Server Version#: 1.32.5 (Windows 10 64-bit)
Player Version#: latest - don’t know how to find out
I usually play lots of short video clips one after another on continuous play, usually randomly. When I do so, many of the clips aren’t marked as played, and show a time remaining of 0:00. Such clips show up on the “Continue Watching” list, the number of plays isn’t incremented, and if such a clip comes up again in random or sequential continuous play, it flashes up for a second and doesn’t play. Needless to say, this causes all sorts of problems.
For example, for a video with a length of 1:48, if I pick it in the “Continue Watching” list, it says “Resume from 1:48”. If I pick that, I get a second or so of the video, but the video stays on the “Continue Watching” list and doesn’t get reset as played.
This happens on many of the players I’ve used, and has been happening for a long time. It seems to only happen when using continuous play.
I’m a programmer and am technically savvy. I can provide troubleshooting info if you tell me what you need.
Thank you.
Settings - Server - ‘Show Advanced’ - Library
What do you have set for these options?
Is the credits detection enabled on the same page?
Which type of library are these short videos stored in?
Do you have “Enable credits detection” activated in its properties?
Thank you for your reply.
Video played threshold: 90%
Video play completion behavior: earliest between threshold percent and first credits marker
Is credits detection enabled on the same page: couldn’t find this option
Which type of library: Other Videos
Is credits detection enabled in the library: No.
I see credits detection will probbaly not work in a Other Videos library. So Plex will go by the percentage.
Now, the playback status needs to be stored on the server. The player has to send it at the end of playback. For this to work, the network connection between player and server needs to be open and functional.
However, at the end of the video, it may be that the last major data has been transmitted quite a while ago, since each player has a buffer which is usually topped up automatically. So the last seconds or even minutes can usually be played from this buffer.
Which means that the network connection is quite idle during this period.
And this is where some power-saving settings may come into play, and interfere.
Tell your Windows server computer to never slow down the link speed during idle times. Because typically, switching back from this state may take too long and the last status report from the client will get lost.
You will find these settings usually in the properties of the network adapter.
Disable general power saving on the network adapter as well as the above mentioned link-speed degradation (if available, not all adapters do this).
The same applies to all parts of the network connection between server and player. If there is a network switch which supports Energy-Efficient-Ethernet, disable this in its settings.
The same applies to the wireless network adapters. (which you should avoid using, in general. Wired networking is always more reliable – and often faster, too)
Thank you for your detailed reply.
However, I don’t think that blaming the network connection is correct. If what you describe is true, networking would not generally be reliable, for all programs not just Plex. On the contrary, it is rock solid reliable. If a program (the Plex client) correctly sends a network message, regardless of the timing, and the destination program (the Plex server) is correctly listening, the message will be received. If the message isn’t received, the problem lies with either endpoint, not with the Ethernet connection that is transmitting it.
I did look at the connection settings on the server computer and found one power-saving setting deep in the network adapter configuration, and turned it off. However, as expected, doing so didn’t affect the problem.
I’m a programmer with considerable network programming experience, and I do understand how this stuff works. In my opinion, there has to be something wrong (either with the configuration or an actual bug in Plex) with the Plex client or with the Plex server.
Is there any way to get a more granular trace of what is happening? I’ve turned on debug level logging for the server and the web client; hopefully that will give us some useful information. Would it help to do a packet trace on my computer while Plex is running? It would be quite huge, but someone with good Wireshark skills should be able to weed out the noise and see what is being transmitted between the Plex server and the Plex client.
I do appreciate the time and effort that you are putting into helping me with my problem (and others with theirs). It is very generous of you! I look forward to further suggestions or requests for more information.
Thank you!
-jimc
There is a bug that’s specific to Fire TV’s that’s been doing this for over a year
You tagged the post with Fire TV but said this is happening on other types of players also?
If it’s happening on multiple clients you should probably post your server logs. Enable debug only and download the logs from the trouble shooting section
