Up until today my media played without transcoding but now only plays if transcoding is on

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
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Server Version#: 4.84.1
Player Version#: 9.6.2.34353
Server: i5-6500T 16GB 256GB Win 11 Pro running headless (Plex as a service)
Clients: Nvidia Shield Pro (Plex client only), Walmart Android onn streamers
Media: QNAP NAS

Not sure what happened – maybe it was an update to my Plex server or clients but now almost none of my movies or tv shows will play unless I turn on transcoding. Up until yesterday, I had the “Disable transcoding” option enabled and could play everything but now it needs to be unchecked for stuff to play? Wut???

Any ideas as to what might of happened? Man, I hate wasting time on this crap. :frowning:

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During playback bring up the playback info and it should tell you the basic reason.

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If I disable transcoding there is no playback. I just get an error dialog box saying “Error. Unable to play media”. Just to be clear, the files that gives this error used to play just fine up until a day ago.

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I meant to leave it on and let it transcode, then look at the playback info and see why it is transcoding.

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Here are my settings & also Plex client on Nvidia Shield playing the file:

plexserver-transcoder-settings
plexserver-playback

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Does it direct play if you disable the subtitles? Full ASS subtitle support is still in beta.

You can try to change the subtitles settings in the player to “Burn image formats only” as a workaround. Not sure if that still works.

Another option would be to use PGS or SRT subtitles instead, as they have full support on the Shield.

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Thanks you for that info @motorambler but can you please go to the playback info on the Shield during playback and look at what is says. ( it is in the same menu where playback settings are during playback) Based your screenshots I’m gonna guess it is transcoding for tonemapping.

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Ok now this is bizarre. For some reason direct play is working. I just logged in to my Plex server and enabled “Disable video stream transcoding” in order to take a screenshot of the error I’ve been getting but for whatever reason my media is playing again. I am thankful for this but at the same time this crap shouldn’t happen and is infuriating to deal with on a premium paid app.

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I do not understand why I no longer have the subtitles setting only in image format on my samsung tv and on my ps5 which causes me problems in the direct playback of my videos

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