Rasplex not working properly ?!?

Dev Community Apps & Creations
1

let me start off by saying that my english is not my first language

i tried searching this forum and github for answers but i did not find a solution that worked

 

i have seen alot of posts with simmiliar problems but their solutions didnt really work for me

so i just got my raspberry pi yesterday (model b - 512 mb ram version

i installed rasplex with the installer onto a 8GB Class 10/UHs1 Card

i put it into the pi and it booted up perfectly, also did the cache function so my the thumbs are quite quick now

the version installed is : RasPlex 0.4.0-rc4

 

however when i play a video file it does get stuck every few seconds ... i know that it can handle some super "hardcore" bitrates etc however this happens to me when i play SD/HD/FullHD it doesnt matter

i am not new to PLEX itself i have a pretty beasty 55z series 8 Samsung TV and i have the samsung for PLEX app installed there

and obviously i have the PLEX Media Server too and the Plex Home Theatre too for windows

they all work fine

i even tried transcoding it to a really bad bitrate for rasplex and it still gets "stuck" i can tell its transcoded because of the quality loss

 

on the samsung app i can play most of my stuff at "directplay" and occasionally i run 20mbps transcode for stuff that gets stuck there but then it works like a charm, however rasplex does not ... the only thing i can play without any hassle is my mp3 collection and the "channels" like  1080 youtube videos, no problems with that... however my film collection just gets stuck

 

so i decided to pull up the "info" during playback by pressing "i"

and i noticed the following:
 

on the "C" Line it says "cache 0 B 2%,omx vb:4915200 ad: 0,000)

 

cache 0 B ... fills up ... ad: 0,000 rises too

once cache 0 B is empty then ad: still is emptying down and once both reach 0 the stuck occurs then i have to wait for cache 0 b to be at 100% again and it will work agains, however this happens every 5 seconds

and it happens with everhing ... not just the heavy bitrate 1080 files

 

my question is what am i doing wrong? and what do these 2 numbers mean specifically ?

is my pi faulty? or am i doing something faulty? is it the SD card?

 

i added pictures so its easier to tell wich numbers i mean

 

i connect my RasPlex to PMS via Wifi ... the same way i have been doing it with Plex for Samsung for almost a year now

2

In reference to your last sentence above: "the same way" you say, but is that really the case ?

(Exactly same hardware ? Exactly same device drivers ?, Exactly same ambient interference ?)

Please try a connection by wired Ethernet, at least temporarily, to test if the physical connection is responsible.

WiFi is the most frequent source of such problems, and since WiFi is not integrated with the RPi hardware there are potential dongle compatibility issues.

Best regards: dlanor

3

In reference to your last sentence above: "the same way" you say, but is that really the case ?

(Exactly same hardware ? Exactly same device drivers ?, Exactly same ambient interference ?)

Please try a connection by wired Ethernet, at least temporarily, to test if the physical connection is responsible.

WiFi is the most frequent source of such problems, and since WiFi is not integrated with the RPi hardware there are potential dongle compatibility issues.

Best regards: dlanor

i meant that i connect to the very same router to the pc where my pms is at ... hardware diffrence? well basicly one is a high end TV and the other is very cheap single board computer

i have tried it with ethernet aswell as it wasnt too hard i have a ps3 hardwired just beneath my tv ... so i tempratly hooked up the ethernet to the pi

again everything worked fine just movie playback wasnt,

however i noticed the following when i have rasplex running for a few hours these symptoms get better

for example yesterday after several hours of it being on i tried to directplay a full hd big bang theory episode and it made absoltuly no problems

then i tried a little heavier file .... wolf of wallstreet full hd again no problem but about 1 hour in, the cache started to refill very very very slowly, then i go out and restart the movie where it left off and it caches like its suppose to again ... very strange behavior again

also i noticed that when playing full hd the video doesnt look as "smooth" as with plex for samsung ...

its not that its stuttering or anything but its almost like some type of bad frame rate issue .... again its barerly noticeable if it would be the only thing i have,

however coming from a year of plex for samsung, its very noticeable ... its like the playback leaves frames out but its not that bad thats it is "stuttering"

... still for my standard i would not consider it a "smooth" playback, even tho it looks smooth when you dont pay attention to it

4

i meant that i connect to the very same router to the pc where my pms is at ... hardware diffrence? well basicly one is a high end TV and the other is very cheap single board computer

i have tried it with ethernet aswell as it wasnt too hard i have a ps3 hardwired just beneath my tv ... so i tempratly hooked up the ethernet to the pi

again everything worked fine just movie playback wasnt,

however i noticed the following when i have rasplex running for a few hours these symptoms get better

for example yesterday after several hours of it being on i tried to directplay a full hd big bang theory episode and it made absoltuly no problems

then i tried a little heavier file .... wolf of wallstreet full hd again no problem but about 1 hour in, the cache started to refill very very very slowly, then i go out and restart the movie where it left off and it caches like its suppose to again ... very strange behavior again

also i noticed that when playing full hd the video doesnt look as "smooth" as with plex for samsung ...

its not that its stuttering or anything but its almost like some type of bad frame rate issue .... again its barerly noticeable if it would be the only thing i have,

however coming from a year of plex for samsung, its very noticeable ... its like the playback leaves frames out but its not that bad thats it is "micro stuttering"

... still for my standard i would not consider it a "smooth" playback, even tho it looks smooth when you dont pay attention to it

5

i meant that i connect to the very same router to the pc where my pms is at ... hardware diffrence? well basicly one is a high end TV and the other is very cheap single board computer
i have tried it with ethernet aswell as it wasnt too hard i have a ps3 hardwired just beneath my tv ... so i tempratly hooked up the ethernet to the pi
again everything worked fine just movie playback wasnt,
however i noticed the following when i have rasplex running for a few hours these symptoms get better
for example yesterday after several hours of it being on i tried to directplay a full hd big bang theory episode and it made absoltuly no problems
then i tried a little heavier file .... wolf of wallstreet full hd again no problem but about 1 hour in, the cache started to refill very very very slowly, then i go out and restart the movie where it left off and it caches like its suppose to again ... very strange behavior again
also i noticed that when playing full hd the video doesnt look as "smooth" as with plex for samsung ...
its not that its stuttering or anything but its almost like some type of bad frame rate issue .... again its barerly noticeable if it would be the only thing i have,
however coming from a year of plex for samsung, its very noticeable ... its like the playback leaves frames out but its not that bad thats it is "micro stuttering"
... still for my standard i would not consider it a "smooth" playback, even tho it looks smooth when you dont pay attention to it

Did you o/c your raspberry by any chance? What is the size of your wolf of wall street movie? I'm using a Rasplex with movies that are more than 20GB in size without any issue
6

Also do you have any audio receiver? If yes you need to make it has been configured properly in Rasplex’s preferences

7

I did not fiddle around with the OCing yet everything is “out of the box” atleast for now

I dont use a seperate audio receiver it all goes trough hdmi into my tv …

Im happy with plex for samsung but im also finding fun in diy projects like the raspberry and i have been thinking about xbmc for it cause they have plugins that i can not use on plex … but i wanted to start with rasplex first as iam pretty new to raspberrys … i also noticed mine says “made in china” while.my brother bought the same model in the same shop and his says “made in UK” could this possibly be the problem? Did i get a fake one?

8

I would o/c it but if your movies are encoded with 5.1 audio and your TV only support stereo, it means it will need to be transcoded and I’m not sure the raspberry pi has the power to do it. I will make a test later in the same config and keep you posted

9

Thanks i also noticed the following:

i started to play dark knight rises in full hd perfectly … 40 minutes in the cache started to fill up slowly again so i tried to exit out and back in as it fixed it with wolf of wallstreet … however the cache was still slow … then i tried a episode from the big bang theory again … and again the cache was filling slow .

… the only way to get it back to caching fast again was by restarting the pi … is it the sd card ? Its a samsung class 10 uhs1 8gb … but its not a pure sd card … its a micro sd that came with the samsung sd adapter aswell … i read that it can have performance drops that way but is that drop so steep?

10

... i also noticed mine says "made in china" while.my brother bought the same model in the same shop and his says "made in UK" could this possibly be the problem? Did i get a fake one?


Read the topic in the Raspberry Pi forums - http://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=23449&sid=38161cce3dcbf3b0aec0638d30e21f92

Regards
11

hmmm everybody is claiming something else, but the general impression i get: made in china = whack and the UK one is the way to go?

12

Your screenshot shows server: PizzlePC transcoded  What version of Plex Media Server are you running, what OS / hardware is it?  RasPlex shouldn't need h264 with an MP3 audio track to be transcoded unless it is in an odd container (like DivX 3), but I suspect they are either in MP4 or MKV, which shouldn't give any issues.   

Make sure that RasPlex is set to use FFMPEG AVIO in Preferences -> Playback -> Advanced Video (I can't remember if it is default anymore).  In Preferences -> Network -> Quality, make sure it is set to DirectPlay for local and remote video.

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