Several Issues with Live TV/DVR

General Discussions Plex Features
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Another day, another post about Live TV/DVR.

I want to list out the issues I’m having to try and keep them all in one place. Some of these issues have already been posted to the forums, but other than the threads about time-shifting being broken, the others haven’t received much attention if any at all.

1. Time-Shifting Is Completely Broken

Time-shifting in general is broken. Trying to play a recording that is already in progress is a hot mess. Anytime I try to do this, I’m taken to live portion of the recording and unable to successfully seek back to the beginning.

Yesterday, while I was home for lunch, I was watching a program live. I paused the program during the commercial break so I could catch the end of the segment, but when I came back to the TV after 5-10 minutes, there was a message on the screen instructing me to hit play to resume live TV. When I hit play, I can only assume I was now watching live (as it didn’t resume from where I paused it), but the progress bar showed a different time-stamp. Trying to seek backwards worked, but because it showed the wrong progress within the program, I couldn’t get back to where I was when I paused it.

2. Live TV on Roku has Playback Issues

When watching live TV from a Roku client, the stream will eventually start to buffer, but usually get stuck on 33% before failing and then displaying an error message about signal quality. 1 times out of 10, the stream will actually begin to resume playback instead of completely failing. There are numerous threads about this issue, but I haven’t seen any feedback from Plex on those threads.

I will add that I am using an HDHR Prime with a cable subscription, so signal quality isn’t the actual issue. Also, I am direct streaming these channels within Plex. Disabling MPEG2 in the Plex client settings will force the channels to transcode and limits this from happening, but it still does occur.

There is no pattern to the live stream errors out. Sometimes I can be watching a stream for 30 minutes to an hour (or even longer) with no issues before it finally breaks, or other times it can be 5 minutes.

When playing these channels in the new HDHomeRun app for Roku, no playback issues occur. Furthermore, when playing a DVR recording back within Plex on a Roku client (with MPEG2 support enabled), no buffering or other playback issues occur. It only happens when playing a live TV stream.

3. EPG on Android Mobile Broken

I often try to schedule recordings from the Plex Android client. When searching for a program, the airdates are often shown as December 31st. If I set the program to record, it will record as expected, but it’s very annoying to not know when a program is actually going to air. Sometime I want to use the mobile app to just browse the EPG, not necessarily to always set a recording, and I’m unable to do so for some programs because of this bug. I’ve also seen this bug mentioned within some of the other threads involving the new EPG issues, but again, I haven’t seen any acknowledgment from Plex.

4. General EPG Issues

The EPG issues that first plagued me during the switch of providers have finally started to calm down, but there are still some issues I’ve been noticing. The biggest issue involves season and episode numbers. It’s getting better, but it’s still hit or miss whether a program has the correct season and episode number. On the same program, it seems to be correct one week, but not the next. This causes issues with scheduled recordings.

Another little concern is that some channels are missing logos in the grid guide. Obviously a lower level complaint, but still a little annoying.

I can recreate and provide logs for any of the issues I listed above. If anyone else is experiencing these issues, I’d appreciate additional comments that may help us get this nailed down so Plex can hopefully get them resolved.

Again, I know many of these issues have been posted before, but I wanted to gather all of my specific issues in one thread as they all relate to live TV/DVR. Hopefully I can get some direct feedback from Plex as some of these issues have gone unanswered.

7 Likes
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Bumping.

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I agree 10000%. I hope you get a response!

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I’ve given up on Plex for Live TV and DVR. Trying out Emby now and we are very happy with it. We use two HDHomerun Primes and it was a breeze to set up. Emby actually loaded the EPG data so quickly we were able to schedule recordings moments after setup. So far there has been no tuner conflicts and the Live TV guide is customizable. Searching the forums shows there are many customers with the same problems.

We’re still using Plex for media streaming.

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I suppose I’m bumping again. Watching live TV this morning. Played perfectly well for about 30 minutes and then I get the dreaded 33% buffering failure.

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Last fall I had tried Emby when SiliconDust had launched their HDHomeRun Premium TV to take advantage of multiple tuner lineups. I thought it worked fairly well, but I had a major issue with it wanting to transcode all of my movies and TV shows because it detected the framerates as something ridiculous that my Roku clients didn’t support, so it transcoded. I had posted on the forums, but just got a lot of “why do you think this” and “prove it” responses from the developers. I have no idea if that bug has since been fixed, but for me and my GF, the Plex UI is leaps and bounds better than Emby. I also think the web interface for Emby is a giant clunky mess, and I have some questions about security when remote access is enabled.

Some of my concerns may have been addressed, but other than live TV, Plex works perfectly for us. I’d rather grind my teeth getting some of these issues fixed than just give up and move to something else that I feel is just as lacking in different areas.

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It’s frustrating. We’re keeping Plex for our media serving, Emby just for live TV and DVR.

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Once again hit with the 33% buffering error while I was home watching TV on lunch. Football season is coming soon and it’s going to suck to constantly have to restart the stream.

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Bumping again. First NFL preseason game of the year is tomorrow. Not looking forward to have the stream die every so often for a 3 hour program.

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I would give Emby another try. I just started using it and have had Zero problems with Live TV and DVR. Emby just updated to version 4.2.0.40 so you may want to check out the change log and see if it’s worth another try.

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I have received a response from Elan (Plex CTO and Co-Founder) from another post in the forums.

I will not be pinging him in future posts as they are well aware of these issues

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Thanks very much for posting that. Obviously I can understand why he is annoyed, but they need to understand that we are frustrated.

I have no problem waiting for a fix if one is in the works, but they do need to work on their communication. I understand not releasing road-maps and new features before they’re released publicly, but when this many people are having an issue, maybe make a post acknowledging it and keeping us posted on the progress.

I also get that live TV and DVR users are probably a small percentage of users, but that small group is actually paying for the product.

If I have some free time this weekend, I might throw Emby on a spare computer just to tinker and see what’s changed since I’ve last used it, but I still don’t see myself switching from Plex completely. I may need to roll out another solution for live TV and DVR, and that may be where Emby comes in, but I’m still hopeful we’ll get some of these issues fixed soon.

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I am hopeful as well, but that hope is diminishing as so much time has passed. I hope you were able to check out Emby. I saw that some people were trying out Channels too. I’ll be sticking with Emby for now.

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Bumping again.

Last night I wanted to set the replay of the Packers and Texans preseason game on NFL Network to record from my phone. It showed an air date of December 31st and an airtime of 6:00PM. Just to make sure I was scheduling the correct airing, I ended up having to do it from a computer.

When will the guide data on Android mobile be corrected? In the past I’ve deleted all app cache and even deleted the app/reinstalled but it makes no difference.

Also, I’ve submitted to lineup issues. 1 of them over a month ago, the other a couple of weeks ago. Neither has yet to be corrected. I also don’t see them listed on the spreadsheet that’s available.

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And another bump.

Girlfriend was watching live TV last night and was trying to watch a program that was being recorded live. Ran into the 33% buffering fail on the Roku and then when she tried to restart the channel and select live, she was unable to time shift back a few minutes to see what she missed. I was upstairs, but kept hearing complaints of “ugh” and “why won’t this stupid thing work?”

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Since the change July 1st it has been a nightmare. So far it has been a mess with the early NFL games. I am also starting to get really frustrated.

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I have the same frustration. My biggest issue is with the other football. English Premier League. The EPG shows the games correctly for a 2 hour recording called “Premier League Soccer”. But when I record it, it records as “The Premier League Show” for a completely different time and typically only 30 or 60 minutes.

Completely sucks for recording sports events for some reason. Normal TV shows seem to record property but the time shifting flaws are still there. This has been an issue for over a year.

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Also, same December 31 bug and same 33% buffer freeze on live TV issue.

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Vu+ 4k Asustor
33% or more streams stock playing before beginning…
dream epg with dream player as alternate is better!
hope in future better…

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No one has acknowledged my live TV audio (or lack thereof) post. Are you having that problem as well or is it just me?