Thank you for the response. This does highlight my point though. I shouldn’t have to do any of that!! It should just work.
I will do it though and see what happens. Thank you for taking the time to answer.
I don’t understand any of this technical stuff so I guess I’ll just resign myself to having a plex pass to not being able to direct play files anymore. I mean, the selling point of PLEX was that it was easy and simply worked. If I had to go deep there were other options. Between this and the complete cluster f**k going on with music management I’m getting more disappointed by the month.
I have two PS5s that have these problems, nothing but lower bitrates fix the problems for me.
Can Plex confirm this affects all PS5s? Is it a PS5 hardware issue? Is it an issue with some units and not all? Who is at fault here, Plex or Sony? My warranty is gonna end and I don’t want to keep a faulty unit, but I have no idea about what actually is happening.
I noticed the exact same problem with my PS5; DTS audio is being transcoded into AAC, which results in extreme buffering. For instance, AC3 5.1 is not being transcoded, video works normally, no buffering.
I’d really like to know if and when this would be fixed for the PS5 app? Thanks!
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Will the new PS5 firmware update that came out yesterday resolve the issue? The bug is still present after the update but maybe after Plex gets an update. Do you have any news on this?
I can confirm this is continually an issue.
A 10 bit H265 file directly streamed to the PS5 client chokes about 20 seconds in, but plays fine on both the PS4 client as well as the Roku and Mac web client.
Is it possible to get more information about the cause of the issue? Is this something that lays at an issue in how the PS5 handles networking?
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I can also confirm that the Plex application for PS5 is unable to direct play any sort of media. I have tested even a 1080p file of just 6.7Mbps bitrate. If it’s transcoded down to 4Mbps it works fine but direct play has constant buffering and it’s unplayable.
Hope this application is using something like mpv under the hood, don’t know if that’s even possible.
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Confirm as of 11/09/21 still getting the buffering wheel on certain large video files on PS5. I’ve found that I can hit the ‘back’ button, then go right back into the video and it’s smooth for, oh, one minute. Then buffering again. PLEASE address this.
I’m not technical enough to trouble shoot this, but I find it’s random. Some videos play fine with direct play on, some you have to turn it off. I had one where the video but not the audio played, just all over the place. My go to now is checking/unchecking the two direct play boxes if the wheel comes up and I can so far get it to work.
I’ve had to do this a bit on the PS4 too now so I’m guessing it was introduced via an update, but I have no idea. an actual fix would be nice.
The issue is still there
I recently got my hands on a PS5 and was really disappointed to find mths plex app is next to useless unless I want to play at very low resolutions. The lack of media and feedback from plex is not good enough.
It’s definitely a PS5/plex issue. Same system plays without an issues on my PS4 connected to the same server via the same network cable and infrastructure.
Unchecking direct play seemed to work for me.
Please address the issues …
Thank you
I also have this issue on my PS5. It’s been like this for a year. I use the PLEX app on my Samsung TV and it plays fine. I feel like the PS5 should have more power than my TVs built in computer. But seems I am wrong.
PS5 just downloaded an update, still not working with direct play. I’m using a 480p file. Should work, the PS3 used to play them fine…
@Moussa Yet another PS5 firmware update came out today and Plex still can’t play many movies without it tossing up the an unexpected playback problem occurred error. Is there really nothing you can do to get the PS5 version of Plex to work like it should? Can you follow up with Sony and make sure they’re actually still doing something to address this or verify that they don’t think it was supposed to have fixed by a previous update? Has Sony decided they can’t fix this? Are you still actively working with them to make the PS5 work properly?
I used to use Plex still on the PS4, because on the PS5, after all the updates, it’s still buffering all the time. Last time though, when I started the PS4, there was a Plex app update.
Well, unfortunately, after that update I started having buffering issues on the PS4 app as well. Is there nothing that can be done about the PS5 app though?
Same here. Doesnt work well on my PS5. Starts buffering, gets stuck and then movie stops with the error. 
So I’ve been struggling with this for some time. I had assumed it was my network conditions, but after eliminating them today … the problem somehow got worse.
Just offering my comments in case it helps someone clue in to what the issue might be.
I was originally streaming to my PS5 with my PC hooked up to a wireless router configured in bridge mode. PS5 was on ethernet, but my PC doesn’t have wifi built-in, so I used my old router to bridge to it.
In that configuration I could watch most 720p/1080p content without too much trouble, but found I had to transcode some files to make them work reliably. 4K HDR was absolutely a no-go, and I assumed it was a wifi bandwidth problem.
I now hardwired my PC to the PS5 via MoCA … and the problem got way worse. Literally every single file I’ve tried of all definitions buffer. The 4K stuff seems to work for longer than it used to, but still buffers every 20-40 seconds. 480p stuff buffers. Any transcoding works fine. It seems very specific to DirectPlay.
I had assumed I screwed it up with the MoCA adapters, or putting a switch in, but found that using WebOS Plex on my LG C1, connected via to the same switch works PERFECTLY. I tried three different ethernet cables on the PS5 too to be sure. (I could list all the other troubleshooting I did, but I’m confident I isolated it to PS5/PlexOnPS5 since everything else in the chain is the same to get it to the LG TV.)
FWIW the problem was worse when switching the PS5 to wifi.
edit: just saw there’s a server update … may as well give it a shot!
Can anyone from Plex clarify on the actual issue and whether there is any timeline for fixing or not?
Ugh! Is there anything from Plex or whoever? This is ridiculous.
