I have both the latest Windows version of Plex Server and Windows Desktop player and since a few days, the player won’t play any video. It seems to load correctly yet when I choose something to play, the background picture loads but the blue spinner just constantly spins. This is on a remote system. The player on the actual server works just fine, it works on my Android phone, and the web player on this problematic desktop system also works just fine.
I’ve tried uninstalling and reinstalling the app, but still no luck. Any thoughts? The one thing I have noticed is that even when I exit the player, plex.exe still shows as running in Task Manager.
Please post the Plex Player version and the Plex Media Server version, thanks.
PlexMediaServer-1.18.8.2468
Plex-1.6.3.1009
Thanks!
Any thoughts? Still a problem.
Adding logs.
Plex Media Server Logs_2020-03-21_03-57-47.zip (5.0 MB)
Plex.log (1.2 MB)
Then close it using Task Manager.
Uninstall it
empty out its data folder: Windows Desktop app does not run after Windows 10 update - #4 by OttoKerner
reboot windows
install the LAVfilters package Releases · Nevcairiel/LAVFilters · GitHub
download a fresh copy of Plex for Windows and install it
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I’m not about to install something extra without knowing why I should do so. As I’ve said, the Plex player works when run directly on the server system, it works on my wife’s laptop, and on my Android phone. I’ve already uninstalled, completely deleted all of the associated Plex player folders and reinstalled and I get the same results. What, exactly, is the installation of the LAVFilters package supposed to do to help.
Thanks for the response.
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So I went ahead and did everything you suggested, same result.
I’m baffled here too. I can see in Plex.log that playback is failing.
2020-03-08T03:59:11.621 [ ERROR ] stream: Failed to open ...
2020-03-08T03:59:11.621 [ DEBUG ] cplayer: Opening failed or was aborted: ...
It seems to load correctly yet when I choose something to play, the background picture loads but the blue spinner just constantly spins. This is on a remote system.
Our app only has yellow spinners. Is the blue spinner the Windows spinner? Will you also please explain what you mean by “remote system”? Is the server that you’re playing from not on the same LAN as the Plex for Windows app?
I also have the exakt same problem. This started in the last few weeks.
I can say it’s the yellow spinner that spins.
I suppose author means that he has his Plex server at home, but the Plex-windows client on a PC somewhere else, work/friend etc. This is the case for me, Plex-clients work from outside the house on both Android and iOS but not Windows.
No, the Windows client that never ends up playing anything is also on my home network. From the same Windows client, the web app plays fine.
Please take a look into your Plex.log files; we’ll create a new file on each launch.
Then search for “error”.
Do you see error(s) downloaded codecs? This thread has a similar yellow spinner of death behavior that we’ve identified caused by a codec fetching issue.
If you see any “error” logs for media handling please attach the log file in this thread.
[1] %LOCALAPPDATA%\Plex\Plex Media Server\Logs\
(Edit: I don’t see any codec fetching errors in the logs originally posted by @pkadare_gmail_com, that’s still a mystery 
)
Here is the error that I keep seeing:
Apr 29, 2020 15:24:58.108 [10588] ERROR - SSDP: Error parsing device schema for http://192.168.0.1:1900/igd.xml
That looks like a UPnP issue that should be unrelated.
I am also seeing this exact issue. All other players on the same internal home network can play the videos fine (web, android, LG smart TV, xbox, etc) even via other accounts that are shared. The Windows player just sits there spinning. Plex server shows the file is being played to the Windows player even when the Windows player is ostensibly stopped via close function, and will not stop playing until relaunching the Windows Player.
From the logs, it appears that DirectPlay fails over to transcoding, and it somehow fails in the handoff to work. There’s no good reason DirectPlay should be failing though. It works fine in every other app I use.
Server: Version 1.19.3.2764
Windows Player: Version 1.10.0.1208-daa6b641
Plex.log (57.3 KB)
Plex Media Server.log (2.6 MB)
Endless buffer/media not playing at all: I have been having this problem for weeks and even with the most recent server updates and media player updates. This is happening with Plex Media Player and Plex for Windows apps. Media plays just fine through the browser and the android app. And I can also note that this problem does NOT occur with Media Player v1.6 on Windows. One of the machines in my house isn’t updated and I can still play media fine. I have even went as far as reinstalling Windows on both the server and one of the clients, the problem still persists on a clean install running all the latest versions. Can this please be fixed?
I have the same issue with Plex for Windows. Latest version of player and server. Started after an update a few months ago, and have been using the web player hoping future updates would fix it, but they haven’t. I just downloaded Plex Media Player and put it in desktop layout, and it also works fine, it’s just the Windows app which doesn’t. No errors in the client log, playbackTime is always sitting at zero no matter how long i leave it spinning for.
Here is an excerpt from the Plex for Windows log:
2020-05-24T10:48:09.402 [ WARN ] [Web] Did not move header “accept” to query string. This can result in an unnecessary OPTIONS preflight request.
2020-05-24T10:48:12.324 [ INFO ] [Web] [Companion] Opening long poll to DESKTOP-A2ELJRU at http://127.0.0.1:32400/player/proxy/poll
2020-05-24T10:48:17.324 [ INFO ] [Web] [Companion] Poll connection successfully opened with DESKTOP-A2ELJRU
2020-05-24T10:48:19.401 [ INFO ] [Web] [Player] Timeline, {
“ratingKey”: “9962”,
“key”: “/library/metadata/9962”,
“playbackTime”: 0,
“playQueueItemID”: “40370”,
“state”: “playing”,
“hasMDE”: 1,
“time”: 0,
“duration”: 3042000
}
2020-05-24T10:48:19.403 [ WARN ] [Web] Did not move header “accept” to query string. This can result in an unnecessary OPTIONS preflight request.
2020-05-24T10:48:29.399 [ INFO ] [Web] [Player] Timeline, {
“ratingKey”: “9962”,
“key”: “/library/metadata/9962”,
“playbackTime”: 0,
“playQueueItemID”: “40370”,
“state”: “playing”,
“hasMDE”: 1,
“time”: 0,
“duration”: 3042000
}
2020-05-24T10:48:29.399 [ WARN ] [Web] Did not move header “accept” to query string. This can result in an unnecessary OPTIONS preflight request.
2020-05-24T10:48:32.329 [ INFO ] [Web] [Companion] Opening long poll to DESKTOP-A2ELJRU at http://127.0.0.1:32400/player/proxy/poll
2020-05-24T10:48:37.329 [ INFO ] [Web] [Companion] Poll connection successfully opened with DESKTOP-A2ELJRU
2020-05-24T10:48:39.397 [ INFO ] [Web] [Player] Timeline, {
“ratingKey”: “9962”,
“key”: “/library/metadata/9962”,
“playbackTime”: 0,
“playQueueItemID”: “40370”,
“state”: “playing”,
“hasMDE”: 1,
“time”: 0,
“duration”: 3042000
}
2020-05-24T10:48:39.398 [ WARN ] [Web] Did not move header “accept” to query string. This can result in an unnecessary OPTIONS preflight request.
EDIT: There is a codec error in the log further up, seems to relate to this topic:
Here is the related section in the log:
2020-05-24T10:47:58.635 [ WARN ] [NanoRequest] Request to http://127.0.0.1:32700/services/codecs/decoder/msmpeg4v3 completed with error 203 (‘Error transferring http://127.0.0.1:32700/services/codecs/decoder/msmpeg4v3 - server replied: Not Found’) and status 404.
2020-05-24T10:47:58.635 [ DEBUG ] [CodecFetcher] Finished fetching msmpeg4v3 (status=404)
2020-05-24T10:47:58.635 [ ERROR ] [CodecFetcher] Codec unknown (404)
2020-05-24T10:47:58.635 [ INFO ] [MPVEngine] Done fetching codecs. Result: 2
2020-05-24T10:47:58.635 [ INFO ] [MPVEngine] Error fetching required codecs.
2020-05-24T10:47:58.637 [ WARN ] [Web] [Player] A critical error occurred: 1008 A codec required for playback could not be downloaded. Make sure you are connected to the Internet and try again.
2020-05-24T10:47:58.637 [ WARN ] [Web] [Player] Direct Play failed, but server can transcode. Attempting to fallback to either Direct Stream or transcode…
2020-05-24T10:47:58.648 [ INFO ] [Web] [Player] has stopped null
I have a plex media player running on my windows 10 pc, streaming to appletv.
All of a sudden none of my files run, tried playing on appletv, tried running movies on windows pc browser.
Something is really wrong, and yes my files are 4k
Any updates on this same issue for me, the other app labeled for Windows “Plex media player” still works, although they give the waring on install that it is due to be retired. Guess they need to bring it back to fix things until they fix the Windows version .
For those with this issue, a dev has posted on another thread that this issue has been resolved and the fix is due to be released in v1.13. So a couple of updates away.
I am at V1.13, but this issue still persists.
The server says the video is running, but the player buffers endlessly. It doesn’t do this on my laptop, or in the web app.
I have completely reïnstalled the player several times.
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