Watch Together - Unable to Play Media?

Plex Players Streaming Devices
1

Server Version#: 1.19.5.3112
Player Version#: 8.3.1.19108 (Shield 2017)

Tested out Watch Together with a friend earlier in the day with great success; unfortunately now that I try it again, it doesn’t open up the lobby and simply gives an error of Unable to Play Media.

My friends are able to join the lobby, but I am not. It shows up in the Plex home screen, but it won’t allow me to join. Any ideas?

2

Hi, are you trying to watch content that perhaps your account doesn’t have access to? In those cases, you would see the session on your home screen but the item should have a no access label at the bottom. If that is the case, simply ask your friend to share the content with you.

3

It was media on my own server over LAN. Problem was solved for now by removing all updates on Android TV app and re-updating.

4

I’m having the same issue. Please tell me how to remove updates on the Shield. I have absolutely no clue how to or what that entails.

1 Like
5

@SpecialTeam I think what might work is to uninstall and reinstall the app.

@pvk8336 If the issue returns, would you mind grabbing me the logs? Here’s a how to: https://support.plex.tv/articles/201573117-android-android-tv-fire-tv-logs/

1 Like
6

I went into the Google Play Store and to My Apps , select+hold on Plex app and it brought up the option to uninstall all updates. From there I re-updated the app and it worked.

Shield didn’t let me uninstall the app altogether.

7

Thank you! That actually works, but only for 1 movie. I have to uninstall the app every time I use watch together. Confusingly this is doesn’t affect my TV Library at all, only movies. Any idea on what I can do to solve this permanently?

8

Does anyone have a solution for this? I am on 8.4.2.19372 and am having the exact same problem. Having to reinstall every time is the worst.

9

I would love to work towards a permanent solution as well, however, I will also need your help. Would any of you folks be able to grab me the logs when you see the issue, please? (https://support.plex.tv/articles/201573117-android-android-tv-fire-tv-logs/)

1 Like
10

I have the exact same issue. I have a nvidia shield tv, and 9 times out of 10 it will say unable to play media when I set up or try to join a watch together session, even though my friends using my server on lesser devices have no issues. The only fix has been uninstalling and reinstalling the app and then it works maybe once. Often I also unable to remove the watch together sessions. It has been this way since the feature was introduced a few months ago. I even upgraded to the shield Pro yesterday and same thing on the first try. One time I toggled to the old video player and then back to the new one and it worked once, that hasn’t worked since.

11

Any fixes for this? I’ve got the same issue across all my devices.

12

I had this issue happen today on my 2017 Shield. Uninstalling updates then re-updating the app resolved it. My 2019 Shield Pro did not have any issues. I’ll report back if I experience the issue again.

13

Same issue as well here on FireTV Toshiba

I had to uninstall it to get it working

14

Happens the same to me, shield original, plex lifetime pass. I changed the user to a new one, invited from phone and it worked but just once. The second time didn’t work and changing user didn’t work either.

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