was the firewire cable at fault.

Now with the usb connection I’m only getting 25MB/s write and 27MB/s read. Is that still enough for Plex to stream HD?

13

weird that there is a problem with firewire.

27MB/s read should be plenty to stream at up to 1080p.

The top answer in the local quality on plex web player is 20Mbps (1080p) that’s bits not bytes!

14

Yeah I’m not holding my breath that this is going to be the fix, probably more likely that there is some other problem with the Drobo that disconnecting and reconnecting has temporarily sorted out. Fingers crossed though! :slight_smile:

15

Not used mac or firewire. My server is Ubuntu and with a hardware raid 6 drive. (not a backup method, but got 5 spare drives. lol)

Does firewire have a power saving feature you can turn off???

16

Looking like it wasn’t the cable and it’s the Drobo itself so I’ve gone ahead and bought a new one. I hope it sorts it out as they aren’t cheap!

17

New Drobo installed tonight and so far so good