Hey folks, just started hitting this issue the last two days using the ATC 8.18.1 App. I updated from 1.31.2 to the latest 1.32.3 and my ATV 4K Gen1 started buffering anything over 1-2Mbit, including H264 content that was previously DirectPlay-ing just fine. This is an absolute show-stopped.
Any updates?
Tim I think you might have a separate issue, we’re not having buffering issues it’s more like micro stutter. Content still loads and “plays”, just in a way that is very distracting
Yeah, that sounds very weird. I’ve narrowed this issue down to just my ATV, just playing from my plex instance (not another on the same remote connection). The InFuse app also appears to show buffering for streams >2Mbit… no idea what’s going on.
+1 to also getting this issue.
Happy to run any tests to try and help.
I’m seeing stuttering on my 2nd gen ATV4K but only with specific files. The problem seems to be with HD MKV files with the VC1 codec; after a few minutes of playback they drop frames while the audio keeps going. Eventually it either snaps back to normal or requires us to pause playback to reset. The issue seems more pronounced when the data rate of the file is over 20 Mbps. It doesn’t seem to be happening with any H.264 MKVs.
AppleTV 4k 2nd gen, Plex v8.19.1 (5988)
Hardwired on 1Gbps network to QNAP TS-453Be, Plex Server v 1.32.0.6973
VC1 files can sometimes experience issues, as they’re decoded in software, rather than hardware (as the h264 files are), particularly on older devices. We’re working towards improving their performance though.
I’m also seeing the same behaviour with my setup, not all files and only with direct playback. Any kind of transcode seems to fix the issue, as does pausing the file and starting it again, just like others have confirmed above. This must be either a bug in Apple TV with the latest update, or an issue with Plex.
Seems to only impact 4k files with my testing so far.
Player client: Plex Apple TV v 1.19.1(5988)
Playback hardware: Apple TV 4k
Server 1.32.2.7100
Server Hardware: MacStudio
File info: 3820x2160, MP3, HEVC, Bitrate 20.7mbps
Network setup: Local Plex Server via dedicated wireless network (5Ghz)
Other devices (my iPad or MacBook) in the same room/location can play files back with direct play without issue at 4k with without stuttering.
Hoping that someone from Plex can confirm if this is a known issue, or how we can get it as a known issue so it can be investigated further (this might be an apple tv issue). Happy to DM logs.
@DaveBinM any updates on this? Or at least on getting us access to the known working build? Honestly I don’t care about recent updates when the core function of the app, playing content, is essentially broken for all my content.
Howchie his you need to arm yourself with a lot of patience ;-).
This is funny. Perfect deja vu for the audio sync issue reported 3.5 years ago and yet not fixed.
I’ll monitor this thread to see if in 3 years Plex will update this thread that they are able to repro. That’s what it took last time. I managed to repro in 10 minutes.
The frustration comes from knowing we have a perfectly functioning recent build, we just can’t access it. On Android I could just downgrade with an apk and ignore the update, on Apple we need the devs to be willing to assist when something breaks.
One strange update…
Consistently, if I toggle a subtitle, the stuttering stops for the rest of the video. Same thing on subsequent videos. Weird.
Any further word from Plex on this?
You must me joking.
The 8.17 build in TestFlight expires in 4 days now. By the look of it, I think I shouldn’t be holding my breath waiting for Plex to fix the bug before then.
So this situation happening so quickly right after another baffling regression bug on the Apple TV player app had me reevaluate my whole setup. During the last few weeks, I’ve been exploring a few things.
First, I need to say that barring some new severe regression bugs in the area, I plan on continuing using Plex for music. I already said it in other threads, but Plexamp to me is the best music player around. It’s just a joy to use, I love it. And the people behind Plexamp seem to genuinely care about investigating and fixing high impact bugs affecting people.
But I can’t say I’ve had the same great experience with the movie/TV show side of Plex, especially in the last few months. So I decided to delete all the Plex player apps from all my devices (except Plexamp).
I was reluctant to do so because I really wanted to keep using the Apple TV app from Plex (it’s a great app – when it works), but I began experimenting with the Infuse app. And it’s really good! The video/audio playback is perfect (and in sync!), it has noticeably better picture quality when upscaling 1080p content, and has way better HDR/DV support.
There are some important things Infuse can’t do compared to the Plex player, though. It doesn’t support managed user profiles, doesn’t support local extras, and doesn’t have the amazing actor profile pages the Plex player has. But I began realizing that these things don’t amount to much if the fundamental functionality of actually playing videos gets broken so often and for such long periods of time.
I guess I’m lucky to be using Apple devices for everything I want to watch videos on, it means I can use Infuse on everything (Apple TV, iPad, iPhone, MacBook Pro). I’ll probably buy a lifetime subscription to Infuse soon. I doubt I’ll go back using the Plex player for movies and TV shows, unfortunately. The trust just isn’t there anymore. Like I said in the first post of this thread, always worrying about new updates suddenly breaking some critical functionalities isn’t a great experience.
I might also stop using the Plex server completely for movies and TV shows in the near future. Infuse supports products from other companies, and also supports handling metadata and playing files directly without using something like Plex. There wasn’t any incentive for me to do so before, but now I’ll definitely explore all of these possibilities soon to see if any of it could make sense with my setup.
Infuse is brilliant. If the library sync happened a bit quicker (particularly when watching content on another device it takes time to sync back to infuse) and Infuse was able to respect the track selection I set up in Plex then I would be on it permanently. Unfortunately the track selection thing is a big deal, it makes my Anime library pretty difficult to use when I spent a lot of time getting the track selection right with pasta tools (yet another third party tool to overcome Plex limitations). Sad state of affairs when you need a paid third party app to make another paid service work though, particularly when the bugs are as simple as playing content. Honestly, what useful stuff has even been added since 8.17? Just hard reset back to that build and start again Plex team - what good is any other update when it breaks the core function of the app?
Sorry but I’m not going to just accept this isn’t being fixed. I am a paid lifetime Plex subscriber and while that probably means jack-all for the Plex team these days I am entitled to a working product, and right now the app isn’t working.
@DaveBinM is there a way to have the apple tv app choose external players like the android phone app does/did? Can we somehow leverage the benefits of Infuse as a player but keep Plex for the integration with the library? Clearly the Plex player is an ongoing issue and neither old or new versions work as well as the competition, so why not avoid it completely?
The app does not support choosing an external player like Android mobile supported. I cannot speak to Infuse, but this is an issue we’re continuing to look into, although we’ve been unable to reproduce it as yet. I don’t have the 2022 model, but haven’t been able to reproduce on the 2021 or 2017 models.
Mine is 2022 (4k). Is there anything we can provide that would help? I mean I can even probably video it occurring if that helps. It’s normally fairly obvious, and if I play the same content on Infuse it simply doesn’t happen. I tried the extra stats thing and there were no stand outs (dropped frames or anything) reported there. Is it possible that Plex is misreporting the refresh rate and causing issues with the Apple TV match framerate option?
That reporting should be accurate. If you can provide a sample file that reproduces the issue, that would be very helpful. None of the samples we’ve had thus far have reproduced it for us. Also useful to know if you have Match Frame Rate on or off in the Apple TV Settings.
Unfortunately at least for me a sample file isn’t going to be possible, it’s a “random” thing (i.e. if it’s happening and you rewind the file it won’t go bad in the same parts). That’s further evident by the same files playing fine in Infuse. I always have match framerate on - but the issue I’m describing is similar to how files look when the framerate is mismatched (frequent “micro” stutter, jerking motion etc.), which is why I asked if potentially Plex is causing Apple to switch to the wrong framerate since the 8.18 build.
And Dave, I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but all of the users in this forum who have reported the actual stuttering issue (as opposed to unrelated buffering) have had the 2022 model so it really needs to be looked at using one of those. Are you telling me nobody at Plex HQ has the latest flagship Apple device that a big chunk of your userbase is on, and nobody has looked at one since April?
