Yep, that’s true. That’s why I recommended, as a safe zone, to disable the “auto update apps” feature in Android TV - mainly in (Google Play Store > Settings > Auto Update > Do not auto-update apps) - until this issue is solved. 
The Plex Player version (7.23.0.13123), reinstalled here, won’t update until I press the “update” button. 
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Ahh, Missed that Cheers, I’ve been rolling back like a chump.
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I’ve had this “Unable to play media” problem on Shield since last week. I could play the media from other devices. Tried turning everything off and on again and rebuilding libraries to no avail.
Just now I have removed all updates from the shield player app and gone back to v5 - and it’s working again.
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Thanks. My Plex android app wouldn’t steam to my Chromecast. I checked my server and it was on version 1.9. did as you said and all is working.
Throwing my hat in the ring. This is happening on my Shield (when using the new player, it works okay when the old player is selected) and my android tablet. All seem okay on my Pixel 2.
Sounds like its the same issues I was having. My fix was to revert back to the old player, and my videos play fine. Based on someones review of the logs i provided, seems that there is a bug where plex is setting the audio file to the same bitrate as the video file causing the error. I am supposed to supply a video sample for them to test, but forgot to do it last night.
See my thread about it here:
Thanks Steven, this helped me on my Android Phone.
On my SHIELD I had to disable the “New Video Player” under “Settings -> Advanced”
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Thanks philz90… I was having a similar problem with 10Bit 1080p files and needed to disable that setting to get them to work properly. Every other ‘regular’ file seemed to still play. So I can confirm that this advice can solve some people’s issues with high end files. Hope this helps 
Here’s my experience with the “Unable to play media” message.
Plex App on Shield had stopped working, and I was only able to use Plex app that was installed into the smart tv to use my server.
All my guests/users could chromecast from Android and iPhone but my android stopped working. I could play a file on my phone, but not cast it. Was pretty pissed off.
Eventually the app would work if I uninstalled the updates, and then finally they must have patched it something because my plex on shield became normal again.
Here’s what has fixed my Phone and several other smaller plex issues:
Look in the Google Play Store on the Shield. Plex Media Server is a separate app that you can upgrade. This took me from 1.13 to 1.18.
I always assumed Plex app, and the server were the same thing. But since this update all issues are gone. Perhaps this is what plagues some of you with a similar set up to mine.
Following recommendations in this thread I downgraded the client on some older tablets. Dirty hack though…Any view on a fix?
Hi all!
I have the same problem with one ep (for now) of an old TV show encoded in Xvid: works on Plex Web and on Win32 executable, but not on Android (‘Server is unreachable’ error, both on Android TV and on Android 6.0 on my Smartphone).
I guess the problem is in the Android app/decoder because the first two episodes works without any problem. Both server and apps are up-to-date to latest version.
Anyway here’s my Plex log and a mediainfo report of the video file:
Angel Heart - S01E03 - La città di XYZ.avi.MediaInfo.txt (4.8 KB)
Plex Media Server Logs_2020-03-16_22-26-47.zip (191.7 KB)
If is ok and could be useful I could share the two eps with devs.
Thank you in advance.
Hi all!
I have the same problem (cant play anything with new player). I noticed that INSTEAD of turning off new player, if I switch:
- Advanced->Audio throughput HDMI and set it to disabled.
- Make sure the movie isnt loaded with subtitles activated.
I CAN play with new player!
Maybe Im having a different issue? Who knows. But this sure seem audio-related?
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