Server Version#: 1.30.1.6562 / 1.31.0.6654
Player Version#: 9.15.0.38159 (should start with a version a week ago)
I don’t think it’s a server side issue. I have two android devices with auto-updates and the app has been updated twice in recent week. And since then it just ignores my video setting (using 1080p instead of max quality). The video I tried to play has two versions: 4k and 1080p. I uploaded them and merged the two into a single item in plex. For these two devices, they don’t support 4k natively and therefore using 4k video will cause a transcoding on the server (which has some performance issue). In the past, both devices were able to pick the 1080p version automatically and play smoothly. Now I have to click play version manually for individual videos, which is just horrible.
I have a third android device, which did not turn on auto-update the the plex app was not updated and it can pick the 1080p when the quality setting is set to 1080p as well.
I double checked the bitrate but it seems to me this is definitely a bug. The quality setting has been set to 1080p 20M while the 1080p version I provided is only around 16-18M. The PMS always chooses to convert the 4k version to 1080p and completely ignore the 1080p version already on disk. I tried either in the home network or using a remote wifi but none of the setting is applied correctly.
I have the same issue on Windows, but yours is the only topic I could find. I have yet to check on other devices, but some Android TV clients, when starting playback, choose to convert the 4K version instead of playing the 1080p one, resulting in failed or buffering playback. This was not an issue a few months back, but I’m not sure when it started. Definitely a bug.
Sorry for the delay, I was unable to test this until today.
I just “tried” to do what you asked, but had to take a few more steps, since the behaviour was a little confusing:
I’m using an Amazon Fire Stick Lite for this test.
Logged in with a Home User that experienced the problem the other day.
Tried to play S01E03 of a series from the beginning → the 1080p version was played correctly.
Logged in with my admin user to check if I could reproduce the issue.
Tried to play S01E01 of the same series, resuming playback status → infinite loading wheel on screen for at least a minute. Tried a couple more times, same behaviour.
Tried again using the “select version” feature, and manually selecting the 1080p one → playback started immediately without issues.
Tried to play S01E03 from the beginning (the same that worked fine with the other User Profile) → infinite loading screen again.
I don’t know what triggers this fail in detecting the correct version to play, but in my case it’s stopping playback all together, and for remote users that don’t even know about the workaround, it’s absolutely breaking their Plex setup not being able to play content on a 1080p device when there are multiple versions available.
I’m sending the logs you requested via PM. EDIT: your PMs ar not open so I can’t send the logs right now, let me know when I can.
