I have a Series 8 Samsung Smart TV and have been using Plex, connected to Plex Server on my Synology Diskstation, for a couple of years now, largely without issue.
Recently, Plex has become near-unusable on the Smart Hub for us. I have no idea what caused the problem or how to fix it.
The problem:
Suppose I start with a clean install of Plex on Smart Hub. It will ask me to sign in using the PIN. Upon signing in, it will fail to find a Plex server, even though all my other devices (Nexus 5, Nexus 7, Nexus 10, Samsung Galaxy Note 4, and all our Windows computers) have no issue connecting from the local network, or even remotely.
If, after signing in, I exit Plex and go back into it (regardless whether I just exit the app, exit Smart Hub, or power cycle the TV), it will sit there forever with "PLEX" in the middle of the screen and the 3 orange squares up the top left to show it's doing something. I have left this for literally an hour, and it never gets past this point. Moreover, this will happen every subsequent time I open Plex on Smart Hub. The only way to get around it, since there's no way to clear an app's data/cache in Smart Hub like in Android, is to uninstall and reinstall Plex. I've done this more times than I care to remember.
If, after a clean install, I decide not to sign in with my PlexPass account using the PIN, and instead press the red (?) button to go home and then add a PMS manually, all appears to be good. I get taken back to a somewhat blank screen and I have to press the yellow (?) button to connect to one of the added PMSs. There is is: "Plex" in the list. I press OK, and after 3 or 4 seconds it tells me the server "did not respond in a timely manner". It takes between 5 and 20 tries, but eventually it connects. Most of the time when it comes up with the error message, the icon next to the "Plex" entry in the server list is a magnifying glass, and most of the time when it successfully connects it's a green tick. Most of the time, but not always; sometimes it connects with the magnifying glass and sometimes fails after the green tick.
A minor problem after eventually connecting is the left panel, where it would normally have the list of categories, is just not there at all: I only have the right 2/3 of the screen with "On Deck" and "Recently Added", although the focus is on the invisible left panel. If I press up/down then it will cycle between the various categories, I just can't actually see the menu. Once I fully go into any section and then return back to the main screen, the left panel is then there again. This happens every time I successfully connect, clean install or not.
I can watch some things through Samsung Link (or whatever it's called now), but some media files simply refuse to play. The same story goes for Chromecast via Plex on the phones/tablets: sometimes it says a particular media file "cannot be played" even though the Smart Hub app will play it fine (This is a problem I've always had since day one).
So thise are the problems. Here's what I've done to try and fix them:
- I've obviously tried reinstalling Plex on Smart Hub several times, tried signing in to my PlexPass account several times, tried adding PMS manually, etc.
- I've reinstalled Plex on the NAS.
- I've signed out of my PlexPass account from Plex Server on the NAS and signed in again.
- I've signed out all signed-in devices using the Plex Server web interface, and signed them all back in one-by-one.
Basically, nothing has helped. Plex on all our other devices (Android/Windows) work perfectly but continues to be a problem with Smart Hub.
My wife is on maternity leave as of this week and I'm copping a lot of heat for not having our system working as it once used to. Any help in fixing these problems would be greatly appreciated!
Submitted by Ozzah Samsung Galaxy Note 5 Gsmarena
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