Shield experience 9 upgrade, server dissapeared

Plex Media Server NAS & Devices
1593

As noted in my prior posts I have been waiting a while to upgrade to Shield Experience 9.0.x (been on 8.2.3 - I use an Internal (User ).

Well, I decided to upgrade to Shield Experience 9.0.2 Sunday for the following reasons (main one in #3 in bold)

  1. I observed per others’ post that things appeared to have stabilized
  2. along with the fact that HW transcoding has reportedly been fixed in PMS 1.27 latest Beta
    and
  3. lastly, given that I ran into another BIZZARE and PUZZLING issue (link below) which I spent numerous hours troubleshooting (trying different settings on the TVs and Plex app etc.) over the weekend, I decided to upgrade my 2019 Shield TV Pro to 9.0.2 yesterday and I figured being on latest Shield OS would rule out anything related to Shield 8.2.3, had I not upgraded to 9.0.2 I mean).
    PMS 1.27.0.5849 - NEW issue with Plex - 4K HDR X265/H265 Video freezing (audio continues) - (PMS running on Shield TV Pro, playback on Roku Ultra). 265 HDR freezes on Roku Plex, BUT fine on Android Plex - #7 by njweb

The good news is Shield Experience 9.0.2 seems to be working fine for my setup so far (Internal storage, user accessible).

However 9.0.2 did not resolve the above video freezing issue for certain clips at the 2 minute 48 seconds mark in every case on 2 TVs, both using Roku Ultra clients to play media streamed on Plex app on the Roku Ultra clients via my Shield TV Pro).

The puzzling thing is the same clips play fine on Plex when using the following platforms:
Android TV, Google TV, Chromecast 4K and Samsung Tizen and even an UHD HDR Roku TV, but NOT on the Roku Ultra or Roku 4K stick.

The misleading and downright incorrect error message I get from Plex, if I let it sit for a while with the video frozen but audio playing it stops playing and gives a bandwidth error, which is obviously wrong since:

  1. I have the above other platforms that ALL play the ENTIRE movies (same exact clips) without buggering, freezing or skipping. Some even on the same TV sets (i.e. Plex Ultra connected to an Android TV, where the latter works fine, but the Ultra has something kicking in 168 seconds after a clip starts).

  2. I have a gigabit connection and a 198 Mbps wifi connection reported at the device end (Roku Ultra reported speed) and nothing else streaming at the time (and would have buffer bandwidth anyway even if I did have something else streaming).

  3. Biggest evidence it has nothing to do with bandwidth: When I select ‘Retry’ on the Plex app on the Roku Ultra (after the video freezes at 168 seconds every time), then the rest of video (well over 90 minutes) plays flawlessly on the Roku Ultra without a single issue!!!
    So obviously bandwidth is not a factor. This is repeatable also (after it freezes at the EXACT same point with 3 different clips, I hit Retry and then it plays the entire movie.
    Super odd…

Anyway, tldr, at least Shield 9.0.2. is working fine for my setup right out of the box.
So I guess I indeed waited just long enough till things were stable with the Shield OS + Plex Media Server software combo and picked the right time to upgrade to 8.2.3…