Remote LiveTV Playback still broken on latest 5.43.1 Tizen player -- "Unexpected Playback Error"

[freedman_mike_gmail_com]

Server Version#: 1.27.1.5916
Player Version#: 5.43.1
NVidia Shield version: 8.2.3

Logs are attached with player log enabled and set to Verbose as Debug setting doesn’t log the Unexpected Playback error.

I have 2 Nvidia Shields, a primary and a secondary. Since the playback problems were reported earlier this year post 1.23.x shield servers I have kept my primary on this last working version while occasionally upgrading my secondary server to see if/what problems are fixed and if I can now upgrade my primary.

I spend most of the year accessing my servers remotely on my 2019 Samsung. With the 1.27.x Shield server I am running all works fine (playback of recorded dvr shows) however I can’t play LiveTV. I get a spinning dial, black screen, a second spinning dial, back to black screen for about 90 seconds and then the “Unexpected playback error” message is displayed. I originally enabled player logging at the “debug” level but that didn’t seem to capture any interesting information so I switched it to “verbose” and the output seems more promising at least it captures the reporting of the error message.

Since this latest release of the Tizen player no longer supports LiveTV on 1.23.x, I am kind of stuck. I can’t play LiveTV on my primary server because its too old but if I upgrade it won’t play because playback is broken.

I hope Plex can figure this out soon and post a fix.

Plex Media Server Logs_2022-07-27_09-00-07.zip (1.3 MB)

[freedman_mike_gmail_com]

An update: Problem seems to be Plex App is unable to create/start a player for the liveTV steam … see more below. Would appreciate if anyone on the Plex Tizen team could help/providesome advice.

More details:
Server Version#: 1.28.1.6104
Samsung Plex App Version: 5.32.1
Samsung TV model: QN65Q80RAFXZA

In terms of configuration of the app: DirectPlay and DirectStream are enabled. Allow In Secure Connections is enabled and my PMS has been changed to only prefer Secure Connections. These later changes were made per this bulletin: Important information about Plex for smart TVs after September 30, 2021

In case the serial update of the app was causing the problem I first cleared its data and cache, then deleted it and readded it from the Samsung (after unplugging for a short while).

If you look at the logs it appears that the Plex App is failing to play liveTV because it gets an error when it tries to create after setting its state to playing from buffering. live TV works fine on my other Samsung TV which access the PMS locally. In addition playback of DVR works remotely on this remote Samsung whether DirectPlay or Transcoded.

Sep 08, 2022 15:46:15.001 [9078] ERROR - [Req#2d6d] [Plex for Samsung] [freedma5:c7lpzjb7neuylrk7no2d6jfm] [AVPlay[1] (IDLE)] onAVPlayError: PLAYER_ERROR_GENEREIC
Sep 08, 2022 15:46:15.001 [9078] INFO - [Req#2d6d] [Plex for Samsung] [freedma5:c7lpzjb7neuylrk7no2d6jfm] [PlaybackSessionController] playback state changed to: stopped. Here is the log snippet. The full Plex Media Server log is attached (called Remote LiveTV to Unexpected Error.log.) I have also attached two other logs for comparison: Remote DVR Playback with Transcoding.log and Remote DVR Playback Direct Play.log.

Sep 08, 2022 15:46:15.001 [9078] WARN - [Req#2d6d] [Plex for Samsung] [freedma5:c7lpzjb7neuylrk7no2d6jfm] Failed to send transcode action stop to source: server://7e8654bd8ea500ccea69ff7740a5babe897306b0/tv.plex.providers.epg.cloud/tv.plex.providers.epg.cloud:2/metadata/plex%3A%2F%2Fepisode%2F62cca5ac9692a2db8708fad4
Sep 08, 2022 15:46:15.001 [9078] ERROR - [Req#2d6d] [Plex for Samsung] [freedma5:c7lpzjb7neuylrk7no2d6jfm] Playback error occurred. Reason: FailedToSetupOrCreatePlayer, Failed to create or setup player! Message: An unexpected playback problem occurred.
Sep 08, 2022 15:46:15.001 [9078] WARN - [Req#2d6d] [Plex for Samsung] [freedma5:c7lpzjb7neuylrk7no2d6jfm] [PlaybackSessionController] could not retry, reporting error
Sep 08, 2022 15:46:15.001 [9078] INFO - [Req#2d6d] [Plex for Samsung] [freedma5:c7lpzjb7neuylrk7no2d6jfm] Opening modal: ActionsModal
Sep 08, 2022 15:46:15.001 [9078] INFO - [Req#2d6d] [Plex for Samsung] [freedma5:c7lpzjb7neuylrk7no2d6jfm] Opened modal: ActionsModal

As you can see the Plex App doesn’t seem to provide any clues why it can’t create/start a player.

Again: I ask is anyone out there is accessing LiveTV remotely on a Samsung TV?

I wonder/hope that someone on the Tizen app team can add extra debugging statements in the next Tizen app update to give me/us more information.

All I can think of at this point is to do a full factory reset of the TV which obviously is a pain. Problem is I don’t have much confidence it will change anything as this isn’t a Plex app doesn’t work situation just one (important) feature fails to work while other very similar use cases do work. Could the player that tries to start have a bug where it tries to create/grab too much memory? Could the LiveTV stream be transmitting data that makes the player think it needs much more resources than it really needs? I am open to any suggestions, even speculation as this has now been a long term issue for me.

Plex Live TV Fails Logs.zip (201.6 KB)