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One Specific Movie Freezing on Plex Server

Apr 4, 2024#1

ThatNickGuy

Awhile ago, I went through a spree of watching old Godzilla movies. I downloaded all the Heisei era uploaded them to my Plex server. I had zero problems with them.

But as I was watching Godzilla vs Mothra (1992), I noticed it consistently froze at a specific time stamp: around 27:00 minutes. It's at a scene where some fighter jets are taking off. I tested it on my Smart TV and on my PS5, with similar results. Although, it actually played past the 27 minute mark on the PS5, then froze inconsistently past that. I could fast forward past the freeze, but then it would freeze again a few minutes later.

I'm watching it on PC now and so far, it's not freezing. So I'll finish up here, even though I'd prefer to watch it from my couch.

But has anyone else experienced that? I haven't noticed this occur with any other videos on my server, neither movie nor TV show. It's just specifically this movie and it consistently froze via my smart TV Plex app.

@GasBandit, I believe you have access to my server. When you have a moment, could test this out? Maybe fast forward to that time stamp and see if it happens?

EDIT: I could give others access to my Plex server if they want to test it, too.

Apr 4, 2024#2

GasBandit

ThatNickGuy said:
Awhile ago, I went through a spree of watching old Godzilla movies. I downloaded all the Heisei era uploaded them to my Plex server. I had zero problems with them.

But as I was watching Godzilla vs Mothra (1992), I noticed it consistently froze at a specific time stamp: around 27:00 minutes. It's at a scene where some fighter jets are taking off. I tested it on my Smart TV and on my PS5, with similar results. Although, it actually played past the 27 minute mark on the PS5, then froze inconsistently past that. I could fast forward past the freeze, but then it would freeze again a few minutes later.

I'm watching it on PC now and so far, it's not freezing. So I'll finish up here, even though I'd prefer to watch it from my couch.

But has anyone else experienced that? I haven't noticed this occur with any other videos on my server, neither movie nor TV show. It's just specifically this movie and it consistently froze via my smart TV Plex app.

@GasBandit, I believe you have access to my server. When you have a moment, could test this out? Maybe fast forward to that time stamp and see if it happens?

EDIT: I could give others access to my Plex server if they want to test it, too.

For me, it seems to actually lock up a little earlier than that at the frame below at 26:53

I've noticed that Plex's codec isn't as resilient as many other PC players, especially VLC or MPC. So a minor glitch in the encoding that a more fully featured PC video player would just skip over can sometimes cause a plex playback to hang. This has happened to me 2 or 3 times (mostly in old SD porn encoded by amateurs back in the wild wild west days of broadband before everything standardized on H.264).

Fortunately in your case, I was able to get past both it and the "planes taking off" scene immediately after by changing the quality to the 2mb/s 720 transcode quality setting. I don't know if your smart TV or PS5 have that option in their plex clients, but I guess the server-side transcoder is more able to handle the glitch.

Apr 4, 2024#3

ThatNickGuy

GasBandit said:
For me, it seems to actually lock up a little earlier than that at the frame below at 26:53

View attachment 47741

I've noticed that Plex's codec isn't as resilient as many other PC players, especially VLC or MPC. So a minor glitch in the encoding that a more fully featured PC video player would just skip over can sometimes cause a plex playback to hang. This has happened to me 2 or 3 times (mostly in old SD porn encoded by amateurs back in the wild wild west days of broadband before everything standardized on H.264).

Fortunately in your case, I was able to get past both it and the "planes taking off" scene immediately after by changing the quality to the 2mb/s 720 transcode quality setting. I don't know if your smart TV or PS5 have that option in their plex clients, but I guess the server-side transcoder is more able to handle the glitch.

It's a little gratifying to see you get a similar glitch roughly close to the same spot. I thought it was just me until I tested it on the PS5 app, as well. I THINK the app lets me play with quality setting. To what extent, I'm not sure. If I encounter the issue again, I'll try something like that.

I was able to finish watching it tonight through the web version of Plex on Chrome and didn't encounter a single freeze or skip.

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