Time to give up on the Shield as a Plex Server?

General Discussions
1

Evening all,

Question for all the Shield Plex Media Server users - is it time to give up?

I know that most people on here seem to advocate hosting the server on other devices but for the most part I’ve been really happy with my Shield as a Plex Server.

From time to time a new release of the software would break something but the next update would fix it and I’d be good to go again.

My first gripe is DVR - this seems to break all the time, inconsistent recording (I think as much to do with the Shield just choosing not to see USB storage randomly as Plex itself). Constant guide issues though - currently my guide just won’t update.

I was thinking about moving to another platform just to get a better DVR experience but as long as the basics were working it seemed like a first world problem.

However in the last 6 months my Shield has become noticeably slower and buggy. I get issues where the thing just hangs and then wakes up and does my last 5 remote clicks in a flurry like a Windows 95 PC. Probably unfairly but I suspect Plex is the culprit. The Plex Server barely works. The web interface is really slow, the server stops responding and will not come back if the Shield goes into sleep, only a complete power cycle will fix it - not even a reboot.

Are other Sheild users seeing similar things?

Any tips?

I could factory reset or reinstall Plex, maybe even try another drive (Plex and all my media are on a 2.5 inch external USB drive)?

In the past all I’ve ever had to do is install a Plex update and everything has been sorted but my experience has been poor for months now and it’s getting to the stage where I hardly use Plex anymore which is a real shame because at it’s best it’s amazing.

I’d love to get a Synology 918+ but it’s such a big outlay - I miss my working Shield. For the record my library is small - just media I genuinely own, I don’t download content and only share it with my immediate family so I’m not doing anything taxing.

2

I know you are describing the problems to the best of you ability but can you give a little more technical info? For instance can you use VLC with your drive without issue? The USB/SMB on the shield is not the best and could be the root cause.

On the other hand something to try is get a thumb drive and copy a couple things on it vs. your WD…mount it and try that out and see if it works any better.

As far as the software itself sometimes you just gotta remove and reinstall for a better outcome. Perhaps a software engineer can chime in.

3

I’m not to be fair Jusbo, I wasn’t really going for an in depth technical description. It was a poorly written statement of exasperation. Having had a browse through the forums this morning it just looks like it’s broken.

In the days when I was an engineer myself I didn’t mind fixing things and messing about with multiple Plex servers on VMs, NAS and various other things I had laying about. However I’m a father of 3 these days and I just wanna turn on my Shield and be able to watch a film (without having to troubleshoot or fix myself - by which time my wife has given up on the film and gone to bed lol)

The Shield plays my films just fine from the disk via Kodi, may be I’ll just do this in future.

Thanks for the reply anyway.

4

I totally understand.

5

I’ve suffered with similar issues which seem to have been resolved by offloading the plex files (not media) to a good quality USB stick set up as adopted storage.

When I was having issues I assumed it was because I was using the shield for things it wasn’t necessarily designed to do but I’m still using sideloaded apps regularly but a forced reset with a new USB has left me with. Capable setup for lock and remote streams.

Edit: agreed on the DVR Though there’s better solutions out there.

6

Thanks Paul that’s helpful, I had wondered about moving them.