Web client plays in low quality with no quality settings available

Plex Players Desktop Players
1

Server Version#: 1.16.0.1226 and 1.16.2.1297
Player Version#: 3.102.0 and 3.108.1

Hello,

I have two computers acting as web players in my home network. Randomly, they will start playback and their quality will be very low, the video will freeze, and in the “Settings” button, there is no quality category for Playback Settings. It is completely gone and the first option shown is “Audio Stream” instead.

This is fixed by logging out of the client and clearing all Plex related cookies. It looks like this was introduced back in Server Version#: 1.15.3.835, Player Version#: 3.83.1. This issues has persisted over multiple versions since.

The first topic I saw is dead as the author no longer has the issue: Web Client 3.83.1 no longer shows Quality in Playback Settings

2

I can now confirm that this is still happening on Client Version 4.0.1 and Server 1.16.2.1297

3

Any particular reason to use the web app over Plex Media Player?

4

No particular reason. Just convenience and habit.

5

You should try the new desktop player

6

I’ll give it a shot, but it unfortunately does not address the bug with the web version.

1 Like
7

I’m rocking a ChromeBook so I don’t have the choice to use the desktop player. However, I have this issue as well: I can reproduce this every time by watching an episode, press pause, let the laptop go to sleep, turn it back on and skip to the next episode.
This is what I get:
10

And what it is supposed to look like:
00

Server version: 4.2.1
Client browser (whole OS): 76.0.3809.102

This has been an issue for quite a while though, but unlike OP, I can simply refresh the page. Only after refreshing the page I get this option (and full resolution) back

8

I reported this in Dec 2018 , I’m yet to find a fix:

I think it has something to do with the “Automatically adjust quality (Beta)” and the Home Streaming settings but I can’t be sure

I’m currently on
server: 1.18.1.1973
web client : 4.12.2

9

What OS and browser are you seeing this on?

10

Windows 10 and chrome for me

11

Can you start Chrome in safe mode / without extensions and see if that helps?

12

Hi, this is really frustrating as I can’t consistently reproduce the problem. Earlier today the “quality” field was missing. Later I followed the OPs suggestion of clearing cookies and now the Quality field is present again. To note though, even though I’m using a very basic video file as a test (details below), “play original quality” is missing from the quality drop down. Using Chrome in incognito mode doesn’t seem to make any difference.
Under “Plex Web—Quality” I have “Automatically adjust quality (Beta)” and “Use recommended settings” checked.

Test file:
Codec MPEG4
Bitrate 982 kbps
Height 404
Width 704

Codec MP3
Channels 2
Bitrate 160 kbps
Audio Channel Layout stereo
Sampling Rate 48000 Hz

EDIT:
just tried the following x264/AC3 file and “play original quality” IS present! I should probably open another post for this

Codec H264
Bitrate 16887 kbps
Height 1040
Width 1920

Codec AC3
Channels 6
Bitrate 640 kbps
Audio Channel Layout 5.1(side)
Sampling Rate 48000 Hz

13

Web browsers don’t play MPEG4 videos directly. Therefore these will always get transcoded.

1 Like
14

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