I’m having the same issue as a lot of other people seem to have had with their PS4 Plex app, but the solutions suggested in the other thread (which have worked for other people) haven’t solved the problem for me. I tried changing the setting the “Maximum H.264 Level” in the app to 4.1 had no effect. It’s still buffering or stuttering every 5-10 seconds. It works fine on my laptop and my iPhone, but when I try to use my ps4 (or chromecast) I get these terrible episodes of buffering that make the video unwatchable. I took a video showing the nature of the problem:
This had previously worked perfectly and I was very pleased with Plex before this. Nothing on my end has changed - the only thing that’s different is the version of the software. I can only assume that it’s the PS4 as this (still) works perfectly on my iPhone and laptop.
To answer the questions posed in the stickied post at the top of this subforum:
The XML media information for the library item you tried to play:
<MediaContainer size="1" allowSync="1" identifier="com.plexapp.plugins.library" librarySectionID="3" librarySectionTitle="Downloads" librarySectionUUID="e785403d-db1f-4f4f-ab2d-0ca80c51f2da" mediaTagPrefix="/system/bundle/media/flags/" mediaTagVersion="1446064838"> <Video ratingKey="5813" key="/library/metadata/5813" guid="com.plexapp.agents.none://1ada0772694c9c01f89000fe97353dc95f0c99aa?lang=xn" type="movie" title="frontline.s33e01.gunned.down.the.power.of.the.nra.720p.hdtv.x264-w4f" summary="" viewOffset="78000" lastViewedAt="1446513593" year="2015" thumb="/library/metadata/5813/thumb/1446361411" art="/library/metadata/5813/art/1446361411" duration="3188021" originallyAvailableAt="2015-10-31" addedAt="1446312122" updatedAt="1446361411" chapterSource=""> <Media videoResolution="720" id="6510" duration="3188021" bitrate="2658" width="1280" height="720" aspectRatio="1.78" audioChannels="2" audioCodec="ac3" videoCodec="h264" container="mkv" videoFrameRate="NTSC"> <Part accessible="1" exists="1" id="6864" key="/library/parts/6864/file.mkv" duration="3188021" file="D:\downloads\frontline.s33e01.gunned.down.the.power.of.the.nra.720p.hdtv.x264-w4f.mkv" size="1059304818" container="mkv"> <Stream id="25743" streamType="1" codec="h264" index="0" bitrate="2221" language="English" languageCode="eng" bitDepth="8" cabac="1" chromaSubsampling="4:2:0" codecID="V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC" colorSpace="yuv" duration="3188021" frameRate="29.970" frameRateMode="cfr" hasScalingMatrix="0" height="720" level="41" profile="high" refFrames="5" scanType="progressive" width="1280"/> <Stream id="25744" streamType="2" selected="1" codec="ac3" index="1" channels="2" bitrate="384" language="English" languageCode="eng" audioChannelLayout="stereo" bitDepth="16" bitrateMode="cbr" codecID="A_AC3" dialogNorm="-24" duration="3188018" samplingRate="48000"/> <Stream id="25745" streamType="3" codec="srt" index="2" language="English" languageCode="eng" codecID="S_TEXT/UTF8" format="srt"/> </Part> </Media> <Extras size="0"></Extras> </Video> </MediaContainer>
Playing locally? What was the selected local quality?
Yes. Original, 20 Mbps 1080, and 8 Mbps 1080
Playing remotely? What was the selected remote quality?
Yes, no problems. 8 Mpbs 1080
Which audio stream were you listening too?
The default stream for any given file.
Does the bad behavior happen on all videos some of the time?
It happens on all videos all the time.
Or, some videos all of the time?
All the videos, all the time.
Are the problematic videos mostly MP4/M4V?
Any file type.
You are saying that iOS and laptop are on the same network, which leads to assumption that PS4 is using WiFi too correct? Now for iOS is transcoding,depends what you use on laptop it can be transcoding too.
Now I don’t have PS4 my self but it looks like you are having issues with your network.
P.S. Name the show please.
I don’t think its a network problem because it used to work fine on the same network without any issues and there have been no changes to the network architecture. It’s an Asus RTN66U router, so I don’t think its a hardware insufficiency issue.
The show is Brooklyn 99 by the way, highly recommended!
your router is dual-band, but PS4 wifi only has support for 2.4ghz wifi same with Chromecast, that’s why I’m suspecting limited wifi bandwidth to be an issue, I know it’s a long shot but can you please try and connect the ps4 to the router using cable just to test and make sure it’s not a wifi issue.
Hi @latros12.
I tried changing the setting the “Maximum H.264 Level” in the app to 4.1 had no effect. It’s still buffering or stuttering every 5-10 seconds.
That’s odd. Changing the value to 4.1 should allow this video to Direct Stream instead of Direct Play since the video’s level is also 4.1.
The video’s average bitrate is only 2221 so the changes from Original, 20Mbps, 8Mbps would have had no effect. Changing it back to Original is good in this situation.
It happens on all videos all the time.
This really really sounds like a maximum h.264 level issue. Keep that level setting at 4.1 to apply the same transcode/direct stream logic as our earlier behavior.
We’ve got a release going out today for PS3/4 which addresses a network issue we found on these devices. Maybe (stranger things have happened) it will fix this too. Sounds like the variable in the setup is the app version; hopefully it irons itself right out.
The new update didn’t work - if anything the problem is worse than before.
I have no idea why my network would all of the sudden become the issue (after working fine for almost an entire year), but I’ve ordered a long cat-5 cable to try a hard-wired connection before I lay the blame 100% on the feet of the PS4 application itself. I’ll update this post in a couple of days and see if a hardwired network does the trick.
Edit/update: I ended up running an ethernet cable from my router to the PS4 and that cleared up the problem. I’m baffled as to why something that used to work on my wifi suddenly stopped working despite no changes to my network architecture, but that was indeed the problem. Plex works beautifully now.
1 Like
Hi @latros12.
Buffering that regularly really really looks like the server is transcoding but too slow to pull it off. Re-reading I just spotted that you see the same issue on your Chromecast. Am I reading it correctly? I see too you previously had it working correctly but are now running into issues.
It’s weird that the Chromecast and PS4 are showing the same behavior. They share some application logic but their playback systems are as separate/different as night and day. The network and media server are a common variable in buffering problems on both devices. Lets look more closely at the PS4 behavior itself.
Would you mind first fully exiting and closing the PS4 Plex app, then clear your Plex Media Server.log file, then restart the PS4 Plex app and try to play that video from above? After playback goes pause happy will you stop playack and attach the log file here?
Thanks for filing that very clear issue report and staying objective after the last update didn’t help you out. I personally get quite irate when convenience software isn’t convenient. Let’s try to get your streaming fixed up.
1 Like
