Simple way to fix 90% of live TV if only Plex will listen

Live TV & DVR
1

Server Version#: 1.19.1.2589
Player Version#: Andriod
Tuner Make/Model: HDHomeRun CONNECT QUATRO
Guide/Lineup name:
Using XMLTV?:
Channel number/Name:

This problem has been circulating the forums for about 2 years and still not fixed.

Ok before i start i know its inherently a client issue with android boxes. It only effects live TV at 1080p

the problem is that when watching the HD channels direct play of live TV causes the andriod box to plaay audio only some times stop. Play the same channel on my PC all works fine. same network extra, extra

problem is these codecs do not work with the plex android app
image

i have 150 or so channels all of them work except the ones in HD. if i change the resolution while watching the channel to 720P (FORCE ENCODING) it will play without issuesd for as long as i wish

so the solution is there you almost got it plex

image

this is genious if only you could add one more option

convert while streaming (experimental)

as much as I love the product this has done my nut in for well over a year to the point i am looking into other options

2

So your solution is for Plex to require individuals have an Haswell i3 or better/newer knocking out most people that use NAS’s for a server.

3

we should have the option, if you dont have the equipment that on you. i am not saying force it but have the option to.

This is only for live TV. there is a off option in the selections

4

As you pointed out this is a client issue and as I don’t have this problem on an Android device I can only conclude that it is your choice of settings and/or the device you are using.

The goal should be to direct play the stream (mpeg2 or h.264) on the device natively, if this isn’t happening let’s dig into that.

5

this has been around in the forums a while everyone reporting the issue after 3 moths the thread just goes dead.

its the audio stream that causes the issue according to another genius in the forums .

so the stream above in the picture is Live TV. after 20 seconds the picture freezes and the audio carry’s on i can recreate this by just watching a HD channel for everything up to 5 minutes and i guarantee this will happen…

same channel but force 720 on my android device
image

like so will play all day…

i can direct play a movie at 1080p to the device completly fine

6

Well maybe you shouldn’t select your clients by the cheapest price but how well they work (with Plex)?

7

whats that got to do with? i spend over 1500 pound on he server side of things if i wish to use an set of Android boxes that my choice. i would expect the server should be handling most of the work as that how i think being a infrastructure engineer. my suggestion would not change anything for anyone else only people that are having the same issue. it would be a choice of convert while streaming live TV yes or no, you can leave yours at no.

so rather then comment on the equipment can we look at the issue

8

Everybody knows that these cheap china boxes have issues all over the place. You can set the box to force transcoding if I am correct, so why don’t you do it? You only wish it for live TV and not for other files?

And btw if you choose to use poor equipment, you might have to live with the fact that you need to manually switch transcoding on or off imho. Can’t you even set the HD homerun to transcode everything before it reaches Plex?

1 Like
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my point is i have this setup for family, 2 live in Portugal and 1 in Spain.

There useless with stuff like this so nipping over to change a setting on a box is a bit difficult.

i use cheap boxes as there easy to replace. I would expect a certain degree of server side settings anyway , maybe plex could have 2 modes in the GUI simple and advance.

Poor equipment huh my server is running on 3 i7 running Esxi in a HA with a storage SAN. so no i haven’t spared money i have chosen to use it server side

The point is everyone skills and choices will be diffrent.

10

I wasn’ talking about your server, but your clients. You have a point there with replaceability and I understand the situation with family not under your direct control. But the problem here is obviously that your client does not properly tell the server what it can play (ie. which codec) and what not. Because if it would work as intended, Plex would detect that the client cannot play this audio or video codec and switch to transcoding automatically.

Therefore I am of the opinion that your requested switch wouldn’t be necessary if the client would behave correctly.

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“Plex would detect that the client cannot play this audio or video codec and switch to transcoding automatically.”

but it doesn’t so it needs to be fixed. or if it cannot be fixed can we have a setting that will allow us to fix the issue manually.

This happens with all android TV boxes so going forward if plex cannot support these devices my argument would be to pull the APP?

The devices work for every other single codex , movie, show that I can possibly throw at it and plex will convert everything as needed, except AAC_LATM

Please i ask you if all you wish to comment on is Equipment you are not moving this thread forward. This can easily be fixed and should be fixed server side

12

If I may make a constructive comment:

Recreate the issue, upload server and especially client logs and ping someone from the Android band (I can give you the names which might help you). This might help to fix the problem in the future while not having to implement a work-around. You might even help others having the same issue with it.

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i have followed about 5 threads all with the same which just close. I am pretty well up on IT. Encoding and programming not so much i admit. i would gladly help as much as i can. server side logs not a problem, client side any help, just a pointer i will probably figure it out from there

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This is how to get the client logs:

I guess in this case they are more important than the server log.
Just ping @DaveBinM or @sixones (which I now have done), so they might come by and have a look.

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Awesome mate as i say its been really pissing me off. for example.

to get round the problem i have to limit the external bandwidth per stream to 4MB just so if my family watch TV it forces encoding. Its annoying because they miss out on 20MB when watching a film. In my house my 4 Android are set to maximum local bandwidth but i have to force 4MB on one of them to watch TV with out issues. if i could just force encoding of live TV all my problems would be sorted.

I don;t want to be in a position telling people to watch certain things you need to go to the COG and change it to this blah blah blah as that just seems to defeat the object of what plex is suppose to do. I will get some things together tonight as logs are the Key.

Thanks

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I totally agree on this point. I hope you get it sorted out and glad that we came together after a difficult start and me being a bit harsh. Cheers to you and good luck resolving this issue.

1 Like
17

Since it works for a while, I’m wondering if the issue might be the audio stream changes when it hits a commercial. The audio/video codes can change when it switches to a commercial. We’ve seen that happen and have worked to fix most cases. As you’ve said it doesn’t happen on all clients.

If you can reproduce this with something recorded and provide me that file, that will help get this resolved.

FYI - All Android devices are suppose to support AAC-LATM stereo to be certified with Google. That’s why I’m not sure the audio itself is the issue.

18

Well I am quite certain these boxes are not certified by Google. At least most of the case they are not (at least that is what I remember).
A little Google research supports my theory.

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Plex Media Server Logs_2020-04-03_11-18-39.zip (6.2 MB) Client logs -TV.txt (48.2 KB)

Edit - i have created another log client2.txt, i thing the box didn’t log properly in the first test

client2.txt (42.8 KB)

I have recreated the issue and have the logs. Test was started at 12:12:32 and the freeze occurred 12.16.10 (as fast as I can react)

I do concur adverts tend to cause this a lot. Not 100% it does sometimes do it during a program but almost guaranteed during adverts and in this test a program the freeze occurred switching from the program to an advent.

I have been thinking about this overnight so decided to voice my other concerns. These are not paramount just ideas. Not complaints I love the product not pointing that anything is wrong just something I would like.

The idea that direct playing as much as possible really does not suit a lot of people’s needs, yes agreed 95% of the customer base all they want to do is install on NAS solution with an atom processor and do nothing but stream locally and I think Plex is perfect for that. But Plex really does not cater for the other 5% like myself.

So, some other things I think are in plex but hidden from more advance users.

The bitrates are unnecessarily large, some people want to run this on an atom processor with a 1G wan connection, some people have only 35MB up to work with but a couple of spare i7’s. Me personally everything that goes through plex should be forced encoded\muxed to get the best bit rate. I stream on twitch all the time so have become a dab hand at ffmpeg.

If I can get a 100MB ndi stream from my gaming PC pass it ffmpeg box on linux (10GB fiber in the house) and then get a 1080 60fs stream up to twitch. All in 5MB/s, 20MB/s seems too much. So, in my case when I have multiple friends and family connecting via WAN I can only have one of them playing a 1080 stream but I know my connection with good compression can do at least 5 times that. Local to be honest I don’t care Plex runs Beautifully locally and never have any issues. Please don’t ask me to pre convert my recordings the plex server has failed in my option if I must do this and having to store everything twice is not efficient

May be we could have 3 modes in the UI , Basic, Advance and a “ you break it you fix it mode”.

If I could force encode everything then what Clint I use is irrelevant and for me that’s the purpose of a server client relationship. If my plex server could be forced to encode everything regardless then would this not solve 99.9% of compatibly issues with clients anyway? And this post and debugging the client would never have been written. I have to buy all the same boxes for my family and friends as I can’t Offord to buy them each a £80 box and use the same box as the clients compatibly, I can figure out. Encode everything to something suitable and all this trouble goes away!

My view as the small 5% that has spent a lot of the server side of things and a limited upload and have a bit of a clue what there doing… lol

20

You just did a poor decision relying on a device which is probably not certified by Google. For the same amount of money you could have bought a Mi Box S, which is certified and probably does not have the issues you currently have. I know you don’t want to hear that, but your low budget box is the source of this problem.

Still, maybe there is still hope that this can be fixed on the Plex side.