Stutter of Playback

[Knife-wrench]

I’ve been having a playback stutter problem since upgrading my server past 1.21.3.4014. I don’t know exactly what version of server started the problem, but in testing, the stutter went away when I rolled back to 1.21.3.4014

My primary client is an Apple TV HD (A.K.A 2015 4th gen). When playing any kind of video(1080, 720, SD, Direct or Transcode) on that Apple TV, playback stutters anytime the Plex server needs to do most other things.
Examples of things that cause a stutter on the Apple TV: start to record with the DRV, starting comskip on a file, discovering a new file in a library.
Oddly, starting playback of an audio or video file on a second client doesn’t cause a stutter, but stopping that playback on the second client does.
Scanning for new library files (but not finding any) does not cause a stutter.

When this issue started, I had recently activated the DVR feature, and I thought the problems were because my server was under powered for that need. I built a new server on an Optiplex 5050 i7 (8700 3.2Ghz), and migrated my Plex install to it. I didn’t see any change in the stutters on this new server, so next I removed all plugins that had migrated over from the old server. Still no change, so then I deleted my DVR configuration and stopped using the DVR feature. Still I get stutters when the server needs to run other tasks.

I’ve been watching CPU, Network, Hard Drive, & RAM usage (In Windows on the server, not the Plex dashboard) during playback on the Apple TV, while then starting and stopping playing flac files on my PC in Plex for Windows. CPU usage goes up a hair, but total CPU utilization for the whole server is not over 10%. Network usage goes up, not past 50% of what the gigabit link should be capable of. There is a secondary large spinning disk for all the Plex server metadata, and the transcode folder is set to the smaller faster SSD system drive.

I can red-line the server CPU with Handbrake without effecting the playback on the AppleTV at all.

The AppleTV Plex client never complains about the server being under powered during these stutters.

As best I can tell, the server hardware is powerful enough, but somehow the PlexServer task doesn’t have access to enough resources.

Server Version today: 1.23.2.4656
Windows Server Standard 1809

I’m tempted to roll back to 1.21 again and just stay on that version, but I’m not sure it’s OK for plex the use an updated DB with an older server version. It’s probably a better idea to solve the stutter on this server version, but I’m fresh out of ideas.

Help, please…

[Knife-wrench]

Since I do have an AppleTV/WinServer2019 combo, I’ve applied this change to the TCP stack…
But no change in behavior.

Enhanced Video Player on Apple TV 4K creating buffering issues

After stumbling upon this buffering issue myself on an iPhone after a recent in-place upgrade from Server 2016 to 2019, I did some digging. Looking at a packet capture in Wireshark of a buffering stream, I noticed frequent TCP Retransmissions during that time and the RTO was 20ms. After some research, I came across the Get-NetTCPSetting PowerShell command and found a very familiar number there. (Hint: It’s 20) PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Get-NetTCPSetting | ft -AutoSize SettingName Congestio…

The more I look at this, the more I think the issue is the AppleTV Plex client not having any playback buffer at all. The debug overlay shows about 10 frames being dropped every time I skip an audio track on another client.

[Knife-wrench]

It seems to me that I’m seeing the same problem as Bernie07 in this post.

1080p Videos are stuttering

Hello, I’m using the newest server version and apple tv version. In apple tv I have set allow direct play. I have only mp4 files to play. My CPU is a Intel i7 with 4 cores. The graphic card is Intel HD Graphics. Now I have the problem that some 1080p movies are stuttering. On the plex server I have set hardware acceleration enabled. But the problem still exists. If I set “allow direct play” to disabled then it works fine. But I want to set direct play to enabled, because some other things wor…

Plex staff, is this right? Should we be seeing zero buffer set aside in memory to read ahead in the file/stream on the AppleTV client?
The other iOS clients look like they read ahead, but maybe the AppleTV is special.

[Bernie07]

I had this problem a long time ago. And then I‘ve used infuse over plex in the meantime. Now after months I‘m giving the plex app a try again. The problem seems to be gone. No stuttering anymore. So I think plex has fixed this bug.

[Knife-wrench]

Fixed! Removing and reinstalling the Plex client on the AppleTV solved whatever was wrong here.

[Bernie07]

Now the problem is back. Some 1080p movies are stuttering and I get the error „Server too slow“. Until yesterday it works. Perhaps it was the last apple tv plex update.

I‘ve tried it with the old player and it seems to work. The new player uses very much bandwidth of my homenetwork . 80-100 Mbit. Why?

The video is playing with direct play (no transcoding)

[buthidae]

I’ve been seeing videos stutter for the first 5-10 seconds for a while but hadn’t gotten around to properly troubleshooting it. Removed and reinstalled the app on my AppleTV 4 and so far it’s been working properly. Fingers crossed!

[buthidae]

OK, it’s been under a week and the app has slowed back to a crawl - actually worse than ever. Bizarre.

Any tips or info on useful logs I can provide would be appreciated!

[doodie]

same issue here. deleted, re-installed and slowly came back with more frequent stuttering

Linux RH7 - 1.24.3.5033
Apple TV - 15
ATV Plex - 7.23(1076)

Additionally, this has happened within the past few weeks and I have the ATV to auto update applications so not able to pinpoint which version it may have started with.