Unable to play a specific show from mobile device

Plex Players Mobile Devices
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Server Version#: 1.22.2.4282
Player Version#: 4.54.5 (windows) - 8.15.2.24006 (Android)

I am facing a weird issue where I am suddenly unable to play a specific TV show from my Android device. It has always worked up until about a few days ago. Every other TV show still works just fine. I am also able to watch that same show from the web player on Windows. But for some reason, it just stopped working on my phone.

I get the following error message: “Error: An error occurred while attempting to play this video. Please check your connection and try again.”

Any suggestions as to how to fix this? I’ve tried uninstalling and re-installing Plex on my phone as well as “analyzed” and refreshed the metadata for the particular show.

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Are the shows that worked ok in the same season as the ones that don’t work?

Is it possible the ones that don’t work have a different codec, bitrate, resolution?

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None of the episodes from that season work currently however, episodes from other seasons of the same show work just fine. Also something I just noticed that I thought was very strange; I am able to Chromecast those problematic episodes just fine. It’s just when I play it from my mobile device that I get the error.

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Obviously there’s a difference in one of the things I mentioned for the season that won’t play Finding out exactly what that is the key to your puzzle.

Normally a Plex employee would come ask for log files to find out exactly why those particular files won’t play but if that doesn’t happen the options aren’t great.

I suspect there’s an issue with the codec or audio that is causing a transcode that your server can’t keep up with for the files that won’t play because it’s a whole season

You can reencode the media if you want to take the time to do that with a program like handbrake so it matches the shows that play ok

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I appreciate the suggestion, I think I’ll give that a try. Question though, and sorry if it’s a silly one. If the issue is related to a transcoding problem that the server can’t handle, wouldn’t I have the same issue when Chromecasting the episodes? Or is the transcoding for the Chromecast different than that of the phone?

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No it’s not a dumb question and the answer is I’m not sure because I don’t know your specific set of variables.

I assumed your chromecast is inside your network in your house which wouldn’t or shouldn’t get transcoded under most circumstances

I assumed also that you were trying to use the plex mobile app on your phone from somewhere else but this is what happens when you don’t have all the details and assume I suppose.

TBH I’m not very familiar with the specs on what a chromecast will play and different andriod devices are also different even from each other. Some phones for instance won’t play h.265 files at all which means your entire stream on the phone would have to be transcoded on the fly while the chromecast might play it ok

There are quality settings in your server, chromecast app and phone which could possibly have something to do with it, i just thought it wasn’t as likely because one season of show plays ok while another doesn’t. Which again leads me to think it’s a codec, audio, transcoding issue

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I appreciate your insight, I will try to re-encode the season and see if that helps.

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Is your Android device a Google Pixel by any chance? I just started getting the same generic error trying to play videos as well.

Everything is working fine on my other Android devices AND playback works fine on the Pixel through the web interface in Chrome.

Haven’t had a chance to check log files yet myself, but definitely seems something is broken with the Android app on my Pixel 4. (Have re-installed the app several times).

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It is indeed a Pixel 5. Happened out of nowhere with one specific season that I’ve noticed so far. I’ve watched this show/season about a dozen times (love this show) and I’ve never gotten that message. Luckily though, I tried JaysPlex7’s suggestion above to re-encode the season and it’s been working fine again. So thank you to @JaysPlex for the suggestion.

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That’s good aliantonio, I’m glad it worked.

I’ve had to re-encode a few series that wouldn’t play correctly and I’ll never know what the actual problem is.

At least you didn’t re-encode everything and it still didn’t work

It is odd that you’ve played that season before and didn’t have an issue, so maybe it’s some kind of partial bug or problem with the latest update too.

I don’t think anyone really knows what’s going on in this place half the time TBH

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