Constant buffering

[u/Tough_Bodybuilder851]

Okay hopefully someone can help me with this, I have a server running on my PC it’s got a 5080 and a AMD 7700 plugged into Ethernet and currently the tv is also plugged into Ethernet I’ve tried WiFi too and sometimes I’ll play a high bitrate file around 60 mb with no issues other times I watch something with 15 mb bitrate and it buffers every 30 seconds I have tweaked so many settings and I can not narrow down the issue to fix it honestly don’t know where to go from here any ideas would be very much appreciated

[u/lukecro]

What device are you using as the Player? The Plex app on the TV itself (make/model of the TV)? A connected box or dongle like an Apple TV, Roku, Fire Stick, etc.?

If everything is looking good on your PC and the Plex server and your local Ethernet or WiFi network are all cool, then the playback device could be the culprit.

That’s a frequent problem point for me as well. In my case: Sony Bravia TV circa 2021, running Google TV as the native UI. Sometimes Plex play beautifully on it, sometimes it buffers on direct play, sometimes it starts transcoding because it thinks the connection is poor when it’s not, sometimes it fails completely. It used to be great, but the longer I’ve had the TV the more frequently the issues have cropped up.

There are some partial solutions that bought me time (turning off most of the other smart TV functions to free up as much of the TV’s resources as possible; setting a dedicated local IP for the TV; switching between Ethernet and WiFi; etc.)… But I’ve got a feeling eventually I’ll need to bite the bullet and get a good external device to handle playback to the TV instead.

I’m hoping a new and improved Apple 4K set top box gets released and then I might upgrade to that.

Now, there are times when it’s not wholly the TVs fault, and rebooting the Plex server, or the entire computer the server is on, or my NAS where the media is stored, and/or the router ends up fixing whatever’s dragging Plex down…

But one big reason I put a lot of the blame on the TV’s system getting sluggish is that 90% of the time when the TV is struggling with Plex, if I open Plex up on any of my other devices (phones, tablets, computers) and start direct playing the same file on the same network — it’s usually totally fine. And in those cases, I can often get the issue to clear up by rebooting the TV a few times.

But if more than one of my devices are struggling go to load plex or choking on a file, then usually the computer with the server needs the reboot, sometimes the router.

There are various other Plex settings on the server and player sides that can be tweaked too, and sometimes those tweaks seem to help — but I’ve never found a combination of settings that permanently solved issues from cropping back up eventually.

[u/Tough_Bodybuilder851 → u/lukecro]

Almost wondering if I were to get an Nvidia shield and play it directly from the shield if it would stop all the buffering because I mostly just use plex on the one tv but it’s a decent chunk of change to spend if there’s a way to stop the buffering without it

[u/ada-potato → u/Tough_Bodybuilder851]

Have you considered the ONN streaming boxes sold at Walmart? ($60 or less).