Various Plex clients stop loading new "chunks", must be server side problem

[MicGlou]

Server Version#: 4.72.0
Player Version#: 1.39.0.2753-d48b8c8b

Hi,

my first topic on this forum because I’ve always been able to solve any problems with the use of Google etc. But this time I’m a little stumped. About a month ago I’ve gotten myself a nice “new” system to use as my Plex server with a Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1240 v5… a nice upgrade compared to the previous i7 4770.

But ever since I have this new system in use I’m having trouble with some weird buffering problems. It’s not that the system or the network can’t keep up, somehow the server stops offering new ‘chunks’ to whatever player I’m using and the movie gets stuck and buffers indefinitely, only way to resume is stop playing and then resume from homepage. I also can’t find any patterns… sometimes a movie plays beginning to end without any problems, the next day it will have the problem a couple of times during a single movie. It happens when playing over the local network and external streams. Also when multiple streams are active, they’re not affected at the same time. Also kinda weird is that I run into this problem using Plex Web, using the app on ChromeOS and Android, but with testing not when playing movies using the Plex Player for Windows or the player on PS5… so it kinda points back to something browser/chromium based? But not really sure… haven’t tested Firefox yet btw as that is not a browser I normally use.

Of course I’ve googled myself crazy but every possible solution I come across is not exactly the same as the problem I’m having… they’re all about stuttering and constant buffering but the player does automatically resume after it’s done catching up. My server, client or network capacity is very unlikely the problem, they’re all coasting when I play movies over the internal network or outside… and my problem also happens when playing internal network and outside. I’ve looked into local network setting, power settings etc… nothing seems to help. Also the setting are exactly the same as previous server… so it kinda comes down to the different hardware is my suspicion… but what? My first suspect would be network, but because today most LAN are on the motherboard, it’s been years that I’ve had a network card laying around to test this.

So basically I’m looking for the golden tip from somebody that recognizes these symptoms… buffering is one thing, but basically stop loading new chunks completely is weird.

Relevant systems specs:
Dell Precision Tower 3620
Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1240 v5 @ 3.50GHz
16,0 GB RAM
Nvidia Quadro P2000
Intel(R) Ethernet Connection (2) I219-LM
Windows 10 21H2

[MicGlou]

I seem to have the problem narrowed down to webplayers (using Chrome and Firefox) and Android/ChromeOS apps… using Plex for Windows or the PS5 app there are no problems. Strange… can’t really put my finger behind why this only happens to web based players and players on Android and ChromeOS.

As it seems this problem started to occur after a recent Plex server update, I’ve installed the Plex server version from last october to see if this version doesn’t have this problem.

[MicGlou]

Older version of Plex did not help unfortunately.

What I’ve discovered is that under ‘alerts’ Plex randomly stops listening for short periods of time… but I can’t figure out why. Port is open, 99% of the time all status say it’s okay… then it stops listening for a short time (like 10/20 second) with the message “connection is closed” and then opens up and resumes listening again… but the movie will not resume until stopped and restarted. When this happens ‘Remote Access’ wil also say ‘not available from outside network’ for a couple of seconds

Link to screenshot: connectionclosed — ImgBB

Have been testing a lot using various players… although not as frequent, I’ve now also seen it having problems playing on Ps5.

Please somebody that could help troubleshoot this problem? I now can’t figure past it must be a ‘relay’ problem, seems to be Plex relay that’s causing this issue.

[MicGlou]

Nobody… not a single reply? A bit disappointed I must say… seeing some recent posts similar to the the problems I’m experiencing, most of them are also not getting picked up?

If something is wrong with my post or additional information is needed I’m happy to provide whatever is needed.

[MicGlou]

It seems the problems I was having have cleared up since yesterday or maybe the day before… all streams seem to be stable now. I didn’t change anything on my side since so I assume Plex has found the problem and fixed it… most recent server update did not report a fix in the changelog, but it probably contained a fix if it was a software problem, or the relay functionality has been fixed on the Plex relay server side.