With new stable & beta release, changed cover art server-side renders title unplayable client-side

Plex Media Server
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Server Version#: 1.29.2.6364 & 1.30.0.6359
Player Version#:

Hello!

First time post here! The short story: I’m having newly experienced problems with movie playback client-side after a cover art change, server-side.

The longer story: For both the new stable and beta releases of PMS, I get playback errors for movie titles that I add to Plex. However, it is not for all movies being added. A movie will play fine across my range of devices when added. However, as soon as I change the cover art for that movie on PMS, none of my devices will play the movie any longer. They will try to play the title, stall for a few moments and then throw up an error. On iPhone, the error is “Couldn’t retrieve the play queue for this item. Please try again”. A similar message appears for playback on my AppleTV device.

If I take the movie file out of the Plex media Movie folder, then delete the movie entry from the PMS web interface (that has the cover art that I want), pop the file back into the Movie folder and initiate a rescan — the movie will show as recently added again. And, it plays on all of my devices again. Hooray! But, not quite…. It now has the ‘default’ cover art again, which I don’t want. So, I change the cover art to what I want it as, once more… and, again, this title now won’t play on any of my devices!

I’ve been able to replicate this problem over and over with the latest Stable release, 1.29.2.6364, on each movie title that I want to make a cover art change to. In essence, the movie titles I add to Plex all play fine… until I change the ‘default’ cover art for said title. I’ve never had this problem prior to 1.29.2.6364. I even tried going from the latest Stable release (1.29.2.6364) to the latest Beta release (1.30.0.6359). This didn’t help, either.

As mentioned before, this is my first time posting to the Plex forum. I have been a long-time Plex user. Overall, I have been very happy with Plex. But, this new issue with changed cover art & the subsequent throwing up of playback errors client-side is throwing me for a loop! What is the best course of action to take in order to fix this? Is it best/possible to downgrade the server software to 1.29.1.xxxx? I didn’t ever seem to have this problem before 1.29.2.6364 & 1.30.0.6359.

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Many thanks!

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That is an odd one. Which method are you using to edit the poster. Just selecting one of the other available ones or adding your own file? If using your own image file what type?

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Hey BigWheel!

Many thanks for your reply. I am just selecting one of the available cover art options in the pop-up box. And, after that, no devices will playback that given title.

4

I’m really flummoxed by this issue. I want to alter the cover art for certain titles that are added, but obviously don’t want to render said titles unplayable by doing so…

5

After changing a poster can you click on the menu on the bottom right of poster and chose Analyze then try to play it again.

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We will probably need to see both the server logs and the logs from the one of the player apps like the apple tv logs to see what it happening.

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Hey BigWheel,

Apologies for my late response. I tried, as you instructed, to click the Analyze button after changing the movie cover art. A circular icon with a wand in the middle then appeared over the cover art, with an orange progress wheel rotating around it. It kept doing this for 30 seconds or so, and then went away. I then tried to play the movie on both my AppleTV and iPhone app. Unfortunately, they both showed the same error messages after attempting, for 20-30 seconds or so, to play the movie title.

Is this an issue that you think can be resolved?

I am more than happy to provide the requested logs. Unfortunately, I am not familiar with the process to do this on either the Windows server or the AppleTV client. Could you please inform me of the proper way to go about providing the logs for both platforms as well as making sure those logs contain the proper information to detect the problem?

Many thanks for your help.

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It is the first time for this issue and really one of the strangest issues I have ever heard of.

There are two links in my previous reply on how to get logs for both.

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Hey BigWheel,

I sent you two inbox messages with the logs attached for the AppleTV client-side device and the Windows Plex Media Server. Thank you for all of your help. I will be eagerly awaiting your expert analysis of this issue.

Thank you, again.

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Hey BigWheel,

I just noticed that when I try to play an affected file — one that won’t play on iPhone or AppleTV after changing the cover art — it will play flawlessly on my sister’s Sony GoogleTV (with the GoogleTV Play Store Plex App). I just thought I would share this find with you; not sure if it will be of any help. Besides my sister’s Sony GoogleTV, all other Plex clients are either iPhone or AppleTV… so, the problem persists for everyone besides her.

Many thanks!

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Hey again,

I also have some more info to share… When I try to play an affected title on the Windows Plex Media server itself, it will hesitate for a moment and then begin playback. However, after commencing playback, it will play smoothly for 5 seconds or so and then skip the next five seconds or so. And, it then continues to repeat this pattern of skipping during playback on the server computer, itself. I hope this information is helpful in finding a resolution to this issue.

Thank you!

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With regard to my previous post, I should mention that the files play fine, however, in VLC media player outside of Plex.

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Hey BigWheel,

Please disregard the previous two messages about the skipping playback on the Windows server, itself. I fixed that — it was an issue with using the Microsoft Edge browser; switching to Firefox cleared up the skipping.

However, with regard to the original issue, I randomly tried one of the affected titles — one which won’t play on iPhone or AppleTV after the cover art change — via the ‘Watch Together’ option on iPhone. I selected watch with another user (even though it was just me) and selected Start Watching. It began playing immediately and flawlessly.

But, going to the movie ‘landing page’ (which displays description, actors, etc.) and clicking the plain, old ‘Play’ button still errors out like I described before.

So, in summation, I’ve found that an affected file, while erroring out in the previously described way when clicking the normal ‘Play’ movie button, will play immediately and flawlessly when going under ‘Watch Together’, selecting a random user as a placeholder, and clicking ‘Start Watching.’

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Hey BigWheel,

Even though I originally labeled this issue under “server-windows”, I am starting to think it may be a bug in the most recent iterations of both the iOS and AppleTV tvOS Plex apps. The more I have thought about it, I never had problems with playback prior to the 8.11/8.11.1 iOS/tvOS updates earlier this month. As previously stated, the Sony GoogleTV Plex app will play titles perfectly, even after changing the cover art. Likewise, the iOS and tvOS Plex apps will play those same files perfectly fine, but only under the ‘Watch Together’ option; the regular ‘Play’ button hangs up and errors out on both. Also, titles for which I changed the cover art back in October, for instance, don’t seem to have any playback issues, at all. Only titles for which I have changed the cover art very recently….

Many thanks for all of your help and apologies for any hassle this has caused!

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does this mean the web app or the desktop app?

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Hey BigWheel,

That issue was with the Web App (the one where you scan a library, edit cover art/metadata, etc.). But, I fixed that particular issue by switching my default browser from Microsoft Edge to Firefox.

Have there been any breakthroughs on the original issue of iOS/tvOS playback of titles with changed cover art?

I hope all is well with you!

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unfortunately not yet. super strange issue.

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Over the weekend I even followed the official guide on the Plex website that instructs how to rollback the ‘database’ and ‘database.blobs’ files to an earlier archived version that Plex makes every three days. I rolled back these to an October 31st, 2022 database backup that I had, as October 31 was before this playback problem on iOS/tvOS came about for files that I change the cover art for.

After rolling back the database, I started Plex Media Server again and added a title. And, again, there were no problems with playback on iOS/tvOS until I changed the cover art for the title. After the cover art change, the iOS/tvOS apps would try to play the title, and then give the same error messages. This nudged me to thinking that it is a bug client-side on the iOS/tvOS Plex apps instead of a server-side bug. Not sure, but just my present hunch…

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However, I just checked my old iPad that has version 7.27 of Plex installed, and it also won’t play titles that I recently changed the cover art for… So, maybe it is a server-side issue, after all? I’m quite confused at this point, to be honest.

Thank you for all of your help!

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