Server Version#: 1.25.8.5663
Player Version#:1.42.1.2926-415b0e14
After updating to the latest server version (which required reinstalling Windows on my Plex Server due to PMS not being compatible with any version of Windows Server newer than 2012, but that’s another story), I notice that on the Windows player and the web player if I start watching a show that’s recording and tell it to start from the beginning, it does, but the progress bar shows the live spot and not where I’m actually watching, making it impossible to fast forward at all. Really a pain. It’s too bad that paying for a lifetime Plex Pass can’t get a working Live TV/DVR function even though that’s advertised as one of the primary reasons to pay for a Plex Pass.
nobody else has noticed this? Am I the only person using the Windows or web players?
updated to the newest player today, same issues.
This is still a problem. Works fine on the Roku app, but the Windows app is useless in this regard. Very frustrating.
after several new updates still see the same issue. Apparently I’m either the only one using the Windows client or nobody else is seeing the same problem.
I see this issue and several others when watching currently recording TV shows via the web player.
There are many modes that I see the progress bar get very confused.
I find that clicking at the beginning of the progress bar when starting as you have described sets things right for a while. Invariably it will get confused and not have a current position identified and loose skip forward function. I’ve tried (a lot) and made zero progress figuring out a predictable when or why this happens. my suspicion is that things get messed up when the live end of the recording passes a 1/2 hour (or other guide) boundary or the live end stops recording because the show is over. It is SUPER FRUSTRATING.
It’s no better to start live and click the beginning the effectively watch from the start. It always looses its mind at some point.
After it goes crazy then you are stuck restarting and trying to find the spot that you need to continue. The bad part is that the information provided by the progress bar and current location at the time that you restarted are generally wrong and no help in finding where you need to resume from.
I’m using Chrome but have tried out Edge and Firefox to see if they do any better but they misbehave in the same ways.
Hopefully we can get some attention of other users having the same problems and ultimately from Plex development …but I’m not holding my breath on that.
Trying to workaround similar and other different problems with the CCwGTV app is how I landed here.
I must say that playing live TV, fully recorded TV, and local media via the web player generally works very well.
Plex server Version 1.28.2.6151
Server environment:
Dell Optiplex 9020 Micro FF PC
i5-4590T @ 2GHz
Debian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye) - updates are current
Kernel: Linux version 5.10.0-18-amd64
DVR Library drive: WD 4TB My Book Desktop External Hard Drive, USB 3.0 - WDBBGB0040HBK-NESN, My Book verified operating as USB 3 via lsusb
Craig
Just a quick note with a recent observation.
I was watching a recording show from the beginning and carefully skipping forward over commercials and observed the timing of the progress bar getting out of whack.
This was a 2-hour scheduled recording of a morning show. I was about 40 minutes into the first hour when the “live end” of the recording passed through the 1-hour boundary. This is the time that my progress bar lost the white dot that indicates watching progress and that the skip forward UI element got grayed out.
I’m going to assume that there is communication between the Plex server and player at these points. Likely the “next up” info as well as other progress bar stuff.
Until a better explanation surfaces I’m going to believe that this is the reason for at least some of the progress bar issue.
On another note it feels like garyft and I are yelling into the void on this issue.
I would be nice to see a note or two from other folks that might also be seeing this or, even better, have found solutions.
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Certainly happening to me as well. If I pause then come back, I’m unable to move forward, it acts as if it is live. If I click 10s back it goes back 10s then becomes live position, clicking in progress bard area to a spot back will take me to where I initially started watching and act as if that were the live position. I did notice though that once the show ended and went to the next show the progress started working as expected, however I haven’t had the time to test extensively to see if it was just a fluke.
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bigmack, Thanks for adding your experience!
I think that I may have gotten the attention of a “Plex Employee” onto this issue and thread!
I hope that turns into something. Fingers crossed.
I’m convinced that the behavior of the progress bar and skip function is so broken that listing the failure modes will be never ending.
That said, here is another specific case:
1 - Started watching a recording show (from the guide, obviously) from the beginning.
2 - Wiggled the mouse and the white position dot was at the beginning and the progress bar showed the right amount of show available for viewing. (all good)
3 - Watched for a few minutes, wiggled the mouse. The white position dot had moved to the end and Skip forward was grayed out.
4 - Clicked on the progress bar to reset to approximately where I was watching. Everything now back to a “good state” with the white position dot in the right place and progress bar showing the correct amount of recorded show available.
5 - As time moved on I checked in on the progress bar state by wiggling the mouse and looking. The situation seemed to change randomly between “no white progress dot anywhere”, “white progress dot at the end”, and “white progress dot that appeared to be in the correct location”.
As I said earlier it feels futile to enumerate the failure modes/situations with things behaving this erratically.
I’m not going to report any more failure situations.
Please leave a post if you stumble in here and are having the same or similar issues with the progress bar in Plex Web player while watching shows being recorded.
Thanks again bigmack!
I think this is the only way that we get development attention to this issue.
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I started getting serious about searching really hard for solutions or even just information (why, how long, plans to fix, …)
The thread I reference below is now closed.
It’s quite a long read but I did read it all and came away feeling very discouraged that any relief could possibly be in sight.
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Yes, it’s very unfortunate that long standing problems in Live TV/DVR either persist or keep returning shortly after being “fixed”. So, in my mind, the sentiments of that thread (which I started) still seem to be relevant today.
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I recently solved a playback stability issue for TV/DVR content via the Plex app on the Chromcast with Google TV device.
Now that the app is not crashing I can see exactly the same problems with the progress bar on the Android-TV app running on Chromecast.
I have the exact same problem. Makes Plex unusable for me when watching things like football, as we often like to watch it slightly delayed, pausing during commercials, etc.
Completely unusable. Was hoping there was an easy fix.
This has been going on for about a year for me. Happens across all my devices, so appears to be an issue with the server, not the player.
I am having this same problem, on IOS and desktop versions. What a great explanation/description renrip, You can’t watch a show in process, plex doesn’t seem to remember where the show you’re watching should be if you use any of the controls.
Same issues have been happening to me as far back as I can remember which is circa 2 years at this point. Watching a DVR recording in-progress on Plex seems to be fundamentally broken in multiple respects, including:
(1) Issues described above related to progress-bar and forward skipping
(2) Any time I begin watching DVR in-progress and choose the “watch from the beginning” option in the UI it skips to the end anyway after a few seconds delay (of what appears to be caching, i.e. the video never even begins playing at the beginning).
(3) In the US, sports broadcasts often continue after the scheduled end time (e.g. NFL Football almost always will, and especially if a game goes into overtime). As such, I set all sports to record past-the-end for 30 or 45 minutes to accommodate. When watching an in-progress stream, there is an issue when the scheduled broadcast ends and then the progress bar fails and it’s impossible to navigate forward or backward. The only option is to close the viewer, at which point there’s no way to restart viewing until the recording has completed (because the show is no longer “live” in the channel listings).
(4) Related to #3, there needs to be a way in the UI to view an in-progress recording after the show ends in the program guide.
These issues essentially make using Plex for delayed watching of “same day” sports virtually useless (unless you’re going to start watching an hour or more after the game ends. And the fact that the recording will suddenly “skip to present” means you’ll reliably get a “spoiler” of the score at that point.
Hard to imagine that nobody at Plex uses DVR in this way and thus how lame the DVR is for sports fans. It invites the classic “stupid or evil?” question: is Plex knowingly choosing to ignore (and not to address and fix) a clearly broken product, or are they genuinely clueless and ignorant about the product and their user’s legitimate complaints?
I’ve been waiting patiently year after year for some progress on these DVR limitations and bugs. It is both frustrating and amazing that despite many other users complaints month after month there seems to be no response from Plex to address and resolve these issues.
If anybody has any further information or insight about any of this please share with the others on this thread. Fingers-crossed but not optimistic that someday Plex will choose to make this product’s “premium” DVR feature work “at least as well” as Windows Media Server did over 15 years ago in this regard.
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Agreed on everything you said. I use Plex DVR all the time, but is unusable for live sports for this reason.
Also curious wether it’s stupid or evil. I have to guess evil, with a little bit of not enough developers available to fix.
Would be nice if they acknowledged the issue. Is there another way to contact them?
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This is ostensibly the way to contact Plex for “support”. Someone from Plex will occasionally comment on a thread here, but usually not for anything regarding the DVR functionality. I have to believe that’s because they have no intention of fixing it.
I have officially thrown in the towel on Plex on the CC.
I heard that the Plex Channel on Roku boxes was solid so I bought a couple REAL cheap on CraigsList. I stuck with the boxy style Roku 3 variants rather than the “stick” devices based on some advice I got. I don’t have any experience with the sticks so can’t give any advise there.
Decide if a used Roku will work using this Plex information:
https://support.plex.tv/articles/204151098-what-models-are-supported-for-the-plex-for-roku-channel/
My testing reveals that they are, in fact, very solid for Plex DRV content.
Live, Recorded, or Recording/time-shifted all work fantastically.
Progress bar always correct and all moving around in any TV/DVR content works perfectly.
The user interface for skipping around is a little cumbersome but is fine once you get used to it.
Make sure to turn on the Use MPEG option in the client.
Video direct streams with excellent quality and super low server load.
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The only problem I’ve had with the Roku client is occasionally it just exits for no reason that I can find. Other than that it works great. Still have the same problem with the Windows app and the web app.
I also experience infrequent seemingly random Roku crashes.
It’s not always associated with Plex and can happen running any channel (app?).
Happens perhaps once or twice a week on a Roku that is heavily used in the family room.
Regarding the Plex app working well on the Roku:
It seems to me that the clunky way FWD/REV skipping and scrubbing through the video is works exposes a different way that the stream is handled under the covers from the Android version of the app.
Although clunky, it is definitely is stable.
