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I put on an episode of a show I'm watching, and about ten minutes into it, I missed something on screen, so pressed the skip back button on my remote. The spinning loading circle came up, but stayed for a while, and the episode froze at the point where I'd pressed the button.

No problem I thought, I haven't used Plex for a while, it might just need a little kick. I restarted my fire stick, and restarted the Plex server, just in case. A few minutes later, I didn't catch what a character said, so I tried skipping back again. Plex crashed again. Another set of restarts and we're watching again.

About 15 minutes later, the episode just freezes. No error message or warning, just a frozen screen. I gave it a minute and pressed play, and Plex crashed back to the episode selection screen. Pressing play worked again for a few minutes, until I got an error on screen telling me that my network is too slow for the video. It's a less than 1080p video streaming at 10 Mbps over a gigabit connection. This time, reopening the video took me back to the point of the last issue.

So much for relaxing in front of the TV...

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[-] Atropos@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago

I completely understand venting vs wanting solutions...

But sometimes I can't help myself. There are a whole host of things that could cause this. Happy to suggest things to test if you want, or there's an easy way to try an alternative. Have you considered giving Jellyfin a shot?

[-] Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 1 year ago

I've been holding off switching to Jellyfin for a while because I paid for a Plex pass, but I'm getting to the point where that's not going to stop me from swapping.

[-] MrQuallzin@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

You can always run both at the same time and see which works better

[-] dmention7@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago

Or just run both, period!

Plex is definitely more straightforward to maintain remote access to your content (including library sharing with friends & family). So it may be worth keeping up for that aspect alone, even if you end up liking Jellyfin better.

[-] Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 year ago

All I need to do now is actually remember to set Jellyfin up 🙈

[-] Codilingus@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 year ago

+1 Jellyfin is the best!

[-] kometes@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

Jellyfin is your friend...

[-] Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 1 year ago
[-] Treedrake@fedia.io 3 points 1 year ago

I'd recommend running Jellyfin server but using Kodi as your frontend, best of both worlds, especially if you use subtitles as subtitles still work really poorly on Jellyfin

[-] Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 year ago

I used to run Kodi, but I moved away from it a few years ago. I can't remember why off the top of my head, so I'll have to look into it and see what turned me off it.

[-] Treedrake@fedia.io 3 points 1 year ago

It's definitely not as lightweight, but as I rely on subtitles a lot I have to run most stuff through Kodi unfortunately. I find it to work quite well though with the Jellyfin add-on. I don't know if it's because the development of Jellyfin is mostly done in the US, who often dislike subtitles, but this has been an ongoing issue for years at this point.

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[-] charade_you_are@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago

There's also a client called Jellyfin Media Player that works pretty well. I tried Kodi one time and really couldn't stand it. Felt so cluttered and clunky to me.

[-] Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 year ago

I hadn't heard of that. I'll check it out, thanks :)

[-] donuts@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

It's just taken me 55 minutes to watch a 35 minute episode

This happens to people who watch shows on cable TV, where episodes or movies are padded with ad breaks.

So I guess the silver lining is: at least you didn't have to watch any ads.

[-] Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 year ago
[-] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 year ago

I watch free OTA channels on Jellyfin. (HDhomerun)

[-] Kit@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 1 year ago

I've been using Plex hosted on a Mac Mini for years, multiple hours every day, and have never had issues like this. I hope you're able to figure it out.

[-] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I've been using Jellyfin with no issues. It has been mostly rock solid for years.

It does have issues from time to time but I think the community is much healthier. Also you can always report it upstream and or dig into the code.

[-] Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 year ago

You might be slightly overestimating my coding abilities 😁

[-] adarza@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 year ago

similar issues with other titles or just that one file?

[-] Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 year ago

I just watched an episode of a different show, and while it didn't completely crash, it still stuttered and paused randomly.

I know it's not the server itself, as it's handling more intense tasks regularly with no issues, and the network works on every other device too. I stream higher quality with higher bit rates to the fire stick regularly too, with no issues.

[-] CmdrShepard42@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

It could be the specific audio or video codecs of those files causing the stuttering issues. I've always seemed to have trouble with EAC3 audio even after 6 or 7 years and a multitude of updates and different hardware.

[-] Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 year ago

That's a good point. I'll check the file and see if there's anything unusual compared to the others 🙂

[-] MentallyExhausted@reddthat.com 2 points 1 year ago

Just solved an issue with transcoding where I had to delete the codec. It redownloads on server launch so was an easy fix.

[-] Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 year ago

I'll give that a try, thanks :)

[-] deranger@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago

Can’t say I’ve experienced this myself. Are you transcoding? That’s the only time I have some issues with rewinding. Figure out why you’re not direct playing. There’s no buffering or issues with seeking if you’re direct playing. Jellyfin won’t really help in this circumstance.

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[-] Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 1 year ago

I haven't had issues this bad, but Plex has been buffering a lot more lately. If moving to Jellyfin didn't involve new hardware for me, I would have already jumped ship.

[-] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 year ago

Why would Jellyfin need new hardware?

[-] Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 1 year ago

I run plex on a synology nas whose kernel is too out of date for hardware accelerated transcoding in Jellyfin.

[-] trd@feddit.nu 2 points 1 year ago

I recently went from synology video to Jellyfin cause the last update on synology dont support the video hosting anymore. I run a syn 920. And its sweet only issue so far have been able to use jellyfin to cast to Chromecast.

[-] Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 year ago

It's been about a year since I tried it, so it's probably worth another. Back then it did OK if I was doing straight passthrough (though CPU load was noticeably higher) but I got a lot of buffering when I'd try to have it transcode anything.

I host quite a few things on it (via docker) so the 920 is starting to show its load. I suspect that and the lack of hardware acceleration are the source of my issues.

[-] trd@feddit.nu 2 points 1 year ago

I should probably mention i did upgrade it past the supported kernel and doubled the ram, i only host pihole and bitwarden and jellyfin. But docker makes things so much easier and fun.

[-] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 year ago

Can't you just use a newer kernel?

Wouldn't this also be a significant security issue?

[-] Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

No, diskstation runs a significantly modified 2.4 kernel. They say they backport CSM mitigations/fixes into their kernel, but community pressure is growing by the year for them to update.

[-] IHawkMike@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Holy shit, I remember being excited for 2.4 because of iptables. That was over twenty years ago.

[-] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 year ago

Have you considered just installing Debian?

[-] VonReposti@feddit.dk 2 points 1 year ago

Can you elaborate on the Plex issues as of late? One of the guys I share my instance with has reported a lot of buffering that I haven't been able to reproduce.

[-] Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 year ago

Sudden buffering followed by a very long load time before it can get going again. Lowering the resolution resolves it for me.

What I'm seeing only on certain files though. And those files will always buffer again at the same point in playback. But it happens on things I watched without issue prior to my last update. So I suspect it's a problem with a specific codec, but I haven't taken the time to validate my hunch.

[-] deranger@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

It shouldn’t be buffering at all if you’re direct playing.

[-] antlion@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 year ago

Self hosting is glorious when it works, and a bit frustrating when it doesn’t. I’m using Emby, and I just finished upgrading from an arm 32-bit, to an Intel N300. It was working great until I relocated the new server to a different location. On boot the USB hard drive was just barely working but super slow. Not sure what the issue was, but it’s working after changing USB ports.

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[-] bokherif@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago
[-] Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 year ago

Nothing unusual about it, and it plays perfectly on my PC. I've tried randomly skipping backwards and forwards, but still no issues. It's a bog standard h264 mkv file too, so nothing that would need to be transcoded

[-] rc__buggy@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Plex app is such garbage on my old firestick and Samsung TV now. Used to work fine, no more.

I just bought an Informir MAG 544 set top box. Runs linux, not android. Haven't set it up yet, I have high hopes. If it does work well I'll probably ditch plex for Jellyfin.

[-] Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 year ago

I'm tempted to get a different box for the TV, but everything else runs perfectly. I've been looking into switching to Jellyfin too, but I've been trying out Stremio for a little while, and it works much better than Plex. It's missing a few features like easy user switching, and it can't organise and play my family videos as far as I know, but it would mean not having to store loads of media.

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this post was submitted on 05 Nov 2024
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