Some videos won't play on Onn TV 4K Pro streaming box

Plex Players Streaming Devices
1

Server Version#: 1.41.1.9057
Player Version#: 10.23.0.1627

I’m having a very strange problem with an Onn TV 4K Pro streaming box where some videos won’t play in either Channels or in Plex. When I attempt to play these videos, the video goes to start but just remains at a spinning circle and never plays, both in Channels and in Plex. However, these problematic videos play fine using VLC on the same Onn TV 4K Pro streaming box. I have not run into this issue with any 4K videos or SD videos.

The videos in question are all HD and were ripped from Blu-Rays using MakeMKV with no additional reencoding. The problem is happening on two separate Onn TV 4K Pro streaming boxes. These same videos play fine in both Channels and Plex on an Nvidia Shield, Apple TV, and FireTV Cube streaming boxes. These videos also play fine from both the Plex and Channels Web player running in Edge on Windows 11, although they do show that they are being at least partially transcoded. All devices are wired and on the same network. I have tested the Onn TV 4K Pro streaming boxes both wired and wireless. When I attempt to play these videos on the Onn TV 4K Pro streaming box, Channels DVR does show it as playing under Settings > Status > Activity. However, when attempting to play through Plex, Plex doesn’t show it playing on the server side under Dashboard > Activity. I did both Clear data and Clear cache for the Plex app on the Onn TV 4K Pro streaming box, but it didn’t resolve the problem.

I am trying to find some correlation between the videos that play vs. the ones that don’t and so far, I haven’t been able to find anything. As a troubleshooting step, I removed all audio tracks from one of the problematic videos using MKVToolNix and the video still wouldn’t play, so I don’t think its an issue with the audio. I took a look at the video information in MediaInfo for both the working and non-working videos and all seem to be AVC H.264 videos.

I realize this most likely isn’t a Plex issue and most likely an issue with the Onn TV 4K Pro streaming box, but I am posting here to see if others are seeing the same issue with the Onn TV 4K Pro streaming box or can give me clues as to what is going on. I did check the server side logs, and I am not really seeing anything. I am pasting below the video information from MediaInfo for both three working and three non-working videos to see if anyone can see any correlation or point me in the right direction:

Working

Working Video 1

General
Unique ID                   : <Redacted>
Complete name               : <Redacted>
Format                      : Matroska
Format version              : Version 2
File size                   : 3.51 GiB
Duration                    : 22 min 58 s
Overall bit rate mode       : Variable
Overall bit rate            : 21.9 Mb/s
Frame rate                  : 23.976 FPS
Movie name                  : <Redacted>
Encoded date                : 2024-01-03 21:53:54 UTC
Writing application         : MakeMKV v1.17.5 linux(x64-release)
Writing library             : libmakemkv v1.17.5 (1.3.10/1.5.2) x86_64-linux-gnu
Cover                       : Yes
Attachments                 : cover.jpg

Video
ID                          : 1
ID in the original source m : 4113 (0x1011)
Format                      : AVC
Format/Info                 : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile              : High@L4
Format settings             : CABAC / 2 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC      : Yes
Format settings, Reference  : 2 frames
Format settings, Slice coun : 4 slices per frame
Codec ID                    : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                    : 22 min 57 s
Bit rate mode               : Variable
Bit rate                    : 17.8 Mb/s
Width                       : 1 920 pixels
Height                      : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio        : 16:9
Frame rate mode             : Constant
Frame rate                  : 23.976 (24000/1001) FPS
Color space                 : YUV
Chroma subsampling          : 4:2:0
Bit depth                   : 8 bits
Scan type                   : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)          : 0.358
Time code of first frame    : 00:59:58:00
Stream size                 : 2.86 GiB (81%)
Language                    : English
Default                     : No
Forced                      : No
Original source medium      : Blu-ray

Working Video 2

General
Unique ID                   : <Redacted>
Complete name               : <Redacted>
Format                      : Matroska
Format version              : Version 2
File size                   : 9.08 GiB
Duration                    : 42 min 49 s
Overall bit rate mode       : Variable
Overall bit rate            : 30.4 Mb/s
Frame rate                  : 23.976 FPS
Movie name                  : <Redacted>
Encoded date                : 2021-01-29 15:14:09 UTC
Writing application         : MakeMKV v1.15.4 win(x64-release)
Writing library             : libmakemkv v1.15.4 (1.3.10/1.5.2) win(x64-release)
Cover                       : Yes
Attachments                 : cover.jpg

Video
ID                          : 1
ID in the original source m : 4113 (0x1011)
Format                      : AVC
Format/Info                 : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile              : High@L4.1
Format settings             : CABAC / 4 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC      : Yes
Format settings, Reference  : 4 frames
Format settings, Slice coun : 4 slices per frame
Codec ID                    : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                    : 42 min 49 s
Bit rate mode               : Variable
Bit rate                    : 24.8 Mb/s
Maximum bit rate            : 38.0 Mb/s
Width                       : 1 920 pixels
Height                      : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio        : 16:9
Frame rate mode             : Constant
Frame rate                  : 23.976 (24000/1001) FPS
Color space                 : YUV
Chroma subsampling          : 4:2:0
Bit depth                   : 8 bits
Scan type                   : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)          : 0.498
Time code of first frame    : 00:01:38:00
Stream size                 : 7.41 GiB (82%)
Language                    : English
Default                     : No
Forced                      : No
Original source medium      : Blu-ray

Working Video 3

General
Unique ID                   : <Redacted>
Complete name               : <Redacted>
Format                      : Matroska
Format version              : Version 2
File size                   : 2.67 GiB
Duration                    : 25 min 11 s
Overall bit rate mode       : Variable
Overall bit rate            : 15.1 Mb/s
Frame rate                  : 23.976 FPS
Movie name                  : <Redacted>
Encoded date                : 2020-08-11 01:17:35 UTC
Writing application         : MakeMKV v1.15.2 win(x64-release)
Writing library             : libmakemkv v1.15.2 (1.3.10/1.5.2) win(x64-release)
Cover                       : Yes
Attachments                 : cover.jpg

Video
ID                          : 1
ID in the original source m : 4113 (0x1011)
Format                      : AVC
Format/Info                 : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile              : High@L4
Format settings             : CABAC / 2 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC      : Yes
Format settings, Reference  : 2 frames
Format settings, GOP        : M=1, N=10
Format settings, Slice coun : 4 slices per frame
Codec ID                    : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                    : 25 min 10 s
Bit rate mode               : Variable
Bit rate                    : 14.9 Mb/s
Width                       : 1 920 pixels
Height                      : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio        : 16:9
Frame rate mode             : Constant
Frame rate                  : 23.976 (24000/1001) FPS
Color space                 : YUV
Chroma subsampling          : 4:2:0
Bit depth                   : 8 bits
Scan type                   : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)          : 0.299
Time code of first frame    : 00:59:58:00
Stream size                 : 2.62 GiB (98%)
Language                    : English
Default                     : No
Forced                      : No
Original source medium      : Blu-ray

Not Working

Non-Working Video 1

General
Unique ID                   : <Redacted>
Complete name               : <Redacted>
Format                      : Matroska
Format version              : Version 2
File size                   : 9.94 GiB
Duration                    : 1 h 0 min
Overall bit rate mode       : Variable
Overall bit rate            : 23.5 Mb/s
Frame rate                  : 29.970 FPS
Movie name                  : <Redacted>
Encoded date                : 2022-01-04 03:04:45 UTC
Writing application         : MakeMKV v1.16.5 win(x64-release)
Writing library             : libmakemkv v1.16.5 (1.3.10/1.5.2) win(x64-release)
Cover                       : Yes
Attachments                 : cover.jpg

Video
ID                          : 1
ID in the original source m : 4113 (0x1011)
Format                      : AVC
Format/Info                 : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile              : High@L4.1
Format settings             : CABAC / 4 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC      : Yes
Format settings, Reference  : 4 frames
Format settings, Slice coun : 4 slices per frame
Codec ID                    : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                    : 1 h 0 min
Bit rate mode               : Variable
Bit rate                    : 22.9 Mb/s
Maximum bit rate            : 37.0 Mb/s
Width                       : 1 920 pixels
Height                      : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio        : 16:9
Frame rate mode             : Constant
Frame rate                  : 29.970 (30000/1001) FPS
Color space                 : YUV
Chroma subsampling          : 4:2:0
Bit depth                   : 8 bits
Scan type                   : MBAFF
Scan type, store method     : Interleaved fields
Scan order                  : Top Field First
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)          : 0.368
Time code of first frame    : 01:00:00;00
Stream size                 : 9.67 GiB (97%)
Language                    : English
Default                     : No
Forced                      : No
Original source medium      : Blu-ray

Non-working video 2

General
Unique ID                   : <Redacted>
Complete name               : <Redacted>
Format                      : Matroska
Format version              : Version 2
File size                   : 757 MiB
Duration                    : 5 min 5 s
Overall bit rate mode       : Variable
Overall bit rate            : 20.8 Mb/s
Frame rate                  : 59.940 FPS
Encoded date                : 2020-01-04 21:05:09 UTC
Writing application         : MakeMKV v1.14.7 win(x64-release)
Writing library             : libmakemkv v1.14.7 (1.3.5/1.4.7) win(x64-release)

Video
ID                          : 1
ID in the original source m : 4113 (0x1011)
Format                      : AVC
Format/Info                 : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile              : High@L4.1
Format settings             : CABAC / 3 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC      : Yes
Format settings, Reference  : 3 frames
Format settings, GOP        : M=3, N=15
Format settings, Slice coun : 4 slices per frame
Codec ID                    : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                    : 5 min 5 s
Bit rate mode               : Variable
Bit rate                    : 19.3 Mb/s
Maximum bit rate            : 33.0 Mb/s
Width                       : 1 920 pixels
Height                      : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio        : 16:9
Frame rate mode             : Variable
Frame rate                  : 59.940 (60000/1001) FPS
Original frame rate         : 29.970 (30000/1001) FPS
Standard                    : NTSC
Color space                 : YUV
Chroma subsampling          : 4:2:0
Bit depth                   : 8 bits
Scan type                   : Interlaced
Scan type, store method     : Separated fields
Scan order                  : Top Field First
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)          : 0.155
Stream size                 : 701 MiB (93%)
Language                    : English
Default                     : No
Forced                      : No
Color range                 : Limited
Color primaries             : BT.709
Transfer characteristics    : BT.709
Matrix coefficients         : BT.709
Original source medium      : Blu-ray

Non-working Video 3

General
Unique ID                   : <Redacted>
Complete name               : <Redacted>
Format                      : Matroska
Format version              : Version 2
File size                   : 5.06 GiB
Duration                    : 26 min 13 s
Overall bit rate mode       : Variable
Overall bit rate            : 27.6 Mb/s
Frame rate                  : 59.940 FPS
Movie name                  : <Redacted>
Encoded date                : 2020-01-02 20:24:28 UTC
Writing application         : MakeMKV v1.14.7 win(x64-release)
Writing library             : libmakemkv v1.14.7 (1.3.5/1.4.7) win(x64-release)

Video
ID                          : 1
ID in the original source m : 4113 (0x1011)
Format                      : AVC
Format/Info                 : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile              : High@L4.1
Format settings             : CABAC / 3 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC      : Yes
Format settings, Reference  : 3 frames
Format settings, GOP        : M=3, N=15
Format settings, Slice coun : 4 slices per frame
Codec ID                    : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC
Duration                    : 26 min 13 s
Bit rate mode               : Variable
Bit rate                    : 27.4 Mb/s
Maximum bit rate            : 35.0 Mb/s
Width                       : 1 920 pixels
Height                      : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio        : 16:9
Frame rate mode             : Variable
Frame rate                  : 59.940 (60000/1001) FPS
Original frame rate         : 29.970 (30000/1001) FPS
Standard                    : NTSC
Color space                 : YUV
Chroma subsampling          : 4:2:0
Bit depth                   : 8 bits
Scan type                   : Interlaced
Scan type, store method     : Separated fields
Scan order                  : Top Field First
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)          : 0.221
Stream size                 : 5.03 GiB (99%)
Language                    : English
Default                     : No
Forced                      : No
Color range                 : Limited
Color primaries             : BT.709
Transfer characteristics    : BT.709
Matrix coefficients         : BT.709
Original source medium      : Blu-ray
1 Like
2

I notice the working ones are all progressive, not-working ones are all interlaced/telecined.

Which ONN box? Plex folks are likely to want logs.

Do the not-working ones work if you force a transcode by choosing a lower quality?

1 Like
3

Oh sorry - it’s the newer Pro box. I will update my post accordingly.

I was thinking about forcing a transcode to see if it would work, but hadn’t gotten around to doing that.

4

As suggested, I forced transcoding in the Plex app on the Onn TV 4K Pro box by setting the Home streaming to 20 Mbps, 1080p HD (High) setting and turned off Quality Suggestions (but left Adjust automatically to on). With those settings, it forced the Plex server to transcode, and the video did start playing and worked. I also made a similar setting change in the Channels apps (although the highest Channels lets me set it to is 8 Mbps) and it also worked around the problem.

Obviously, there is something in the original encoding that the Onn TV 4K Pro box doesn’t like, maybe the interlaced/telecined option. Although I am glad that the workaround gets it working, I’d rather see if I can get to the root of the problem and fix it so that I don’t have to transcode. I like to play content in original quality when possible, and not burden my server with transcoding whenever possible.

5

I also have the ONN GTV 4K Pro, and attempting to get everything Direct Playing. So far the only problems I’ve noticed are with some AV1 videos. I’m similarly suspecting “something” is wrong with encoding settings. However, Jellyfin plays them fine (with same Android ExoPlayer?) so I’m not sure what it going on exactly. I don’t think I’ve tried any interlaced (nicely spotted @Volts).

6

I have been having the exact same issue.
A sure fire fix is to run in offline mode, when my Roku box accidently started it in off line mode not a single problem, as soon as it got connectivity I’m back to unplayable media. remote play has no issues, only local wired connection roku box.
Sometimes I restart and it solves the issue, sometimes I need to play something else, then go back to what I wanted to watch.
Very Frustrating.

BTW this only started about 2 patches ago

7

Not sure what you mean. This isn’t happening on a Roku device, and I am pretty sure it’s not a Plex only issue since it also happens in the Channels app. I think it is a problem with the Onn TV 4K Pro device. Also, what do you mean offline mode? I am having the problem when trying to play videos streaming from my Plex/Channels DVR server. I haven’t tried downloading the videos locally, but this isn’t a mobile device. It’s a stationary device that is wired and always on the local network so it wouldn’t make sense to be downloading videos directly to the device.

8

I am experiencing multiple load sequences that ultimatum fail. This is on a permanently wired device like your TV. The difference of when my internet connection (fails) for my TV /Roku but my local network is still up the roku /plex app enters local mode which works perfectly. As soon as it detected an internet connection (and starts displaying upcoming trailers etc) it starts to fail to load. I thought this might offer an insight to both our issues

9

No nothing like your issue. All content is local here. Internet has nothing to do with it. I don’t have any Internet issues where the box randomly disconnects. What does appear that the issue is that it has something to do with the video being interlaced, and the Onn TV 4K Pro box not properly decoding interlaced videos.

Through the Channels app I did some additional testing. First off, I forced transcoding on the local network. This caused bad videos to start working, which makes sense because the video is being transcoded to a different format. I then turned off transcoding and set the video decoder in the Channels app to use the Software decoder instead of the Hardware decoder. This also caused the bad videos to start working since it was using the software decoder instead of the hardware decoder. The videos played very choppy with the software decoder, as expected, but they did work. All these signs point to the hardware decoder on the Onn TV 4K Pro box not being able to properly decode interlaced videos. I’m gonna see if there is some way to reach out to Onn about this issue.

10

@Vanon via MediaInfo or other similar tool, can you check if your problematic videos are interlaced?

11

Mine are definitely not interlaced, and they are all AV1 (more info like media info and logs are in the topic linked).

Since Jellyfin plays them fine (same ONN GTV 4K Pro, same Android TV ExoPlayer decoding), I can only guess these are due to misconfig or bug on Plex’s part (detecting device or media). Hopefully they’re planning some larger testing and Android TV updates, now that the official Google TV Streamer (and Android 14) is finally out.

12

The only problem is that I am having the same problem with Channels DVR, so unless Plex and Channels have the same bug, it makes me think there is a problem in the backend Android OS or the Onn TV 4K Pro hardware. There is a related thread talking about the same or similar issue over here:

13

I do have an interesting update. I also had an older Onn TV 4K (non-Pro) device laying around. I assumed it would have the same issue, but I decided to test anyways. To my surprise, the non-Pro version worked with the “bad” videos and didn’t have the issue, either in Plex or Channels! I checked versions between the two, and the Android TV OS version, the Android TV OS security patch level, Kernel version, and Android TV OS build are all the same. App versions were also the same. In my case, this really seems to be pointing to something wrong with the hardware decoder on the Pro model. Next, I am going to compare hardware components between the two devices to see what’s different.

1 Like
14

I missed that Channels was also not working. I’m in the same boat as far as figuring out why these things are not working. Which can lead down all kinds of rabbit holes with enough curiosity. (I installed Jellyfin just to test and root out the cause, but it actually played my things. Which led to my testing encoding settings, and…)

I guess just reporting the problem is probably half the battle. And patience. Communication from the team would be great.

That’s also me. “There must be dozens of us!”

1 Like
16

Onn 4K:
CPU: Quad-core Cortex-A35 (Amlogic S905Y4)
GPU: Mali-G31 MP2
RAM: 2GB

Onn 4K Pro:
CPU: Quad-core Cortex-A 55 (Amlogic S905X4)
GPU: Mali-G31 MP2
RAM: 3GB

Different CPUs, but same GPU. I was almost expecting different GPUs with the hardware decoding issues I am seeing. Pro version also has more RAM which usually means LESS issues, not more issues.

The mystery deepens…

1 Like
17

Are there not any client-side logs that might help reveal what is going on?

18

I didn’t even know that. Kinda disappointing, no upgrade. And apparently the Google TV Streamer switched to MediaTek MT8696. Maybe bad news for Amlogic decoding (less focus and fixes from Google and Android)?

Besides the normal Plex logs?

19

Well those are server-side logs, which really aren’t showing anything. I was wondering if there were some client-side logs.

20

To access the logs on the device you need to turn on the feature in the settings “Network Logging” and you will get a web address to browse to on a PC to view the logs. I would just copy/paste the log page into a text editor for easier searching or so you can copy out just a relevant section of it. The Network Logging access auto shuts off after 10 minutes.

1 Like
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