This problem started for me around 2 weeks ago. I found this closed topic: Roku 3 Plex "Inactivity" timeout but it hasn’t solved the problem for me although it looks like it did for some others.
I don’t know whether I didn’t hit the problem back in June or whether the updates for my Roku were delayed. I have set the “bandwidth saver” to off in the Roku settings but Plex still closes automatically after around 4 hours. Extremely annoying if you are using it to cast music to. Was this the correct setting to change? Is there anything else I need to change to stop Plex closing?
If Roku does not detect any activity for a fair period of time there is a requirement (Roku’s requirement) that the inactive app exit. However it seems like casting music is an app being active but I wonder if the act of casting can be detected as “active” after the casting starts.
I do not know if a casting client does anything after issuing the casting command.
To be honest i have never really understand the need or desire for casting to anything. I choose my clients so that they can do what I need and I do not see any reason to cast to them.
For me the only time Plex exits on my Rokus is when I pause something for a period of time. As long as it is actively playing something it never exits.
I believe Roku screwed up when they put the exit requirement in place but they will not be changing that requirement and, so far, there is no reliable workaround that any app I use has implemented. That is why I decided to use a computer running MediaMonkey for all my audio playing needs. It is a little cumbersome to use a completely different system for audio than I use for video but it works and it is the only way I have found to play my audiobooks effectively.
BTW: I believe those that reported that the “Bandwidth saver” settings made a difference are somehow experiencing some technological version of the “placebo effect.” It is Roku that is enforcing the exit and it is against their developer’s TOS to try to avoid it.
It is NOT a bug or a problem. It is the way Roku insists that any program on their box behaves. After a period of time all Roku apps must exit to the home screen. Apps must behave that way or Roku will not certify them.
My solution is that I use no Roku all for music and audiobooks and no Plex app for music and audiobooks… They all work poorly. I use MediaMonkey for all audio playback and I have zero issues.
The Roku won’t quit you back to Roku Home if it’s playing music, but if idle it will - as Roku INC insists.
Roku plays music as well as any other Plex app - better if you’d like to have a screensaver kick in while the music is playing (I do). No one is ever sure what the FireTV is going to do - at any time - so the general Plex App rule of thumb is don’t use the FireTV Plex app for anything you don’t absolutely have to and if you have to expect failures - often.
The Roku won’t quit you back to Roku Home if it’s playing music, but if idle it will - as Roku INC insists.
This is not the case on my Roku. If I cast music to the Roku (running the Plex channel) from another device running the Plex app (phone or tablet) after a certain time it stops playing and quits the Plex channel back to the home screen.
Is there something you did to stop Roku doing that? As far as I can tell, the only way to stop it quitting is to use the Roku remote every couple of hours just to reset this quit timer so you cannot leave the Roku to play music all day.
I don’t cast music - or anything else - from or to anything.
That sounds to me like a bug @ljunkie should be made aware of.
The ‘Inactivity Timeout Back to Roku Home’ isn’t something that can be ‘dealt with’ as it’s a REQUIREMENT at ROKU INC - one that has already been tested by Roku Users and one in which they were shot down in flames over the ROKU INC battlefield many moons ago.
You could be right that it’s a bug. If the “feature” is called ‘Inactivity Timeout Back to Roku Home’ I assume that it is only supposed to happen when there is no activity. In this case there IS activity because the Roku is playing music.
This is currently out of our control with the last firmware. I do agree it should not exit when there is music playing, and can only assume this would occur playing a photo slideshow too. We will file a ticket with Roku to see if we can have control over this again.
I have never had this happen while the app is playing the music, but I haven’t run the app in that capacity for a while and I can’t get involved in a 4hr+ test right now. I will do so at my earliest convenience.
IF the app leaps back to Roku Home while it’s being cast upon - that is something I can’t/won’t test, but it seems like that’s already been tested and came up lame. If there are any differences in those two states - that’s for you to determine.
It is version 6.7.6.6799-0ffd3d093 … but it is possible that has been updated since I gave up using the Roku to cast
No, it goes all the way back to the Roku sliding screen saver (purple buildings with adverts)
I think it is around 4 hours but will have to test
I am pretty sure that it is exiting while music is playing. It is possible that the music paused itself but that doesn’t happen often. It certainly was not a manual pause which caused the app to end. I’ll test again.
This only started a couple of months ago when either (or both) the Roku system updated or the Plex channel. It was at the same time that the Plex channel started exiting during real inactivity.
I have started the test and I am actually seeing another problem as well. I have never actually cast music to the Roku with the TV on. As long as the channel is running I turn the screen off. Today, for the purposes of the test, I have left the screen on.
When casting, the screen shows the album cover and the track details but it is not stable, as with most of the other Plex apps. Approx every second, the album cover flashes on, the background is the blurred coloured one. A second later the album cover flashes off & on and the background changes to black. As second later the album cover flashes off and back on and the background goes back blurred. This constantly repeats. I assume that this is not normal.
After 5-8 minutes the Plex screen saver kicks in and now the album cover is moving around the screen as you would expect. The background is black and there is no flashing on/off of either the cover or the background.
I got to around 3hrs 40mins of playing in radio mode when the playlist hit a corrupt mp3 file. The Roku thought that it was playing the file but the server showed the file playing with no progress. Assuming that would represent inactivity I immediately skipped to the next file but of course that caused activity on the Plex channel so I assume that the timing was reset. It has now passed beyond the 4 hours from the initial starting of the playlist but has not exited to the Roku screen saver. That could be because of the activity about an hour ago or it could be because an update has fixed the bug.
I had been led to believe that activity from the remote control was required every 4 hours to stop the channel exiting. That appears to not to be the case.
It just did it. In middle of playing a track the music suddenly stopped. That’s about 6 hours 10 mins after I initially started the radio play and about 2hrs 30 mins after I had to skip forward from the corrupted mp3 file.
What’s interesting is that it didn’t just exit back to the Roku screensaver, it did a full reboot of the Roku so something crashed, presumably the Plex channel. Of course I had not seen this before because the TV was not on, all that I had seen was playing the music and then after turning the TV on the Roku screensaver so it may not be the inactivity timer causing the problem (unless that’s the way it exits a channel) it may be the Plex channel crashing.
I assumed it was the inactivity timer because the Plex channel has always gone back to the Roku screensaver after a period of inactivity.
Does any of the above tell you anything?
PS. It was in the middle of playing an mp3 track at 230kbps if that helps.
A reboot means the Roku encountered an error it couldn’t recover from and had to reboot. In this case we don’t have any insight to what happened and would have to ask Roku for the crash/reboot logs for your specific device. A channel crash (exiting to the home screen without rebooting) is usually caused by a bug in our code.
Could you send over your serial number in a DM? I will forward that to Roku to see if they can determine why the model rebooted.
