Without warning or explanation, I am unable to stream any movie. I’ve used plex for years. ZERO CHANGES IN SETUP. Beyond upset. Was working fine for a week or two after I bought the lifetime pass. Now, without explanation or warning, IT DOES NOT WORK.
The only thing that it is able to play is .mp4 - everything else is either “s3015” on chrome, or if using ie I got a “this is unsupported”.
Occasionally with hitting “retry” a movie will play with the error 3015 box showing, but with the video running in the background and very light in color. Other times, it will show the s3015 box and play just the audio. This only happens if I am doing it on the computer that runs the server.
Clearly, something on the main server (a setting has randomly obliterated my viewing?) has somehow disabled my ability to I guess transcode H264, xVid or whatever flavor. These videos run just fine in VLC.
If it is not a simple setting, I’m willing to pay to have someone fix. My anger at the absurdity of this program suddenly disabling itself is beyond measure.
ov 10, 2018 12:07:18.644 [19448] DEBUG - MDE: Selected protocol dash; container: mp4
Nov 10, 2018 12:07:18.644 [19448] DEBUG - MDE: analyzing media item 3558
Nov 10, 2018 12:07:18.644 [19448] DEBUG - MDE: River Runs Red (2018): Direct Play is disabled
Nov 10, 2018 12:07:18.645 [19448] DEBUG - MDE: River Runs Red (2018): media must be transcoded in order to use the dash protocol
Nov 10, 2018 12:07:18.645 [19448] DEBUG - MDE: River Runs Red (2018): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/h264
Nov 10, 2018 12:07:18.645 [19448] DEBUG - MDE: River Runs Red (2018): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/h264/ac3
Nov 10, 2018 12:07:18.645 [19448] DEBUG - MDE: River Runs Red (2018): Direct Streaming is disabled, so video stream will be transcoded
Nov 10, 2018 12:07:18.645 [19448] DEBUG - MDE: River Runs Red (2018): no remuxable profile found, so video stream will be transcoded
Nov 10, 2018 12:07:18.645 [19448] DEBUG - MDE: Cannot direct stream video stream due to profile or setting limitations
Nov 10, 2018 12:07:18.645 [19448] DEBUG - Scaled up video bitrate to 2479Kbps based on 1.500000x fudge factor.
*** WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH PLEX THAT IT WON’T PLAY ANYTHING ??? ***
This doen’t look like a Plex issue, it looks like somehting on your computer changed and is disallowing access to the transcoder. Perchance, did your computer update, or have you changed any drivers recently?
MKV is not a standard windows accessible filetype, so if its trying to open MKV and failing, it looks like DEP or UAC is preventing it.
I could be wrong tho, that log snippet doesn’t really tell much.
After a quick google search – Have you tried playing them in Firefox? error s3015 seems to be a Chrome and IE bug mostly. A lot of people have had luck just watching it in firefox since FF has native MKV H264 and AAC/AC3 support
Sorry to chop the quote up, but it’ll be easier to respond this way…
Chrome updates all the time, and their security “features” break things left and right. We don’t use chrome for various reasons (it likes to overwrite system files to integrate itself into your OS more, being one of the main ones), and their constant updating being one.
When you select optimization, you select it for a specific device. For example: Optimize for Mobile will optimize it in a slightly lower resolution and bitrate, more akin to what you’d find in a youtube video so that it doesn’t take nearly as much of your precious 4G data to watch, where Optimize for PC will just transcode it to a more stream-friendly format if its something other than MP4 H.264 AAC so that your server has to do less live transcoding when it serves it, making it have to buffer less if it can’t keep up.
Also note that Firefox supports MKV semi-natively up to H.265 10-bit, whereas IE, Edge, Chrome, and Safari have to use media plugins. Check your servers logs again with it playing in FF, and see if its having to transcode it any differently based on the browser you use. If it’s still kicking back “cannot transcode” with Chrome, but not having to transcode with FF at all, then we’ve at least narrowed down the issue for the devs to look into if its an issue with your transcoder. or if its still transcoding in FF, it may just be an issue with chrome kicking back errors and the server not knowing what to do with it, at which point I’d say the simple answer would be just reinstall chrome and see if it fixes it. chrome might have updated and corrupted a file or two (it happens) and just needs a fresh install to fix it. Your profile (bookmarks, saved PWs etc) will still be there, it’ll just be a fresher install.
As Liestenn mentioned above, this appears to be an issue with your instance of Chrome. I use Chrome as well on a Windows 10 machine and have not experienced any issues playing back videos, even those that need to be transcoded. I am using Version 70.0.3538.102 (Official Build) (64-bit) on Windows 10 Pro Version 1803 Build 17134.345.
If you can turn on logging in Plex Web, recreate the issue, then provide both the logs from Web and PMS, I can look to see if there are any Plex errors.
I have the latest server Version 1.13.9.5456 (up to date)
I note that using incognito it says “this server does not allow insecure connections” but I can override that. The network setting was “preferred”. Changing network setting to “Required” disables playback on incognito tab.
There is something funky with chrome somehow, I think.
If Plex Web works using incognito mode, then the issue could be caused by a browser plugin/add-on/extension you have for Chrome. I would suggest removing any of these items 1 at a time to see if Plex Web starts working again.
The title of this post “Really Upset - Paid for Plex Lifetime and now IT DOES NOT WORK” fits my mood, but not my specific problem i.e. I do not think my problem is browser related. I will create a new post if necessary, but forum etiquette would suggest I start here … I run the Plex server from an HP Microserver, and have clients on Android, Samsung, Sony, to name a few. All was working fine until I upgraded to a Plex lifetime pass (when diagnosing problems, we talk about what has changed recently. For me, this is said upgrade). Even my newly acquired Nvidia Shield TV does not work! There must be a reasonable explanation for this, otherwise I’m asking for a refund and moving to Emby. Seems ridiculous that a free subscription works, but a paid subscription does not!
Oh, very funny, I just hope you’re not a member of the support staff! If you read my post properly, you’ll realize that this is quite an advanced setup. Think I can cope with powering a device on. Idoit!
But we have to start somewhere. Have others experienced the same problem when upgrading? Seems a little odd that a free plex pass works, but a paid plex pass does not. You say “start my own thread”, but as I said, forum etiquette suggests I use an existing thread. I do not usually post to forums because 99% of problems I solve myself through extensive research and testing. But how can my setup be the problem, when free works, but paid does not? I’m just asking if anyone has experienced the same?
