RasPlex RC4 Issues - Please Report feedback here

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101

And I really should have made some tests before my earlier reply. But we all make mistakes sometimes...
I've modified that earlier reply now, to set some facts straight.
 

This happened to me with one of the two adapters I tried.
 

OK, yes, but probably not compatible with the variation of bluetooth used in this OpenELEC distro.

 

I have a similar but not identical keyboard, which also came with a dongle of its own.
(This is a nordic brand, but is in fact a rebranded chinese product, though with Swedish keyboard layout.)

The docs for my keyboard clearly state that the dongle uses Bluetooth 3.0 protocol, which might not be the same version implemented in our OpenELEC variant. This dongle was never recognized on my RPi, though it too works for a PC. Another potential problem with bluetooth adapters is that they're likely to draw fairly high peak current, to achieve proper bluetooth signal strength. So the RPi PSU may need to be a bit stronger than needed for just the RPi.

In any case I was able to test my bluetooth keyboard a little with RasPlex anyway, using an ancient Bluetooth adapter I've had for years. (A type made like a huge tooth in transparent blue plastic, so you see the circuit board inside.)

These tests tell me that it's currently a waste of time to try using any bluetooth devices with RasPlex.

The reason is that the PHT program is launched before OpenELEC has reconnected to paired devices, and PHT will only accept input from devices that were well defined during the initialization of PHT. I was able to simulate this by performing the pairing procedure for my keyboard, which still could not be used at that point, as PHT ignored its input. But then I logged in through SSH from a computer and gave the command "killall plexhometheater". That command shuts down the current instance of PHT, but since OpenELEC is still running and is configured to autolaunch PHT, this restarts PHT automatically. And this time the bluetooth keyboard is already connected to OpenELEC during the initialization of PHT, which makes PHT accept input from the keyboard.

This shows that there are two changes needed to completely fix this problem.

1: Somehow ensure that OpenELEC attempts to reconnect paired devices before launching PHT.

2: Somehow ensure that PHT repeats device usage initialization after adding bluetooth devices in the "System Settings" submenu

Note that it will always be necessary to have some other remote or keyboard device (like a USB keyboard) in order to perform original or changed pairing of a Bluetooth keyboard, since no new bluetooth device is ever accepted without such pairing procedure.
 


At this point I can't think of any more useful tests for this RasPlex version.
Its device usage initialization needs to be recoded for satisfactory use of Bluetooth devices.

Best regards: dlanor

Hi dlanor, after some hours spent last night I've come to the same conclusions as you regarding bluetooth keyboards and rasplex.

I was using a cheap ipazzport bluetooth keyboard from amazon. It paired perfectly well and ctrl+alt+delete worked, as handling that is the purview of the OS and not XBMC, but the keyboard did not work well to control PHT for the reasons you have already described.

I was able to find a patch to XBMC that supposedly rectifies the issue by making XBMC respond to hotplug events however I was unable to ascertain how the patch would fit into OpenELEC as I am unfamiliar with its architecture.

Before I went to sleep I had the idea that it might be possible to set lirc's device to the bluetooth keyboard. The idea being that lirc would be able to handle the delayed start of the bluetooth device and that PHT would work since lirc is always up. Looking into the idea a bit more I found that lirc contains a devinput driver that allows it to read input from a keyboard. I then started trying to figure out how rasplex starts lircd so I could tweak its parameters to use the devinput driver but couldn't find where it is started.

Do you, or does anyone else, have any info that could help me?

102

Hi folks,

I just installed the RC4 on my model B raspberry in order to use the Airplay feature in combination with my Iphone 5 (IOS6) Spotify-App.

The connection Spotify-App -> rasplex seems very stable but I noticed a huge delay of approximately 15 seconds between hitting "play" on the phone and the actual beginning of the audio stream through my speakers. The delay also occurs when I change volume via the phone, switching songs, fast forward etc. It seems as if there was a 15 second buffer or something like that. The raspberry is connected to a LAN via cable. The phone connects to the WLAN/LAN Router by WLAN.

The months before I used raspbian on my pi in combination with the shairport library. There was a delay of maximum 2 seconds.

Has this issue already been reported and is there a solution to the "delay-problem"? Now I wanted to check out rasplex because of connectivity problems with the shairport server.

Many thanks!

103

Hi,

I have a big problem.  Often i get stuck when i press the my videos button.  Ik have a black screen that says 'no description for this.  Yip can add one through the media manager '

Roughly translated from dutch.  I can get out of this screen.  When i press the my videos button again (me remote) it flashes to same screen.  Any ideas?

Thanks in advance

104

Hi folks,

I just installed the RC4 on my model B raspberry in order to use the Airplay feature in combination with my Iphone 5 (IOS6) Spotify-App.

The connection Spotify-App -> rasplex seems very stable but I noticed a huge delay of approximately 15 seconds between hitting "play" on the phone and the actual beginning of the audio stream through my speakers. The delay also occurs when I change volume via the phone, switching songs, fast forward etc. It seems as if there was a 15 second buffer or something like that. The raspberry is connected to a LAN via cable. The phone connects to the WLAN/LAN Router by WLAN.

The months before I used raspbian on my pi in combination with the shairport library. There was a delay of maximum 2 seconds.

Has this issue already been reported and is there a solution to the "delay-problem"? Now I wanted to check out rasplex because of connectivity problems with the shairport server.

Many thanks!

Yes, the problem is known, AirPlay on Plex at the moment is not that reliable (try searching the main Plex forums), in fact Plex Inc have just removed AirPlay functionality from their iOS Plex App, no news on when the situation will improve.

Regards

105

not sure if this is the right place but, "Queue" stopped working. Its been working fine in RC4 for a number of weeks so im guessing it might be a PMS problem. Anyway when i hit Queue it just noops out and refreshes. So its 404ing but why, did they change address and the old one is hardcoded into rasplex or something?  Help much appreciated. Log output below when hitting "Queue".

edit: so there is an extra unwatched that shouldnt be in the url where do i go and change it?

13:27:12 T:2890921056   DEBUG: CurlFile::Open(0x288ffc0) https://plex.tv:443/pms/playlists/queue/unwatched/unwatched?X-Plex-Token=SECRETSTUFF
13:27:12 T:2824262752   DEBUG: webserver: request received for /jsonrpc
13:27:12 T:2949641312   DEBUG: Previous line repeats 1 times.
13:27:12 T:2949641312   DEBUG: JSONRPC: Incoming request: {"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"Player.GetActivePlayers","id":103}
13:27:12 T:2949641312   DEBUG: JSONRPC: Calling player.getactiveplayers
13:27:12 T:2824262752   DEBUG: JSONRPC: Incoming request: {"method":"Application.GetProperties","id":100,"jsonrpc":"2.0","params":{"properties":["volume"]}}
13:27:12 T:2824262752   DEBUG: JSONRPC: Calling application.getproperties
13:27:12 T:2890921056   DEBUG: CPlexDirectory::GetDirectory failed to fetch data from plexserver://myplex/pms/playlists/queue/unwatched/unwatched: 404
13:27:12 T:2890921056   DEBUG: CPlexBusyIndicator::OnJobComplete nothing more blocking, let's leave
13:27:12 T:3046359040   DEBUG: ------ Window Init (DialogBusy.xml) ------
13:27:12 T:2824262752   DEBUG: webserver: request received for /jsonrpc
13:27:12 T:2824262752   DEBUG: JSONRPC: Incoming request: {"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"Input.Select","id":1}
13:27:12 T:2824262752   DEBUG: JSONRPC: Calling input.select
13:27:12 T:3046359040   DEBUG: ------ Window Deinit (DialogBusy.xml) ------
13:27:13 T:2824262752   DEBUG: webserver: request received for /jsonrpc
13:27:13 T:2824262752   DEBUG: JSONRPC: Incoming request: {"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"Input.Select","id":1}
13:27:13 T:2824262752   DEBUG: JSONRPC: Calling input.select
13:27:13 T:3046359040   DEBUG: CGUIWindowHome::OnAction Queue=>plexserver://myplex/pms/playlists
13:27:13 T:3046359040   DEBUG: CPlexMediaWindow::GetRealDirectoryUrl at myPlex playlists..
13:27:13 T:2740708448   DEBUG: CPlexDirectory::GetDirectory plexserver://myplex/pms/playlists/queue/unwatched/unwatched
13:27:13 T:2740708448   DEBUG: CPlexFile::BuildHTTPURL translated 'plexserver://myplex/pms/playlists/queue/unwatched/unwatched' to 'https://plex.tv:443/pms/playlists/queue/unwatched/unwatched?X-Plex-Token=SECRETSTUFF'
13:27:13 T:2740708448   DEBUG: CurlFile::Open(0x288ffc0) https://plex.tv:443/pms/playlists/queue/unwatched/unwatched?X-Plex-Token=SECRETSTUFF
13:27:13 T:2824262752   DEBUG: webserver: request received for /jsonrpc
13:27:13 T:2824262752   DEBUG: JSONRPC: Incoming request: {"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"Input.Select","id":1}
13:27:13 T:2824262752   DEBUG: JSONRPC: Calling input.select
13:27:13 T:2740708448   DEBUG: CPlexDirectory::GetDirectory failed to fetch data from plexserver://myplex/pms/playlists/queue/unwatched/unwatched: 404
13:27:13 T:2740708448   DEBUG: CPlexBusyIndicator::OnJobComplete nothing more blocking, let's leave
13:27:13 T:3046359040   DEBUG: ------ Window Init (DialogBusy.xml) ------
106

I have problems with the audio. The audio stutters ones a minute or so. I have read others having the same problem with this release, and thought it would get resolved over time with an update. It has now been several months and theres no update, so I guess there's a solution to this other than waiting for a release?

107

My apologies if I am saying something already said. I did not see it on the other posts in this thread and cannot find anyone else having this problem. A few days ago plex on my pi stopped going into one of my libraries. It goes into all the others just fine, and I can get to that library from all of my other devices (iphone, desktop, etc.). I can search for the content, and it populates the "On Deck" and "Recently Added". Is anyone else having this problem? How do I get to the logs to see what is going on?

108

I have problems with the audio. The audio stutters ones a minute or so. I have read others having the same problem with this release, and thought it would get resolved over time with an update. It has now been several months and theres no update, so I guess there's a solution to this other than waiting for a release?

Here's a video showing the problem at it's worst: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=477sFJ6hk1g

First I have DolbyDigital disabled and the audio is sent as PCM 2.0 through the HDMI cable. Then as you can see I enable Dolby Digital and when I play the same video the audio stutters. After a while it seems to catch up and it stabilizes. However, every minute or so there's a small glitch in the audio throughout the video.

Haven't found anything interesting in the log file.

I bought a new Raspberry Pi model b today, and a new power supply. Just to exclude some hardware error.

I had no problems with Dolby Digital before the 0.4.0-RC4 release.

109

hi,

this may be linked to the refresh rate of your video file and how plex manages the playback. are you playing a file with 23.976 fps (a.k.a. 24p) ?

if so, plex could be having some challenges with adapting this fps to the refresh rates of your monitor. are you using "adjust display refresh rate to match video" or "sync playback to display" ?

or it could be something else entirely !      :-p

- scott

110

My apologies if I am saying something already said. I did not see it on the other posts in this thread and cannot find anyone else having this problem. A few days ago plex on my pi stopped going into one of my libraries. It goes into all the others just fine, and I can get to that library from all of my other devices (iphone, desktop, etc.). I can search for the content, and it populates the "On Deck" and "Recently Added". Is anyone else having this problem? How do I get to the logs to see what is going on?


Please clarify what you mean by "stopped going into".

Exactly what happens (or nothing at all) when you move the selection highlight to that library section name and press "Enter" key (or "OK" on some remote controller) ?

Do you get any effect at all ? Some empty list ? Or do you simply remain in an unchanged main menu ?
If you get an empty list, make sure that you don't have any filter enabled from earlier.

For example, if you had the 'On Deck' filter set, and finished watching everything on deck for that section, then the list will be empty. And unless you clear the filter setting it is that empty list you'll return to, each time you try to enter that section.
That's just an example, for that particular filter, but there are other similar cases for other filter settings, so make sure that you don't have any old filter settings active when you want to see the entire list for a library section.

As for logs, they can be accessed through SMB fileshares, if you've enabled the Samba server ("System Settings" > "Services").
You can also enable more verbose debug logging in "Preferences" > "System" > "Advanced" > "Enable Debug Logging".

Best regards: dlanor
111

hi,

this may be linked to the refresh rate of your video file and how plex manages the playback. are you playing a file with 23.976 fps (a.k.a. 24p) ?

if so, plex could be having some challenges with adapting this fps to the refresh rates of your monitor. are you using "adjust display refresh rate to match video" or "sync playback to display" ?

or it could be something else entirely !      :-p

- scott

Yes its a 24p video. I have the same issue with "adjust display refresh rate to match video" both on and off. Haven't fiddled with the "sync playback to display" setting though...

112

Please clarify what you mean by "stopped going into".

It does not load the library page. the bubble comes up saying "please wait" and then goes away about 20 seconds later, and i am still on the home page.

thanks! i will try to check the logs. before i go too deep in that, would the logs say anything about this?

113

I have problems with the audio. The audio stutters ones a minute or so. I have read others having the same problem with this release, and thought it would get resolved over time with an update. It has now been several months and theres no update, so I guess there's a solution to this other than waiting for a release?

Here's a video showing the problem at it's worst: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=477sFJ6hk1g

First I have DolbyDigital disabled and the audio is sent as PCM 2.0 through the HDMI cable. Then as you can see I enable Dolby Digital and when I play the same video the audio stutters. After a while it seems to catch up and it stabilizes. However, every minute or so there's a small glitch in the audio throughout the video.

Haven't found anything interesting in the log file.

I bought a new Raspberry Pi model b today, and a new power supply. Just to exclude some hardware error.

I had no problems with Dolby Digital before the 0.4.0-RC4 release.

hi,

this may be linked to the refresh rate of your video file and how plex manages the playback. are you playing a file with 23.976 fps (a.k.a. 24p) ?

if so, plex could be having some challenges with adapting this fps to the refresh rates of your monitor. are you using "adjust display refresh rate to match video" or "sync playback to display" ?

or it could be something else entirely !      :-p

- scott

Yes its a 24p video. I have the same issue with "adjust display refresh rate to match video" both on and off. Haven't fiddled with the "sync playback to display" setting though...

FYI: I just installed RaspBMC with XBMC 13.2 on another SD card, and also installed PlexBMC. The video file plays just fine with Dolby Digital passed through to the receiver. So it's something wrong in Plex/RasPlex...

114

It does not load the library page. the bubble comes up saying "please wait" and then goes away about 20 seconds later, and i am still on the home page.


That's very odd. I've never had that happen to me, with any of the RasPlex versions I've tried. (And I am a beta tester...)

The delay of 20 seconds or so with "Please Wait" popup is not strange, for a first entry into a large media section (like my 1385 Movies, for example), but after that delay the normal behaviour would be a temporary black screen for a few seconds, followed by the listing of the section. And for subsequent entries into the same library section the delays should be much shorter, due to the RAM caching of list information. But in your case the list display never occurs, and the entry into that section menu is apparently aborted, which raises the question as to what it is that might cause such abortion.

One thing that comes to mind, which is unique to RasPlex and could be unique per library section, is that the precache data for that section may have become corrupted somehow.

Have you performed a full precaching of your library ?

This is something you should do occasionally, so as to update the library information RasPlex has cached on your SD card, to improve the efficiency of the RasPlex GUI. But if something has corrupted the content of that cache, that could cause problems of the kind you describe. And of course there's also the potential conflict between a very small SD card and a very large library (though I wouldn't expect any such problems with cards of 4GB or above, unless you have a HUGE library.)

In your place I would try using the side menu command "Control Precaching" to make a full precache of my library (this takes several minutes for a large library), after which I would use the side menu command "Restart" (or "Shutdown"), so as to ensure a new start of RasPlex with full precache data. (Though some corruption might still remain, requiring other methods.)

Please try that and report on whether it made any difference.

thanks! i will try to check the logs. before i go too deep in that, would the logs say anything about this?


They might, though it's hard to say for sure about a problem that has never been reported before.
I'm no expert on interpreting logs myself anyway, but there are others with more experience in doing so.
So post the logs here, regardless of what you find in them yourself.

Best regards: dlanor
115

Hi!

im having problems creating a playqueue

When im in a TV-show and push play (while a season is selected) it creates a playque of all the episodes in that season and plays them starting with the first.
If I go down one level and do the same thing (while an episode is selected) i expect it to create a playque from that episode and onwards. But all i get is Error creating playQueue...

Im running the latest version of rasPlex and plexServer for Win7 (64-bit).

Any ide whats wrong, or maybe what im doing wrong?

116

FYI: I just installed RaspBMC with XBMC 13.2 on another SD card, and also installed PlexBMC. The video file plays just fine with Dolby Digital passed through to the receiver. So it's something wrong in Plex/RasPlex...


It could also be a new feature of 'Gotham' XBMC that makes it work better with that PlexBMC setup.
RasPlex is similar to official PHT in being based on 'Frodo' XBMC, which lacks some of the 'Gotham' improvements.

It would be interesting to know what results you'd get with a similar PlexBMC setup installed on some OpenELEC 3.x.x version, since that uses an XBMC version very close to that of RasPlex, and also a very similar OS kernel.

Best regards: dlanor
117

Hi!

im having problems creating a playqueue

When im in a TV-show and push play (while a season is selected) it creates a playque of all the episodes in that season and plays them starting with the first.


That's exactly how the new playqueue implementation is intended to work.
I see no point in it myself, but that is how the code developers want it to work.
Which is one of the reasons I will never use this playqueue.
In my opinion it serves no logical purpose.

 

If I go down one level and do the same thing (while an episode is selected) i expect it to create a playque from that episode and onwards. But all i get is Error creating playQueue...


I don't understand this part of what you're saying.
Pressing play with an episode selected should only play that episode directly, without involving any other episodes.
During this playback the episode is temporarily added to the new playqueue, and removed again after terminating playback.
(Yet another completely illogical and useless playqueue handling.)

Edit: That is how it should work, but NOT how it works in rc4/rc5, since these still have a bug inherited from PC PHT of the same time period. I had momentarily forgotten that, since I use a slightly newer beta version of RasPlex, with that bug fixed. But in rc4/rc5 the bug does prevent using "P" to start show episodes, so that has to be done using the "Enter" key to open the preplay screen.


The most useful ways of playing sequential episodes are to do it via the 'On Deck' shelf and the preplay screens.
(DPad-Right in a preplay screen steps to the next episode, except at season borders.)

Personally I don't even understand why the new playqueue nonsense was implemented, as it serves no purpose that isn't better handled by other means.


Now if I understood your statements above correctly, you are unable to play any single episodes of any show, since your attempts to do so only give an error about a failure to create a playqueue ? Please confirm if that is really correct, as it implies some serious error, far worse than just the inability to use a playqueue.
Edit: This part was a misunderstanding, involving the bug rc4/rc5 has in using "P" to start episode playback without preplay-screen.

Best regards: dlanor
118

FYI: I just installed RaspBMC with XBMC 13.2 on another SD card, and also installed PlexBMC. The video file plays just fine with Dolby Digital passed through to the receiver. So it's something wrong in Plex/RasPlex...

It could also be a new feature of 'Gotham' XBMC that makes it work better with that PlexBMC setup.
RasPlex is similar to official PHT in being based on 'Frodo' XBMC, which lacks some of the 'Gotham' improvements.

It would be interesting to know what results you'd get with a similar PlexBMC setup installed on some OpenELEC 3.x.x version, since that uses an XBMC version very close to that of RasPlex, and also a very similar OS kernel.

Best regards: dlanor

I found "OpenELEC Legacy - Raspberry Pi ARM Version:3.2.4" on http://openelec.tv/get-openelec/viewcategory/10-raspberry-pi-builds

So would it help if I installed that and did a test?

Update:

I installed the 3.2.4 version but I didn't get any audio at all, for any video. So I couldn't test.

119

I just managed to test the same video file on OpenELEC Raspberry Pi ARM 3.2.4 and I don't experience the same major problem. After 4 minutes there was a minor glitch and one more after about 5 minutes, but then it was fine until 10 minutes when i stopped the video. So a similar problem exists for sure, but does not behave the exact same.

With this XBMC/OpenELEC installation I also tried Multi-Channel PCM (5.1) and it worked very good! No problems at all. So a temporary solution would be to find a setting that send 5.1 PCM instead of passing through DolbyDigital.

120

With this XBMC/OpenELEC installation I also tried Multi-Channel PCM (5.1) and it worked very good! No problems at all. So a temporary solution would be to find a setting that send 5.1 PCM instead of passing through DolbyDigital.


No way to do this, please see response to your other post. May be available in future releases.

Regards