TrueHD audio freezes Plex player on Windows 10

Plex Players Desktop Players
1

Hi guys,

A couple of updates ago the Windows player started freezing when playing some videos, at first I thought it had something to do with the resolution or bitrate as other videos played just fine. Now I had some time to diagnose the problem, and it seems that TrueHD soundtrack freezes the player. The number of channels doesn’t matter, happens with 7.1 and 5.1. With a high bitrate 1080p video the framerate drops to one frame every few seconds and the player becomes unresponsive. 4k videos won’t even start, the player freezes completely. On the server dashboard it shows that the video is playing (direct stream video & audio), but no data is being transferred and the screen stays black.

But if I force a transcode for example to 1080p 20Mbps, TrueHD audio track works again and dashboard shows that it’s transcoded to OPUS.

Unfortunately I don’t know exactly which update caused this (definitely not the last one), but everything worked perfectly before. I tried this with two different computers and player versions with the exact same results, versions 1.27.1 and 1.27.2.

Server Version#: 1.21.2.3943
Player Version#: 1.27.1 and 1.27.2

2

Does TrueHD audio work for everybody else in the Plex Windows player?

3

It works for me here. I’ve tried with about 8 movies, among them very high bitrate UHD raw rips.

  • Does the audio contain ATMOS data?
  • Do you have bitstreaming activated for TrueHD? Settings - Plex for Windows - Player
  • Are your videos in mp4 or in mkv file containers?
4

It happens with or without ATMOS data, activating bitstreaming makes no difference. Videos are in mkv file containers.

If I pre-select audio with AC3 codec and start the video, it plays normally. If I then change it to a TrueHD track the video freezes to one frame every nine seconds. If I don’t click anything, after a couple of minutes the video continues to play, but there’s no audio. Skipping the video freezes it again. Switching back to AC3 fixes everything.

I tried reinstalling the player, didn’t work. Plex Media Player works perfectly, no issues.

Are previous versions available for download somewhere?

5

Try first

  1. uninstall the player
  2. do this: Plex for Windows won't run - #3 by OttoKerner
  3. download and install the player again
6

Done, no change.

7

Hey, I just found an old installer from a backup, version 1.25.0.1511-47afccd4. Tried it, it works perfectly.

edit: Installing the old version fixed the issue on two different computers (laptop & desktop).

8

Could you please grab the player logs out of C:\Users\<usernmame>\AppData\Local\Plex\Logs, zip them up and PM them to me?
(at least if there is still a log from a playback attempt with the 1.27 version in there)

9

Sure, I deleted that directory before installing the 1.25 version but give me a few moments and I’ll reinstall the 1.27 version and reproduce the problem.

1 Like
10

Thank you for the logs. I will forward them at once.

1 Like
11

Thanks Otto for forwarding right away. Sorry for the delay providing feedback. Plex.log supports there being a problem decoding the TrueHD audio.

2021-02-11T10:53:38.009 [ ERROR ] [mpv] ffmpeg/audio: truehd_eae: EAE timeout! EAE not running, or wrong folder? Could not read '\\?\C:\Users\jvile\AppData\Local\Plex\Plex Media Server\Cache\Transcode\Sessions\EasyAudioEncoder\Convert to WAV (to 8ch or less)\frame-6436-1-5.wav' 
2021-02-11T10:53:38.009 [ ERROR ] [mpv] ffmpeg/audio: truehd_eae: error reading output 
2021-02-11T10:53:38.009 [ ERROR ] [mpv] decode_wrapper/ad: Error decoding audio. 
2021-02-11T10:53:38.009 [ ERROR ] [mpv] ffmpeg/audio: truehd_eae: EAE timeout! EAE not running, or wrong folder? Could not read '\\?\C:\Users\jvile\AppData\Local\Plex\Plex Media Server\Cache\Transcode\Sessions\EasyAudioEncoder\Convert to WAV (to 8ch or less)\frame-6436-1-6.wav' 
2021-02-11T10:53:38.009 [ ERROR ] [mpv] ffmpeg/audio: truehd_eae: error reading output 
2021-02-11T10:53:38.009 [ ERROR ] [mpv] decode_wrapper/ad: Error decoding audio.

I wasn’t able to cause a similar error testing TrueHD on my Windows machine. We’ll keep an ear out for additional reports of TrueHD problems.

If you see similar problems in the future you could try surgically removing a couple directories related to codecs.

Shutdown Plex Media Server (if running on same machine) and Plex for Windows. Then delete all directories within the directories below.

%LOCALAPPDATA%\Plex\Plex Media Server\Codecs

And:

%LOCALAPPDATA%\Plex Media Server\Codecs

Afterwards restart Plex Media Server and Plex for Windows. Playing content with TrueHD will re-download necessary codecs.

12

This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.