Having major problems with plex since open PHT has gone.

[Talostan72]

Since the Open PHT app disappeared and now you have to use the plex media player app I've been having dreadful problems with playback. I have a AS6204T which in the days of Kodi and open PHT played all my movies across ethernet and HDMI. Now that I am using the player the playback is stuttering continuously and the moves are frankly unwatchable. If I go through plex on my pc (on the same network via ethernet) I get seamless playback with no issues. I am at a complete loss. Very disappointed as its the Christmas holidays and the kids want to watch stuff on the NAS. Please help! Thanks in advance.

Ps. I have uninstalled all the plex apps, remote to no avail......

[orion]

You can still get KODI here:
viewtopic.php?f=98&t=9979
viewtopic.php?f=98&t=10451&p=33789#p33789

[Talostan72]

thankyou so much. I will try this out over the holidays, kids can have Netflix!

[sloth0815]

Hi there,
Same here. Initially happy about Plex Media Player being available on Asustor, that joy was extremely short-lived and turned into frustration as it turns out that a) the video playback is unwatchable because of some kind of stutter, b) after a reboot Plex Media Player does not seem to start properly (I cannot connect select it as player on my iPhone), c) when I restart Plex Media Player and see its content on the screen it flickers extremely when I navigate, and d) any attempt to play music or videos fails. This app seems to be really flawed. Even if I turn it off via AppCentral it starts up again (at least I see it starting on the screen but I cannot navigate within it).
As OpenPHT is not available anymore I am having a major issue because I purchased this NAS as a media server AND player. It is advertised as supporting Plex but currently is not. I would be really grateful for any help.
I have an AS6404T.

Best,
Jonas

[father.mande]

Hi,

Plex Media Player always exist using myHD APKG then MHxx-PMP companion APKG for myHD
... this version use Xorg and Asportal from Asustor BUT not all client libraries ... in fact use a standard Ubuntu 18.04 L.T.S. libraries (ex. VA-API 2.1) with support of all libraries for sound ...

myHD is available in the forum
MH18-pmp (2.42 .. 18 is for 18.04) also but you can directly install them from myHD web store
... Web store provide other applications (Kodi17 / 18 / 19), updated Chrome, etc.

This version can't bypass limit of the hardware itself ... but can help you to know the hardware capabilities to don't dream things not really available .

Philippe.

[Talostan72]

Many thanks Philippe

[Ubuntux]

In my setup i use chromecast ultra with Plex Media Server and its casting flawless here

I bought the AS-604T in 2015 and its still doing a good job and getting updates!

My setup is because i dont want a NAS in the livingroom and when i started i used raspberry pi with OpenELEC and then LibreELEC, but the raspberry pies kept failing and had to be setup on new so i eneded up with chromecast.. seems to work and using my Android phone as remote

[BigErn]

I don't know if you are having the same issues, but I was having horribly choppy video playback on relatively low quality files like old cartoon rip .avi files and also newer 720p and 1080p .mkv files. I figured out the problems are solved by - this section of the original post removed, see the paragraph below for a better solution.

Apparently the issue I'm describing is caused by Intel HD driver incompatibility. I found some discussions about this on the Plex forums under the Asustor section. There is a thread with a specially configured Plex download that will correct the hardware issue or you can solve it yourself using SSH. Login to your console as admin and then go to this directory /volume1/.@plugins/AppCentral/plexmediaserver/lib/dri and type:
mv iHD_drv_video.so iHD_drv_video.bak
This will rename the Intel HD driver that is causing the problem. Plex can still get to the hardware transcoding capability using VAAPI after you do this. Then you can use the "Use hardware-accelerated video encoding" setting and it will work again the way it used to before some Plex update around Dec. 2019 caused the as yet unfixed incompatibility. Note you will have to repeat this process every time you upgrade the Plex version.

[Nazar78]

I don't know if you are having the same issues, but I was having horribly choppy video playback on relatively low quality files like old cartoon rip .avi files and also newer 720p and 1080p .mkv files. I figured out the problems are solved by going into the Plex transcoder settings. For some reason if you have the "Use hardware acceleration when available" and "Use hardware-accelerated video encoding" boxes both checked the playback is terrible. I can hear the audio but the video is totally garbled and choppy. However if you uncheck the "Use hardware-accelerated video encoding" box and leave the "Use hardware acceleration when available" checked playback is good on all kinds of different movies with different qualities and kinds of audio tracks. My home PC and other devices I have used all work fine with both boxes checked but it is definitely something with this box. I am using the 5304T. Also I think leaving the transcoder quality set to automatic helps. Putting it on "make my CPU hurt" also seemed to cause playback issues. I also noticed that if you make any other changes that cause it to transcode the audio differently like the Multichannel audio boost under the player settings that caused issues also. Hope this is helpful for you.

Hardware decoding is ok but apparently the AS5304T is not powerful enough for hardware encoding even for one transcoding job let alone doing both decoding and encoding for a specific stream. Hence transcoding without hardware encoding acceleration will result in a very high CPU usage also rise in temperature especially for FHDs and worst 4Ks. I've tried my best to have it in direct play.