Hello,
like already hinted in the title I’ve been displeased with Plex lately. I did not use Plex for a few months and started using it again a week ago.
I am running a Plex Server (latest version, just updated a few days ago) on my notebook (Ubuntu). However, my setup is so flawed that I often spend more time on trying to get things to work then I spend on actually watching content.
Maybe there is something that I can do to improve my situation. However, when listing my issues, I don’t even know where to start.
First of all, each time I open the webinterface (plex.tv/web) after a reboot, it will prompt me to setup my server and type in a name, after which it will take me to my already existing library.
Then, I will press the (Google) Cast button to connect to my Shield TV.
At this point, when I try to play any title, it has a 50/50 chance to work or just not doing anything at all on the Shield TV and infinitely loading screen on the webinterface.
Sometimes I like to use my Android phone (Nexus 6P) to launch titles on the Shield TV. There I have the option to either cast using the Plex app on the Shield TV or cast using the generic Google Cast API. When not using the App, it is more likely to work. Sometimes the Plex App will open but not play any file until prompted again.
When I eventually get the file to play, most often the language will be set to German and the subtitles are off, although I’ve been watching the whole in Japanese using English subtitles. Especially when launching the video from the Plex app on the Shield TV, this is guaranteed to happen.
Once I set the audio language to Japanese, the video will restart in Japanese. However, when changing the subtitles, no subtitles will be shown (although clearly enabled, icon is in activated state). Even if I restart the app, it will not display the selected subtitles. Note that this may not happen all the time, I’m sure there are times where it will work, but more often than not the described issue will happen. I can get the subtitles to display by playing the video on the notebook, at least I think that works most of the time.
Apart from the aforementioned problems that plague me everyday and cost me a lot of time, there are several other annoying issues. I just added a movie to my library and was really excited to watch it. But guess what, nope. It won’t play. On the Shield TV it immediately displays “playback error” without any further information while on the notebook it will endlessly buffer. After rebooting all involved devices, the video still does not play to this day. It plays fine using VLC on the notebook though. The movie’s XML:
Edit: http://pastebin.com/ZD2JhmM6
Now on pastebin due to the XML tags not showing in a forum post.
Oh, and before I forget to mention it, the Plex app on the Shield TV somtimes needs multiple attempts before it finds the server, displaying no servers found. The devices are all connected to the same gigabit-switch with ethernet cables.
As if I would not have enough problems already, the app fails to play HOU-3D movies. It will just output one picture if started from the app, at times I get lucky and two pictures are display for half a minute, then it will switch back to a single 2D image. This did not happen when playing SBS movies.
So in conclusion, the last few days were just pure torture. If I spend more time trying to get things to work then actually watching the content it really is not fun.
Maybe it’s just the Android TV App on my Shield TV that produces these problems, anyway, my experience has been really bad lately, maybe there is something that you or I can do about it.
Thank you.
Best regards
