Another Sunday - another broken unstable piece of crap

Plex Media Server
1

I really am getting sick and tired of this. Free is no excuse for the complete and utter lack of care that has gone into programming this - this plain and simple is unstable barely useable crap that rarely works right and usually wastes my valuable and infrequent spare time that I actually have to watch a little TV, instead trying to make this work somewhat.

My file server is online. My files are there. They play fine when I browse out directly to them. I can see them, my computer can see them, my network can see them
WHY DOES PLEX INSIST ON PRETENDING STUFF THAT EXISTS DOESN’T EXIST!!! IT’S RIGHT THERE!!!

Ok - so I restarted a few things, and if I open a browser window to app.plex.tv ,now it plays my content. But - my fire cube doesn’t. I’ve restarted the cube, relaunched the plex app - it lets me browse to the files. The server sees the content - plex plays it from m ybrowser, the app sees all the content and lets me press play
but then it spins and spins and spins and says “Error An error occurred while attempting to play this video. Please check your connection and try again.”

MY CONNECTION IS FINE!!! IT SEES THE SERVER, IT SEES MY CONTENT, THE CONTENT PLAYS FINE FROM A BROWSER
WHY FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WILL IT PRETEND LIKE IT’S NOT THERE NOW WHEN I TRY TO DO IT FROM THE FIRE CUBE APP???\

I’ve had it with this ■■■■!!! Somebody over there needs to actually program a damn app that actually works for once!!!

Server Version#:
Player Version#:

2

I have determined the app doesn’t work on multiple devices - other fire devices, and my android phone. This suggests the problem is yet again with the damn server app that you can’t seem to program a stable version of.

Why would it work in a browser on a computer on the network, but not work from an app? It was working yesterday
but today randomly broke - this seems to happen every weekend I have a bit of free time to try and watch some TV.

For the love of God, I just want SOMETHING THAT ACTUALLY WORKS!!! IS THAT SO MUCH TO ASK FOR???

3

I don’t want to jump to a conclusion
 however those posts seem to be more of a rant than a request for support from the community.

If you want others to help, I suggest you include some details about the issues you experience and about your setup (e.g. server/client versions, connection details
).
Based on what I can tell/see it seems you’re on a Linux platform and it appears you’ve had some permission issues.

In anyway
 please mind the forum guidelines. They’re quite helpful to enable a constructive discussion/conversation.

11

I’ve provided all the details I have. I don’t see how there could be a permissions issue - the files are all accessible from all my computers, the plex app was playing files yesterday without issue, I’ve done nothing to change any permissions, and now no apps will play any files.

In all the years I’ve tried to use plex, everytime I attempt to make use of it regularly, it always fails. It’s the one thing plex can do consistently - break.

Not sure what more details I can provide here. It’s the same server and such I’ve had for years - setup open media vault with a plex server with online instructions - everything else openmediavault does works fine, plex is the only thing that keeps breaking on it. Other apps such as kodi access everything fine without issue. Not plex. I just want a simple program that just works for easy access of playback from my devices - I really kinda wish that plex would just disappear so that maybe someone that knows what they’re doing would build a similar thing that actually works right.

12

Would it be possible to obtain a set of log files which capture one of the failures you see?

Anything with a known failure in it is a good place to start.

The best log files to give me are:

  1. Settings - Server - General - Show Advanced
  2. Make sure DEBUG is checked, VERBOSE is not checked
  3. Click SAVE if either gets changed.
  4. Now play something on any any of the players.
  5. When done,
  6. Settings - Server - Troubleshooting - Download Logs
  7. Attach that ZIP file.

While I know it’s not addressing anything with the players but it is good to know if the server is right or maybe the root of all the evils.

13

Plex Media Server Logs_2021-06-28_18-17-57.zip (5.4 MB)
Logs are attached.

14

Thank you.

I see some serious stuff going on. I now fully understand why you’re upset.

Determines what to do (transcode); expect transcoder to start (not shown due to logging setting ? ), PMS attempts to play the first block of the file and gets “404” (Not found)

Jun 28, 2021 18:17:12.812 [0x7fc5effff700] DEBUG - Auth: authenticated user 1 as armyofquad
Jun 28, 2021 18:17:12.818 [0x7fc5effff700] DEBUG - We're going to try to auto-select an audio stream for account 1.
Jun 28, 2021 18:17:12.819 [0x7fc5effff700] DEBUG - Selecting best audio stream for part ID 76719 (autoselect: 0 language: en)
Jun 28, 2021 18:17:12.819 [0x7fc5effff700] DEBUG - Audio Stream: 153836, Subtitle Stream: -1
Jun 28, 2021 18:17:12.820 [0x7fc5effff700] DEBUG - MDE: Selected protocol hls; container: mkv
Jun 28, 2021 18:17:12.820 [0x7fc5effff700] DEBUG - MDE: analyzing media item 75681
Jun 28, 2021 18:17:12.820 [0x7fc5effff700] DEBUG - MDE: E2 - We Can't Help It, We're Men: Direct Play is disabled
Jun 28, 2021 18:17:12.820 [0x7fc5effff700] DEBUG - MDE: E2 - We Can't Help It, We're Men: media must be transcoded in order to use the hls protocol
Jun 28, 2021 18:17:12.820 [0x7fc5effff700] DEBUG - MDE: E2 - We Can't Help It, We're Men: no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/mpeg2video
Jun 28, 2021 18:17:12.820 [0x7fc5effff700] DEBUG - MDE: E2 - We Can't Help It, We're Men: no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/mpeg2video/ac3
Jun 28, 2021 18:17:12.820 [0x7fc5effff700] DEBUG - MDE: The Red Green Show - E2 - We Can't Help It, We're Men: selected media 0 / 75681
Jun 28, 2021 18:17:12.820 [0x7fc5effff700] DEBUG - Streaming Resource: Reached Decision id=79987 codes=(General=1001,Direct play not available; Conversion OK. Direct Play=3000,App cannot direct play this item. Direct play is disabled. Transcode=1001,Direct play not available; Conversion OK.) media=(id=75681 part=(id=76719 decision=transcode container=mkv protocol=hls streams=(Video=(id=153835 decision=copy width=720 height=480) Audio=(id=153836 decision=copy channels=2 rate=48000))))
Jun 28, 2021 18:17:12.822 [0x7fc66ffff700] DEBUG - Completed: [192.168.0.192:41430] 200 GET /video/:/transcode/universal/decision?audioBoost=100&autoAdjustQuality=0&directPlay=0&directStream=1&directStreamAudio=1&fastSeek=1&hasMDE=1&location=lan&maxVideoBitrate=200000&mediaBufferSize=209664&mediaIndex=0&partIndex=0&path=%2Flibrary%2Fmetadata%2F79987&protocol=*&session=25cb46cb78f9c9a7-com-plexapp-android&subtitleSize=100&videoBitrate=200000&videoQuality=100&videoResolution=3840x2160 (13 live) TLS GZIP 11ms 1405 bytes (pipelined: 16)
Jun 28, 2021 18:17:20.339 [0x7fc66ffff700] DEBUG - Auth: authenticated user 1 as armyofquad

What I also see –

Jun 28, 2021 18:17:27.090 [0x7fc66f7fe700] DEBUG - WebSocket: client initiated close
Jun 28, 2021 18:17:27.091 [0x7fc66ffff700] DEBUG - NotificationStream: Removing because of close
Jun 28, 2021 18:17:27.093 [0x7fc66f7fe700] DEBUG - handleStreamRead code 2: End of file
Jun 28, 2021 18:17:27.093 [0x7fc66f7fe700] DEBUG - Completed after connection close: [192.168.0.192:41411] -3 GET /:/websockets/notifications (13 live) TLS GZIP 41158ms 2194 byte

Which player were you using?

About your installation –
Where is /config ? Local drive or network mount ?
Where is the transcoder temporary directory ? /dev/shm, local drive, or network mount ?

1 Like
15

I was using my fire cube to try and playback the file.

What I don’t understand is what changed - why did it work before, but not now?

I’m not sure about the specific configurations you’re asking about.

I setup an openmediavault server to hold all my media a while back. At some point, I read about the ability to configure it to be a plex server, so instead of relying on my desktop to be the server, the server would be the server, and then I wouldn’t have to leave my desktop on overnight if I want to watch stuff on a stick on the bedroom tv. So I followed an online guide that configured it, and it works until it doesn’t - usually a Sunday night. Usually resetting a few things gets it going again
but it seems to be a pretty crap setup, so hopefully we can get some fixes in place here.

I think I used a guide like this to do the setup - not sure if this is the same guide or not, but this looks like the setup process I went through How To Install Plex on OpenMediaVault 5 - DB Tech

Hopefully that offers enough insight to perhaps give you an idea of where the configuration things you asking about are, or to point me in the direction to check some things.

16

I did find when poking around the Portainer, where the stuff was created for a plex server, it referred to different paths, including this one
/srv/dev-disk-by-label-Storage/Config/Plex /config

That path does exist on my server itself, so it seems the /config is on a local drive. But portainer is programmed to point to a path on the local drive.

I still don’t understand why it works one day, and then days later keeps breaking. If it works
shouldn’t it keep working? Something is screwy with plex - it should work in a way that once it works, it just keeps working, and nothing comes in and screws with things to break it. I’ve used a lot of software
but nothing this screwy. I haven’t had a worse experience with computers since my college days when I was forced to use macs against my will - those pieces of crap couldn’t even turn on or off properly, not sure if Apple ever figured out how to manufacture a proper on/off button that doesn’t get stuck, but man, first generation iMacs were crap.

17

Thanks.

OpenMediaVault is outside my experience but I will try to setup a minimal server to see if I can replicate what you’re seeing.

My fear is that an update in OMV, or the container distribution (is it from LinuxServer.io or Plex official ?) has changed something in the underpinnings.

Let’s see what we can find out.

Plex, for the vast majority of folks is 100% stable. My challenge & charge is to find out why it’s not for you and then solve if at all possible.

1 Like
18

Which OMV version are you using 5.5.11 or 6.0 ?

19

5.5.3-1 (Usul)

20

it is offering me 5.5.11 or 6.0

I’m attempting to setup 5.5.11 in vmware.

Install went ok.
Unable to find updates at deb.debian.org.

Looking like a DNS issue. working on it now

21

OH MAN!!!

This is painful !

I have OMV, Portainer, and Docker installed.
The RAID volume is up as is the main volume.

The instructions listed on the web pages do not match the software
5.6.11 (Usul)

Ok Doc, You drive the bus.

How do I pull from Docker and create the container?

What’s next ?

Sincerely yours,
Clueless in Pa.

:rofl:

22

I suppose the real problem is I don’t remember the full path I took to get to this point. I didn’t quite plan this.

I had an old POS computer - I had gigs, TBs, of data piling up on my main machine. I decided I’d rather run a server to host my large library of data, instead of having my desktop double as a desktop and server.

I did build a new desktop, and hand down the old desktop to the server ,so now I am running a server of reasonable specs and power for the OMV server. And it hosts my data on shares well enough.

I guess the real question is - if this method of building a plex server using OMV is a mess, that has resulted in an unstable situation for me, and an impossible to troubleshoot situation for you guys
how would you suggest I go about running a plex server?

If keeping OMV is a possibility that would be preferable, since it’s working fine as a file sharing server. But I’m open to any suggestions that will get me where I want to be.

Here’s the hardware of the current server:
GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD5 mobo

AMD FX-8350 Black Edition Vishera 8-Core 4.0 GHz (4.2 GHz Turbo) Socket AM3+ 125W FD8350FRHKBOX Desktop Processor

32GB RAM

256GB SSD running the OS

3 8TB hard drives running in raid 5 - periodically backed up to external disks for further redundancy, since I’ve heard that raid 5 on large drives is a bit risky as far as running into errors when rebuilding after a hard drive error.

What would you do with this hardware to build a working file sharing media server with plex?

23

Before we discuss anything about what to do with hardware, I’d like to conduct an experiment if possible.

Please tell me if this is possible?

  1. Use a different shared folder to make the “/config” in the container . This would allow the existing shared folder to be kept untouched and held safe.

  2. You know all the Linux pathnames to where the media is and could easily create a mount point inside a new container ?

  3. If we create a new, TEST server, using the “PLEX_CLAIM_TOKEN” so that portainer isn’t needed at all at first,

  4. Stand up this new test server for the sole purpose of figuring out if something in the container, way down deep, is damaged/corrupted.

I am thinking this because, at the Linux command line (which OMV is underneath),

Create a shell script customized to where your media files are

This is what I have for when I use docker from the command line.

sudo docker run \
-d \
--name plex \
--network=host \
-e PLEX_CLAIM="claim-qrrDP584AkBPeCQtsiyR" \
-e TZ="EST" \
-e LANG="en_US.UTF-8" \
-e PLEX_UID=1000 \
-e PLEX_GID=1000 \
-e PUID=1000 \
-e PGID=1000 \
-h dockerplex \
-v /volume1/dockerplex/config:/config \
-v /volume1/dockerplex/tmp:/tmp \
-v /volume1/dockerplex/transcode:/transcode \
-v /nas:/data \
--device=/dev/dri:/dev/dri \
plexinc/pms-docker:plexpass

docker start plex
docker update --restart=unless-stopped plex

As you see, I created: (you would define / edit / whatever is appropriate for you)

  • /volume1/dockerplex (top level)
  • sub directories /config, /tmp, and /transcode
  • used the PLEX_CLAIM_TOKEN (there is a 5 minute window which makes this easy to edit this file then start it after getting the claim token from https://plex.tv/claim )
  • Named it “DockerPlex” so it’s easy for me to identify and not interfere with production anywhere.
  • Since I have an Intel CPU, access to /dev/dri for hardware transcoding (which also works for Nvidia GPU cards too)

What we gain out of this is a path forward, one way or another.

My goal is:

  1. Working container for you (one way or another)
  2. Keeping OMV.

Possible?

1 Like
24

Uhhh
gonna need a translation there.

25

Just a suggestion, basically depends on your disposable income or if you like being super technical (which you might because you are employing a very manual setup and using linux)


Perhaps if the effort to solve this is too much toil, I’ve had few if any issues using one of those 4-bay ReadyNAS units, filled with 12TB drives. I actually bought 2, so I could create a single volume that spans all 4 disks (i.e. NO raid) and then use a separate utility to copy/mirror everything from one ReadyNAS to the backup ReadyNAS. Both of them have plex server installed on them and I can access them from several devices simultaneously plus have remote viewers logged in.

I work as a programmer/analyst in IT and don’t have the patience to do all the technical stuff you guys are doing in my “free time” :wink: so I just opted for the ReadyNAS route because when I want to be off work, I don’t have to do any debugging or programming. Plus, you can still access the files directly if you don’t want to use the Plex app.

Kudos @ChuckPa for his hard work and attempts to help though
 it’s awesome to see that kind of help.

26

@TheMovieContinuum

Thanks for that but we’re on this path for now.

  1. Diagnosis.
  2. We’ll discuss options for @armyofquad1 if/when we get there.

I have a ‘fairly honking’ setup here because of what I have to support as my day job so I think I got things covered. :wink:

27

I agree - my suggestion was only if all the work fails. There’s tremendous satisfaction if you can solve a highly technical problem, and a sense of pride if you are able to build/maintain a technical setup that goes beyond the simple plug-and-play I opted for. I hope you are both able to find and fix the issue(s) at hand!

I admittedly took the easy way out, but that’s because having been a programmer since the days of the Commodore64; I’ve had more than my share of solving technical things like you do now :wink: and l pick and choose my battles as there are always so many in life! Again, best of luck I’m sure you will fix this for him.