The sad state of Plex Player on Samsung Tizen smart TVs (SRT causes playback failure)

Plex Players Smart TVs
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Server Version#: plexmediaserver_1.18.2.2041-3d469cb32_amd64
Player Version#: 4.5.1

Usually, software gets better over time. Developers create new features and fix previous bugs. That’s not the case o Plex Player on Samsung Tizen smart TVs, though.

The current incarnation is so bad that is not worth to mention every little bug that it has. I could summarise by just saying that it is unplayable. It plays nothing. At all. Period.

This software deserves a rewrote from scratch. Right now.

Thanks.
Regards.

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I have been using Samsung since before tizen and on tizen since it was released.

I have very few issues with it and no issues playing content myself.

My only complaint is that the grid for live TV has never made it to the tizen platform but besides that it seems to work flawlessly for me.

if you want to address your specific issues please state what they are and include some logs indicating when you are having the issue you are reporting.

2 Likes
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I’ve been using it for a few years now and haven’t run into many issues.

  1. audio/video sync issues when direct streaming. (I just turned it off in the app, solved)

  2. no grid guide. It is extremely difficult yo find a game to watch when the current menu doesn’t list games that are on. Or when tying to watch CFB you have 8 listings and you have to go through all of them to find your game. You can’t even tune to a channel.

  3. FF/RW don’t work properly on live tv.

  4. Watching 4k content and it decides to transcode into 1080, because of the subs that can natively play on the device. It still plays.

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Thanks for reply, but I’m sorry guys. My experience is a lot different.

For example, a movie start to play and suddenly (after a few seconds or minutes), the subtitles stopped to be shown, and seconds later the streaming is aborted.

Yesterday I started to play a movie, the streaming stopped to make some “buffering”, then it resumed, but the subtitles started to show in WHITE instead of YELLOW, and some seconds later, error. Streaming aborted.

By the way, everything runs fine on the worst piece of hardware that I ever bought: the Roku Ultra. So this shows clearly that the problem is in the TV player, and not int the server or in the video file or in the subtitle file.

I guess that, like a bunch of software today, Plex is too “USA centric”, ou “English centric”. Add a subtitle (a simple srt file) for those who can’t follow a movie in English, and a lot of bugs start to appear.

It seems that this isn’t very well tested.

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Just for the record, I use Plex on Samsung Q9FN and I sometimes use subtitles when there is a lot of non-English chatter which would have been subtitled on normal TV, so I sometimes have to rewind and switch on subtitles to get what’s happening.
I find it runs fine, gives me no problems. Maybe you could delete the Plex app from the TV and reload it?

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Just to clarify, all or most of your issues are when using subtitles? This is very helpful information which is why I’m asking for clarification :slight_smile:
Thanks!

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Yes. 98.74% of what I watch it is in a foreign idiom (English, mostly), so I always need subtitles.

Last Sunday I was watching an episode of a TV show of 55 min. 26 min to finish, the streaming aborted.

Yesterday, a movie played for 5 seconds, then aborted. I put it immediately to play again, and then it played smoothly until the end. Other movies doesn’t play at all.

But all of them play nice through Roku.

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This fixed some problems.

Thanks.

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Server Version#: 18.1.1973
Player Version#: 4.5.1
TV=UN65nu8000
All Ethernet 100Mbit/gigabit
NAS idling during regular direct playback

The Samsung Plex player app does not respond properly on DVR recordings to skipping back and forward (the 30s skip sort of thing) or scanning. Eg I tell it to skip back and it skips forward.

BUT videos not from DVR they all work and respond fine. Is it a format thing from the Plex server?

I will start a different thread though as this one seems general and I don’t see my problem in any other post.

FYI this all started late summer 2019 sometime, for what it’s worth.

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subtitles have always been an issue with me, and not just with the Samsung app. When playing a show or movie and the file has both VOBSUB and SRT files (both of which are direct playable) subtitles and the audio video is HEVC and eac3. Plex will transcode, because of the subtitles. When I only want the subtitles for only the foreign speaking parts 80% of the time I don’t get them. So I have to watch the show either with the subtitles on everything or on nothing.

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New version of Samsung Tizen yesterday! And…

The same problems again.

So, that’s the sad state of Plex Player on Samsung Tizen smart TVs that I’m talking about…

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  1. Please set up logging on your Samsung:

https://support.plex.tv/articles/216955788-logging-for-smart-tvs-tivo/

  1. Repeat the issue.

  2. Gather up logs (per the link above).

  3. Post a description of the issue, the steps to repeat it and drag/drop the zip file of the logs to your post.

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Ok. Thanks for the detailed explanation.

Steps:

  1. Video file: Mr.Robot.S04E10.410.Gone.REPACK.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP5.1.H.264-NTG.mkv

  2. Subtitle: srt file (text file)

  3. Put the episode to play. It shows the first 2 subtitles, continue for more 1 or 2 seconds without subtitles, and then aborted due to “transcode error”.

In my opinion, the player shouldn’t be transcoding anything in the first place.Plex Media Server Logs_2019-12-11_22-10-36.zip (1.2 MB) Mr. Robot.S04.E10.410 Gone.pt-BR.srt.zip (17.1 KB)

Here is the “ffmpeg -i” output of the video file:

Guessed Channel Layout for Input Stream #0.1 : 5.1
Input #0, matroska,webm, from 'Mr. Robot.S04.E10.410 Gone.mkv':
  Metadata:
    encoder         : libebml v1.3.5 + libmatroska v1.4.8
    creation_time   : 2019-12-11T06:41:35.000000Z
  Duration: 00:45:15.65, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 9299 kb/s
    Stream #0:0: Video: h264 (High), yuv420p(tv, bt709, progressive), 1920x1080 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], 23.98 fps, 23.98 tbr, 1k tbn, 47.95 tbc (default)
    Metadata:
      BPS-eng         : 8657185
      DURATION-eng    : 00:45:15.630000000
      NUMBER_OF_FRAMES-eng: 65110
      NUMBER_OF_BYTES-eng: 2938714079
      _STATISTICS_WRITING_APP-eng: mkvmerge v21.0.0 ('Tardigrades Will Inherit The Earth') 64-bit
      _STATISTICS_WRITING_DATE_UTC-eng: 2019-12-11 06:41:35
      _STATISTICS_TAGS-eng: BPS DURATION NUMBER_OF_FRAMES NUMBER_OF_BYTES
    Stream #0:1(eng): Audio: eac3, 48000 Hz, 5.1, fltp (default)
    Metadata:
      BPS-eng         : 640000
      DURATION-eng    : 00:45:15.648000000
      NUMBER_OF_FRAMES-eng: 84864
      NUMBER_OF_BYTES-eng: 217251840
      _STATISTICS_WRITING_APP-eng: mkvmerge v21.0.0 ('Tardigrades Will Inherit The Earth') 64-bit
      _STATISTICS_WRITING_DATE_UTC-eng: 2019-12-11 06:41:35
      _STATISTICS_TAGS-eng: BPS DURATION NUMBER_OF_FRAMES NUMBER_OF_BYTES
    Stream #0:2(eng): Subtitle: subrip
    Metadata:
      BPS-eng         : 66
      DURATION-eng    : 00:44:32.627000000
      NUMBER_OF_FRAMES-eng: 686
      NUMBER_OF_BYTES-eng: 22111
      _STATISTICS_WRITING_APP-eng: mkvmerge v21.0.0 ('Tardigrades Will Inherit The Earth') 64-bit
      _STATISTICS_WRITING_DATE_UTC-eng: 2019-12-11 06:41:35
      _STATISTICS_TAGS-eng: BPS DURATION NUMBER_OF_FRAMES NUMBER_OF_BYTES
    Stream #0:3(eng): Subtitle: subrip
    Metadata:
      title           : SDH
      BPS-eng         : 72
      DURATION-eng    : 00:44:32.627000000
      NUMBER_OF_FRAMES-eng: 822
      NUMBER_OF_BYTES-eng: 24255
      _STATISTICS_WRITING_APP-eng: mkvmerge v21.0.0 ('Tardigrades Will Inherit The Earth') 64-bit
      _STATISTICS_WRITING_DATE_UTC-eng: 2019-12-11 06:41:35
      _STATISTICS_TAGS-eng: BPS DURATION NUMBER_OF_FRAMES NUMBER_OF_BYTES

TV Specs:
MODEL CODE: QN55Q7FAM
Software Version: T-KTMUABC-1270.3, BT - S
Sub-micom Version: T-KTMOCTV-1110T-KTMOCJP-1110

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I have had the same issue for awhile. All the codec are able to direct play, but given there are subtitles. Plex will transcode. It will also ignore the subtitles for foreign speaking parts, unless the subtitles are turned on for all parts.

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There is a solution, its called Emby… I love Plex, but after 4k its not the best solution anymore…

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The sad state of Emby is its availability…

1 Like
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I know Emby and tried to use it, but I didn’t like it.

I really love the Plex SERVER. The only problem are the players. By some reason all players has some kind of problems.

Surprisingly, the best one until now is RasPlex.

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Waiting for some miracle…

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Version 4.17.1 installed and…

nothing has changed. The same random problems again of “transcoding errors” at any minute…

Does my logs served for any investigation about these issues?

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Plex Player updated and the same issues again…

Is there anybody really working on this issue?

Plex has a proper Bug Report system? Because this forum seems not care at all about any issues.