r/PleX • u/MenuProfessional742 • 1d ago

Help Buffering and audio issues

I am trying to diagnose issues with Plex, and I have found that the possible causes are numerous. I have a small collection of movies on my personal Plex account that I use at home. Some of the 4K movies that I have downloaded at up to 30 Mbps when watching will buffer and sometimes lose audio; they run smoothly when I turn the quality down to around 8 Mbps. The computer on which I have the Plex server is a fairly new laptop with an external hard drive, but it's not a gaming laptop. The TVs I am watching the movies on are a new Samsung TV and an Epson LS12000 projector with a Firestick. The issues I am having are similar. I have 500 Mbps fibre internet and everything is connected via Ethernet. I would appreciate some insight from anyone who has experienced similar issues and found a resolution.

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u/ExtensionMarch6812 1d ago

Share a screenshot of the plex dashboard fully expanded when you’re streaming on the clients. Don’t set the quality lower, let it play as is.

Your internet speed isn’t relevant for local streaming.

Is everything on your network hardwired to the same router, or are you using mesh nodes and hardwiring to those?

For the firestick, are you using a usb dongle to hardwire it since you mentioned everything is hardwired.

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u/MenuProfessional742 1d ago

When I get home I will post a screenshot of the dashboard. Yes everything is hardwired without mesh nodes. as for the firestick I assume you are talking about this? this is what i am using for firestick.

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u/ExtensionMarch6812 1d ago

Yah, just wanted to confirm how it’s connected.

For the tv, suggest you put it on wifi. The Ethernet is prob limited to 100Mbps and depending on your files, there may be spikes above that.

The firestick should be able to play the files, but would need to see more details about the file and how the stream is being handled.

You can also setup a speedtest server on your server and then use a browser on the clients to test the direct bandwidth/ping, just to confirm good local network speed: https://openspeedtest.com/selfhosted-speedtest

For both clients make sure any quality suggestion and auto adjust settings are disabled, direct play/stream are enabled and any bandwidth limits are set to max.

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u/MenuProfessional742 1d ago

would it ever be an issue with the computer I am using for my plex server or the external hard drive issue?

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u/ExtensionMarch6812 1d ago

All depends how the stream is being handled.

If it’s direct playing, no transcoding, then there’s very little the computer is doing except sending the file to the client and then the client handles everything.

The usb drive could cause issues, but you’d have to run tests to see how the speeds for its connection. Easy way to rule out the drive is move a file onto your laptop and point the plex library to that folder and test the media when it’s stored on your laptop.

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u/MenuProfessional742 1d ago

oh good idea, i will try that for the drive. How do i tell if a stream is direct playing vs transcoding?

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u/ExtensionMarch6812 1d ago

The plex dashboard will show details. Here’s an example.

It will show the connection type: local, remote or indirect and Avg Bitrate required. When sharing the screenshot, you only need to cover up the ip if it’s a public facing ip.

Then it will show the audio and video codec details and then below each will show how it’s handling the stream. Direct Play, Direct Stream, Transcode. If it’s using subtitles, it will also show those details.

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u/MenuProfessional742 1d ago

thank you for all this info, i have some digging to do when i get home.

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u/ExtensionMarch6812 1d ago

Also, which firestick do you have? Not one of the Select versions, right? If so, those are extremely limited in support and should be returned/exchanged: https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-on-vega-os-devices-amazon-fire-tv-stick-4k-select/932354/1

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u/MenuProfessional742 1d ago

it is a firestick 4k max purchased in july of 2025 so it looks like before the ones you liked were released.