Nvidia Shield TV - Sound drops out over Ethernet, other options?

ssmacc · 16 Dec 2019 at 12:26

Hello,

I've got a couple of Nvidia Shield TV's (2015 versions) and love them! Use them as the hub of my HTPC and they have been brilliant...until...I upgraded my AV AMP and Projector, I've now started watching 4k HDR ATMOS films, there is a known bug that means the sound drops out randomly over Ethernet (solid gigabyte connection), bizarrely WiFi doesn't suffer from this but the WiFi connection is not always solid enough for 4k.

Any replacements up to the job? I require ATMOS and HDR 4k (narrows down the list a fair bit) to make it more exclusive I'd like the device to be a PLEX server as well...this almost narrows it down to Nvidia Shield TV! On that note does anyone know if the Nvidia Shield TV 2019 version has resolved this issue (I've read the problem persists with the Nvidia Shield TV 2017 but struggling to find if the problem is fixed with the 2019...

Any other box's up to the job?

pioneer2000 · 16 Dec 2019 at 13:42

I'd keep the Shield and improve your wifi. Mine has not skipped a beat since switching from gigabit to wifi, with 4K HDR streaming.

hyperseven · 16 Dec 2019 at 13:48

Which player are you using or is it in them all?

ssmacc · 16 Dec 2019 at 14:27

pioneer2000 said:
I'd keep the Shield and improve your wifi. Mine has not skipped a beat since switching from gigabit to wifi, with 4K HDR streaming.

To be fair the WiFi is pretty good, it can drop though...such a strange issue must be a hardware problem or I'm sure it'd be fixed
(reassuring you've had the same issue and found the same "fix")

hyperseven said:
Which player are you using or is it in them all?

Seem's to be them all!

Guess there is no other choice for what I want and as I say I'm very happy with it other than that...to think it's from 2015 and still almost top of the tree is amazing, great little box.

Puzzled · 17 Dec 2019 at 17:28

Have they not fixed this yet or is this the issue with the latest update that people moaning about causing audio drop outs?

I used to get it on 1080p content but they either fixed something or it coincided with me removing a device from the network that was limiting the switch to 100mbps as HD audio has been fine for over a year now.

Tbh I was hoping to just leave mine until all the issues with the latest update had been sorted but now netflix has stopped working and the fix is to update to 8 :mad:

b00merang69 · 17 Dec 2019 at 17:33

Ideally you want wired and should not need use WIFI due to a bug, I have not heard of this as not my type of use for my Shield but if it is on their forum it will have been looked into and I would hope fixed if fixable.

pioneer2000 · 17 Dec 2019 at 17:37

b00merang69 said:
Ideally you want wired and should not need use WIFI due to a bug, I have not heard of this as not my type of use for my Shield but if it is on their forum it will have been looked into and I would hope fixed if fixable.

It’s been a fault for ages. Nvidia seem uninterested in fixing it.

I don’t get the problem with wireless, can get a good 600/700mbps transfer over Wi-Fi to the Shield, which is plenty.

b00merang69 · 17 Dec 2019 at 17:42

I searched their forum (the new layout is a mess) and only found 2 results and they were gaming with no sound over wire but sound on WIFI and very little feedback from others and none official from Nvidia's which is strange as they normally are good with support on forum (I think one the issues was down to his own settings on other hardware).

ssmacc · 19 Dec 2019 at 12:45

Pretty sure the underlying problem is over Lan only.

Last night I had the “Your connection to the server is not fast enough to stream this video” message, only briefly (on WiFi)...

I must be doing something wrong as the server is the shield, my set up:

ASUS RT-AC86U router.

Nvidia Shield TV > PC (server) Shield Library > Back to the Shield for viewing

Over Lan I get the drop outs and over WiFi 4k can sometimes pause “Your connection to the server is not fast enough to stream this video”, Speedtest can max out my virgin BBand (375mb), is there a way I can test the speed to the PC?

Does PLEX server use the internet or intranet? I suspect it's internet and I'm having issues when my Virgin Bband "plays up" (can drop to 10mb)...

Is there a way to force the PLEX server to use the intranet?

(appreciate this is all over the place but can't explain it that well!)

Any advice appreciated!

Puzzled · 19 Dec 2019 at 16:26

You can test the network speed by using geforce experience on the host and set up gamestreaming, when you go to the very bottom of the games page on the shield you can test the connection between the shield and pc. You can also access the shield storage over the network if you turn it on so might be able to use something like LAN Speedtest for a more thorough test.

Plex server will send everything locally on the internal network, you can disable remote access if you want to test that. If you go to the dashboard on the server you can see what its doing when you play a film, should just be direct play but if its struggling to transcode then that can also cause the "connection to server isn't fast enough" messages.

Edit: To take the network out of the picture you could try setting up a test plex server on the shield itself and then see if you have any audio issues. Just plug an external HDD in or copy the file over to the internal storage if you have the pro

b00merang69 · 19 Dec 2019 at 17:10

BTW the "Not fast enough "message on Plex is a known Plex bug (I got it a lot Wired 1Gb/s), not sure if fixed as I dumped it for Emby.

barmyllama · 19 Dec 2019 at 20:57

I used to get the connection not fast enough message a lot on my Shield with a LAN connection. I traced the problem to a hard drive data transfer speed issue. Either the drive was being used by another program or it was being written to at the same time I was reading from it.

Now I have all my blu ray rips on dedicated storage drives and it's no longer a problem.

I also get occasional audio dropouts.

But that can happen when I'm using the Shield, TV's own apps, Virgin V6 box of 4k Blu Ray player. Personally I think it's the pass through on my AVR that's the problem. Since all my devices are connected to that, either directly or via ARC.

b00merang69 · 19 Dec 2019 at 21:27

I thought same as above but it was Storage Drives Raid 0 VRaptors then SSD's so not issue and Nvidia/Plex forums were full of same complaints going back years (Plex have plenty issues going back this long with no care to fix, reason I dumped them).

AFAIR Nvidia said they had identified it as Plex's end and asked them to fix it.

ssmacc · 20 Dec 2019 at 12:41

Thanks for the comments everyone, will do some more investigation, although I suspect its a bug (as pointed out) with either the Shield or PLEX itself.

Very irritating to have forked out for 4k and ATMOS only to have the sound drop out...it doesn't happen with a hard drive physically plugged in by the way.