Roku Ultra buffering on BluRay Rip

Plex Players Streaming Devices
,
22

Trying again.

At approx 10:03 I played The Hobbit. It played with no problems.

After that, approx 10:05 I played Spider-Man and it hung at 65% until it gave up.

After that, approx 10:08 I played Lord of the Rings and it hung at 65% until it gave up.

After that, approx 10:11 I resumed The Hobbit, which succeeded.

For all tries CPU spiked briefly (305 seconds) and then settled to 40-ish percent and then disappeared completely.

The CPU, memory, and network load through all of this seemed well within norms, and was not significantly different when it succeeded and when it failed, except that actual playback (when it worked) cost about 43% CPU.

New logs: Plex Media Server Logs_2019-11-13_22-13-00.zip (5.8 MB)

Any clues ?

Thanks for the help so far!

23

Hi,

I haven’t heard anything since I posted the last logs. Given the turn-around time prior to that, I am worried that it got lost in the shuffle.

Is there anything more I can do? It is failing, still and I don’t know what to do next.

24

I did take a look at the Roku logs, and from what I can tell, the Roku attempts to buffer for over 2 minutes until it times out. There are no other errors logged. It sounds like the same files fail, which makes me wonder if those specific files are encoded in a way that the Roku is unable to handle.

  • Could you provide the source for at least one of those to see if we can replicate in house. Feel free to DM a link to dropbox, google drive, etc.
25

The files in question are all 30+ GB. Do you really want me to upload that somewhere?

Is there an easier way to extract metadata?

26

Not just happening with Roku Ultra, having issues with my Dad’s Roku Streaming Stick+ which connects remotely to my server, it has issues with 5.1 Audio encoded files and throws my server into an unreachable state where I have to restart the server. I’ve opened ports in the router to allow Plex through, but issues still occur. @ChuckPa it’s been a while since I moaned about something :smiley: but once my Dad’s available I’ll do the tests with him and upload the logs. The files I use are all 720p some with 5.1 audio, but the majority of them are all stereo, as I’ve only got 10mbps upload at the moment. Hope this helps?

Dave

27

How about I moan back at you? lol

Nov 13, 2019 03:41:58.169 [0x313c3450] DEBUG - NetworkServiceBrowser: Parsing SSDP schema for http://169.254.11.27:63444/upnp/xml/devices/ManageableDevice1.xml
Nov 13, 2019 03:41:58.169 [0x313c3450] DEBUG - HTTP requesting GET http://169.254.11.27:63444/upnp/xml/devices/ManageableDevice1.xml
Nov 13, 2019 03:41:59.160 [0x2f9d3450] DEBUG - CERT: incomplete TLS handshake: sslv3 alert bad certificate
Nov 13, 2019 03:41:59.167 [0x2fd33450] DEBUG - CERT: incomplete TLS handshake: sslv3 alert bad certificate
Nov 13, 2019 03:41:59.362 [0x2fd33450] DEBUG - CERT: incomplete TLS handshake: sslv3 alert bad certificate
Nov 13, 2019 03:41:59.369 [0x2f9d3450] DEBUG - CERT: incomplete TLS handshake: sslv3 alert bad certificate
Nov 13, 2019 03:42:01.817 [0x2f9d3450] DEBUG - EventSource: Resolving 109.237.24.233 port 443

Where’s the foreign certificate in the chain?

I’m also concerned about that ARMv7’s ability to perform whatever transcoding and remuxing is required.

Seeing the XML ( from top down through the </media> XML statement) posted as

```
post xml here
```

let’s that XML come through as “code”

29

If that cert question is aimed at me, I can say with confidence that I have no idea. I did not set up certs or anything for Plex. How would I even begin to diagnose it?

30

Do you have any domain certificates attached to the system itself?

31

Not that I know of - It’s just a pretty bog-standard Synology

32

There is a setting in the Plex app on Roku’s that determines the upper limit of how much bandwidth the will use. If that is set lower than direct play requires, then the Plex server will transcode. I bumped into this when I started to put 4K versions of files on my Plex because of our new 4K tv.

In the Plex app on Roku, click your username, settings, video, set local quality higher.

That TOTALLY worked for me.

33

I am back at home.

The video settings in Plex Roku are all set to “original”, DirectPlay is set to Force, Direct Stream is allowed.

This is on a Roku Ultra. In these logs:
Plex Media Server Logs_2019-11-23_14-23-57.zip (5.7 MB)

~2:16 I started playing “Solo” - it buffered for about a minute, played for a few seconds and then started buffering again.

~2:19 I tried to play “Spider-Man” - it hung at 65% and eventually failed as described above.

I also tried to play from my Roku Streaming Stick Plus. On that one:

“Spider Man” actually played, but complained there was no audio, and asked to move to “auto”. I did that and it started playing.

“Solo” buffered forever and I gave up.

Here is the metadata for those.

spiderman.xml.txt (14.4 KB)

solo.xml.txt (51.2 KB)

I am utterly baffled and do not know how to proceed.

34

Is there anything further to do here? It’s still broken.

35

I am still stuck on this and seeking helping from the experts. Am I asking in the wrong place? Is there some place better to ask? Orbis this just an unsupported service, after all?

36

@thockin_gmail.com

  1. The ARM processors have no hardware transcoding capability.

  2. The video “Solo” is 36 Mbps and has PGS subtitles.

<Part accessible="1" exists="1" id="115537" key="/library/parts/115537/1538269931/file.mkv" duration="8086703" file="/volume1/video/movies/Star Wars (series)/Solo.mkv" size="40132811096" audioProfile="ma" container="mkv" deepAnalysisVersion="4" hasThumbnail="1" requiredBandwidths="43391,43226,42842,42297,41791,41286,39860,39860" videoProfile="high">
<Stream id="209839" streamType="1" codec="h264" index="0" bitrate="36311" language="English" languageCode="eng" bitDepth="8" chromaLocation="left" chromaSubsampling="4:2:0" frameRate="23.976" hasScalingMatrix="0" height="1080" level="41" profile="high" refFrames="4" requiredBandwidths="35532,35425,35120,34615,34109,33604,32601,32601" scanType="progressive" width="1920" displayTitle="1080p (H.264)" />
<Stream id="209840" streamType="2" selected="1" default="1" codec="dca" index="1" channels="8" bitrate="1536" language="English" languageCode="eng" audioChannelLayout="7.1" bitDepth="24" profile="ma" requiredBandwidths="6156,6071,5868,5707,5707,5707,5707,5707" samplingRate="48000" title="Surround 7.1" displayTitle="English (DTS-HD MA 7.1)" />
<Stream id="209841" streamType="2" codec="dca" index="2" channels="6" bitrate="1536" language="English" languageCode="eng" audioChannelLayout="5.1(side)" bitDepth="24" profile="dts" requiredBandwidths="1509,1509,1509,1509,1509,1509,1509,1509" samplingRate="48000" title="Surround 5.1" displayTitle="English (DTS 5.1)" />
<Stream id="209842" streamType="2" codec="ac3" index="3" channels="2" bitrate="320" language="English" languageCode="eng" audioChannelLayout="stereo" requiredBandwidths="320,320,320,320,320,320,320,320" samplingRate="48000" title="Stereo" displayTitle="English (AC3 Stereo)" />
<Stream id="209843" streamType="3" codec="pgs" index="4" language="English" languageCode="eng" requiredBandwidths="54,54,54,54,54,54,54,54" displayTitle="English (PGS)" />
<Stream id="209844" streamType="3" codec="pgs" index="5" language="English" languageCode="eng" requiredBandwidths="2,2,2,2,2,2,2,2" displayTitle="English (PGS)" />
</Part>
</Media>
  1. PGS subtitles must be burned by the CPU
Nov 23, 2019 14:16:12.100 [0x355db450] DEBUG - MDE: Selected protocol hls; container: mpegts
Nov 23, 2019 14:16:12.100 [0x355db450] DEBUG - MDE: analyzing media item 113549
Nov 23, 2019 14:16:12.100 [0x355db450] DEBUG - MDE: Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018): Direct Play is disabled
Nov 23, 2019 14:16:12.100 [0x355db450] DEBUG - MDE: Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018): media must be transcoded in order to use the hls protocol
Nov 23, 2019 14:16:12.101 [0x355db450] DEBUG - MDE: Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/h264/dca
Nov 23, 2019 14:16:12.101 [0x355db450] DEBUG - MDE: Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/h264/dca
Nov 23, 2019 14:16:12.101 [0x355db450] DEBUG - MDE: Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/h264/ac3
Nov 23, 2019 14:16:12.101 [0x355db450] DEBUG - MDE: Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018): selected subtitle cannot be converted to a compatible format, burning into video stream
Nov 23, 2019 14:16:12.102 [0x355db450] DEBUG - MDE: Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018): avoiding video remux due to burned subtitle stream
Nov 23, 2019 14:16:12.102 [0x355db450] DEBUG - MDE: Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018): no remuxable profile found, so video stream will be transcoded
Nov 23, 2019 14:16:12.102 [0x355db450] DEBUG - MDE: Cannot direct stream video stream due to profile or setting limitations
Nov 23, 2019 14:16:12.103 [0x355db450] DEBUG - Scaled up video bitrate to 54466Kbps based on 1.500000x fudge factor.
Nov 23, 2019 14:16:12.103 [0x355db450] DEBUG - MDE: Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018): selected media 0 / 113549
Nov 23, 2019 14:16:12.104 [0x355db450] DEBUG - Streaming Resource: Adding session 0x34736560:3d457b8be11579d2238dbebbec0d1ed1 which is using transcoder slot.  Used slots is now 1
Nov 23, 2019 14:16:12.104 [0x355db450] DEBUG - Streaming Resource: Added session 0x34736560:3d457b8be11579d2238dbebbec0d1ed1

ARMv8 CPUs are ok transcoding up to about 20 Mbps of video when there are no subtitles. This is a situation where demand exceeds CPU capability.

37

Ahh, this is great insight I would never have come to on my own. Thanks.

I did a bunch of reading of other sites and threads and I accept that this is almost certainly the problem. It seems well understood that Roku does not do PGS.

So - are there NAS products that can handle Blu-Ray with PGS? I really like my synology and I don’t think the video itself needs to be transcoded except for this (which, frankly, seems like a ludicrous situation all around).

38

To handle transcoding PGS subs (which means burning them into the image in real-time demand speed), you need something other than a Synology.

A QNAP i7 is pretty much what you need. You need the raw horsepower.

Why must PGS be used? Why not use the other subtitle tracks like SRT, SSA, or ASS (Text based) which the clients can handle without burning in?

1 Like
39

Why PGS - These are just BD rips. PGS must be what they had. Until today I knew absolutely nothing about subtitles.

I have turned on SRT downloads thru Plex and confirmed SRT is available for Solo. I chose the SRT title stream in Plex/Roku. When I play it, it quickly counts up to 65% (more quickly than before) and again, hangs exactly at 65%.

Where in the logs should I look for clues?

40

Look at your own XML posting. PGS subtitles are embedded in the file.

  1. You either selected PGS instead of one of the text (SRT, SSA, or ASS) subtitle streams when you ripped the disk.
    -or-
  2. The ‘rip’ you downloaded was ripped with only the PGS subtitles.

Did you select the SRT subtitles in the pre-play or after starting?
In the Roku’s settings, for subtitles, is it set to “Automatic”, “Always burn” or “Image formats only” ?

41

I chose SRT in the “streams” Plex UI for this specific movie. That’s when it raced to 65% and then hung again. I will try to look at debug logs for this without dumping on you, if I can figure out where to look.

42

OK Trying again.

Spider Man. I have verified that SRT subtitles are available.

Time 3:08p

Settings for this movie in Roku/Plex are:

  • Quality: original
  • DirectPlay: Force
  • Allow Direct Stream: true
  • Roku Captions mode: On (can’t change this here)
  • Burn Subtitles: Automatic (can’t change this here)

Under Streams for this movie:

  • Subtitles: SRT (external)

Play

Progress zooms to 65% and then stalls there. This is the same 65% as before, but it got there faster.

2-3 minutes later it gives up and tells me: This video isn’t supported for direct play.

Go to Roku’s settings. Disable captions.

Settings for this movie now say “Roku captions: Off” and I can modify that if I want.

Time: 3:15p

Play.

Progress zooms to 65% and hangs.

2-3 minutes later it gives up and tells me: This video isn’t supported for direct play.

So I am back to square one, more informed but no more able to watch movies.

Logs are here: Plex Media Server Logs_2020-01-11_15-29-49.zip (4.3 MB)

I don’t know what I am looking for, but I don’t see logs like you snippeted before – did I mess something up this time?