Video won't resume but always plays from start on TV, is fine in web app

Plex Players Smart TVs
,
1

Concert video MP4 > split into chapters and remuxed as MKV > uploaded into Plex library

When I play the video through the web app I can skip from chapter to chapter, and “resume” starts from the location I last watched.
When I play the video through the Plex app on my LG TV although the controls let me see & select the chapters, or move the progress bar to any point in playback, the video always starts from the beginning.
If I watch 20 minutes on the TV then close playback, when I return the display shows that I am partway through the video and prompts me to “resume” - but selecting resume starts playback at 0:0:0.
This seems to be a problem with this particular video; others are fine.
What could be happening here? Is there somewhere I can look to see what the smart TV session is reporting that explains why it is behaving this way?

1 Like
2

OK, assuming that this would be anybody’s first question, I took some extracts from the Plex Media Server.log file which covered two brief plays of the video:

  1. Resuming at 10:27, playing to 11:28, on web player in Chrome

PMS_WebPlayer.log (126.1 KB)

  1. Opting to resume at 11:28, but playback actually starting at 0:00, in WebOS player on LG TV

PMS_LGTVPlayer.log (25.0 KB)

The video is 480p, Plex in the browser has a window that is 1600px high, Plex on the LG TV has a 4K-capable screen.

Hope this sheds some light on things (there isn’t a relevant error reported so far as I can see).

Cheers
T

3

A bit more information.

I stopped playing the video on the web app about 25 minutes in. Then I turned logging on in the Plex app on the LG, and selected the video from the “currently playing” options, selected “resume”, and the video started playing at 0:00:00. I brought up the chapter menu, and selected the final chapter. The menu seemed to “take” but playback started at 0:00:00 again. I then stopped playback. When I returned to the home page the video was first in the “currently playing” set, and its progress indicator was at 90%. I closed the Plex app on the LG and returned to my PC - and there when I selected the video in the Plex app it resumed playback at the final chapter. If I go to the video in the Plex app on my phone again it resumes at the final chapter.

So it knows where it is/should be, and it updates the server database with where it is supposed to be, but playback on the TV always goes from zero.

When I inspected the server logs the above is confirmed - the timestamp in the urls reflects where it is supposed to be, but the playback is always at 0s. (And the log says direct play; no transcoding.)

This problem seems specific to this video and to TV playback; other videos I have created using exactly the same method behave just fine.

I’ve remuxed the video with a new set of chapter tables and it still fails. I chose another of my videos and did the same thing and it’s OK - so my method isn’t at fault, it’s the video, somehow, somewhy.
I’ve run out of things to try. What could be causing the TV to do this?

4

Happened to me as well - lg-webos, specific file, works fine on web.

I was able to workaround this by either:

  1. Disabling BOTH Direct Stream and Direct Play, or
  2. Reducing the video quality (effectively forcing Plex to disable transcode as well).

I would still very much would like to fix this issue.

5

This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.