Server Version#: 1.18.4.2171
Player Version#: 6.4.10.6174-1475be6a9
Hey folks,
I’m having what seems to be a similar issue to this thread: "Not fast enough to stream"?
The difference is that I’m only playing on my local network. I’m trying to encode my (legally purchased) media in such a manner that it will play directly on my Roku, but shortly into the stream it starts to buffer and then gives up, complaining that the network isn’t fast enough. I would love to get to the bottom of this. I’ve read through the readme, but the FAQ for Roku no longer exists (404s).
Currently I don’t have internet access on my home network due to ISP issues (one of the reasons I’ve invested a lot of time and hardware in my Plex setup! so I can’t upload logs directly, but I have local copies I can attach.
I have Plex running on my NAS, which is a custom-built unit:
- Intel Core i5 7400T quad-core 2.4GHz
- 8GB DDR4
- 5x WD Green 3TB disks in ZFS RAID-Z2 via a SATA RAID card in JBOD, ~80MB/s file-serving speed across the LAN
- 1Gb/s ethernet
- Devuan Linux v2.1 x86_64 (Debian v9.1 without systemd)
This is connected at 1Gb/s to a managed switch, then to a Roku 2 XS with wired ethernet, which has a 100Mb/s NIC. Both are on the same subnet, no VLANs or firewalls. The Roku is connected through an Onkyo TX-SR313 amplifier to an LG 43UK63 TV, audio running back to the amp via HDMI ARC.
I’ve been ripping my Rush concert Blu-Rays, trying to get the highest quality out of them. The discs were dumped with MakeMKV on Windows 7, then encoded with Handbrake on Ubuntu. Originally I used the ‘Super HQ 1080p30 Surround’ preset, with the audio tracks passed through (my amp supports the DTS tracks natively). This gave problems with Direct Play and transcoding at 10Mb/s and up. The resulting encoded file is about 20Mb/s average bitrate. I then modified some of the settings to be more Roku-friendly, but I made it worse, as now the files give problems transcoding at 8Mb/s and up…
Round about the point the Roku starts having trouble, the file jumps up to about 41Mb/s (still comfortably within the ethernet limit, mind you) - on my test Clockwork Angels video, this is during the opening track (‘Subdivsions’) and happens shortly after the relatively calm opening video changes to the actual performance, which has a lot more going on. When this happens, the Roku begins buffering repeatedly, before ultimately giving up saying the network is not fast enough to stream. All through this, I’m not seeing traffic leaving the server much higher than 40Mb/s. If I play from another machine, e.g. my laptop, via the web UI, it works as expected even at original quality (although I did notice a burst of 9.1MB/s leaving the server, which is a lot closer to the 100Mb limit than I’ve seen on the Roku). I can’t get the Plex app to work on my Android devices, but it also plays properly on my iPad (for the 1-minute limit, of course, grr) over 11n wifi (although it plays the video directly, it transcodes the audio, which isn’t ideal but is acceptable).
I’m attaching the log files. Since I enabled VERBOSE initially, I had to go through the Server log file to remove it, and while I was there I removed the IP addresses (replaced them with plexmediaserver, roku2xs and laptop as appropriate) and trimmed down the messages to today. I’ve done the same for the logs I got from the Roku Plex application. The event seems to happen at around 13:38 in the logs.
I noticed while playing the stream in the web player that the source file shows an h.264 level of 5.0. In the Plex settings on the Roku, it has a ‘Maximum H.264 Level’ set at 4.2 as the recommended setting before transcoding. I don’t know a lot about h.264 in depth, but it seems this is a sensible level for 1080p video. The guide to tweak the media at encoding time recommended to set the Level to ‘auto’, which seems to be responsible for the 5.0 value. On the other hand, the preset I started with has the Level set explicitly to 4.0, so I don’t think this will help. The media XML is also included, as is a copy of the Handbrake preset I’m using.
If this is an issue with the Roku, then I’m open to replacing it (I know it’s 9 years old at this point), however as it was designed for h.264 1080p streaming I’d prefer not to. Alternatively, if it’s down to the way I’m encoding my media, I have no problem with re-encoding the lot, just as long as I can find a profile that works (since it takes ~8 hours to re-encode a Blu-Ray on even my 3.4GHz i7 desktop, so experimenting with the settings is pretty tedious!).
Any help or pointers appreciated, thanks!
PlexLogs.zip (76.0 KB)
