I've factory reset my TV, reinstalled Plex, did a clean install of my MacOS 10.11.6 on a new computer, recreated the Plex libraries, a fresh start overall... I have and have had a good size collection of movies on an external USB3 drive, a newish fast computer, a new router that's zippier than the last one.
But I can't seem to get Plex to play nicely, same as before all the above. If I rewind and/or fast forward, eventually it'll just freeze and stop playing. I'll have to turn the TV off and back on to typically reset and try again. Sometimes it works. I can no longer watch a movie in "auto" mode like I used to, but now I have to select "direct streaming" to have a little better luck. I spent the last hour trying to get a movie to play.
Any ideas before I give up and throw something at this TV? Or just give up on the idea of a media server? (I don't think it's the Mac Plex media server; I have a Roku attached to another TV, not the main TV or a smart one, this time it's wireless, and it works a thousand times better - except it does have one occasionally frustrating oddity that I have to uninstall/reinstall the Plex channel to get it to recognize the server again for some unknown reason.)