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MrHeist

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MrHeist

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I'm having a rough time across the board with streaming.

For a while I've had a Mac mini hooked up to my tv running Plex. I would start by attempting to watch a show through the GB Plex plugin. This would often work, but if it wouldn't load or if the stream would keep stopping to buffer, I would quit Plex and open up safari or chrome to keep watching. If the stream would get caught in a buffer loop there, I'd do the trick of modifying my hosts file. Usually this would make things solid enough to get a couple of shows down. I'd go through some stretches where the Plex plugin would work flawlessly for weeks, then stretches where even changing the host file multiple times wouldn't avoid constant buffering.

The Mac mini started getting a bit long in the tooth, so I recently migrated to an AppleTV. I know the app there isn't official, but it runs me through the same loop only with much lower reliability against buffering. I usually start by trying to load a stream through the app. This straight up works maybe 10% of the time. Often it'll get about 2-4 minute into a show then hit a hard buffer loop where it stops, buffers for around 3 minutes to play the next 5 seconds. The rest of the time the stream either won't get past the first 5 seconds or won't load at all. When this happens, I'll usually open the site on my phone and fiddle around with AirPlay to get it playing on the tv. My success rate with that is much higher (despite the annoyance that it pretty much ties up my phone), but even so I'd wager at least half of the time it gets caught in short buffering loops (play 10 seconds, buffer 1 second), gets stuck in a low quality version of the stream, or locks up completely and won't buffer any further. Since I don't have the option of modifying the hosts with my phone or appletv, my last resort is to go unplug my modem and router for 5 minutes and try again. Add in the requisite note that the appletv is connected via ethernet, and I never have issues with HD streams from youtube, Netflix, or any other sources.

Pleease let me know if there's any additional info that would be helpful, or if there are any other tricks I should try. The constant dance to get things working has gotten pretty tiring.

Thanks!

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MrHeist

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Over the past week or so my issue seems to have sorted itself out. Haven't changed the DNS settings or anything, but there hasn't been any buffering on either long or short videos (mainly through Plex with the occasional browser play).

Of course now that I say that I'm sure the next video I try to play will go to buffering hell, but for now things are good!

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MrHeist

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I've been having a hell of a time recently with buffering as well. I'm primarily on a Mac mini running 10.12.5.

I usually start streaming in the Plex channel. For a long time this would work fine with just the very occasional buffering hiccup. As of late, pretty much every GB video has to stop and buffer multiple times. The computer is hooked up via ethernet (30Mb down), I don't have problems consistently streaming long videos on any other sites. The plex app appears to be pulling the HD progressive stream. Sometimes it will stop and buffer once then be ok for another 20 minutes or so, sometimes it will get caught in a constant loop of buffering. On a good day, the stream info says it's pulling 2-3 Mbps. When the buffering is ongoing, the stream tends to hover around 800kbps with spikes down to 200.

I've been trying to eliminate some variables. When I get caught in a buffering loop in Plex, I'll usually try quitting Plex and starting the stream from the site in Chrome. That usually preforms pretty much the same as the stream in Plex. Similar to @inspirations, it persists across Progressive and HTML5. If I switch from HD to High or Auto, there seems to be a 50% chance if the stream will play smoothly from there on out or if it will keep having buffering issues. My router is also set to use Google DNS and Open DNS.

I've done a fair amount of messing around with the hosts level DNS settings as outlined here https://www.giantbomb.com/forums/bug-reporting-33/a-fix-for-crappy-download-speeds-from-giant-bomb-1433284/

This also seems to be hit or miss. Sometimes after changing to a different DNS in the hosts file I'll go from pulling 800kbps to 3.5Mbps and be fine for multiple videos through the rest of the night. Other times it will stay just as bad or get worse. Similarly, sometimes I'll clear the hosts file so the DNS gets assigned automatically, and sometimes that'll work, sometimes it won't. I've been running 'giantbomb-pdl.akamaized.net' through whatsmydns to get a replacement instead of 'v.giantbomb.com' or 'hdv.giantbomb.com', since that's what both Plex and chrome report the progressive streams as connecting through. That seems to give me slightly better luck, though it's still an overall crapshoot.

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MrHeist

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Aw heck, why not?

My code is 978-334-153

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MrHeist

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@frobie: That's fantastic! Thanks for looking in to it

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MrHeist

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No subscriber videos and no settings here either

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MrHeist

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MrHeist

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I don't know if this exactly falls under the purview of this post, but the plex video app hasn't been playing subscriber videos for a while, and is acting a bit funky with regular videos. I put a slightly more detailed writeup of the issue here

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MrHeist

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#9  Edited By MrHeist

Still can't play subscriber videos in Plex. Any word on an update?

Thanks!

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MrHeist

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I've been having issues over the past week or so. When I select any video, instead of immediately playing as it usually does, it pops up an intermediate screen that asks what resolution I want to play. I select one and it plays as usual. Not too big a deal, but if I select a premium stream, the same menu pops up, then throws up an error message and refuses to play.

The resolution menu is the same option that pops up elsewhere in Plex when I play something from youtube, so my guess is that it's not recognizing premium status, hence trying to play the videos from youtube instead of GB's player as well as not allowing premium streams.

I tried re-linking my account to no avail, and tried the full uninstall and reinstall of the channel, but still no luck.

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