Yes there is an alternative with lots more options if you choose to use them.
Still working for me, but then I’m not on windows.
So the detailed behavior is that the plex commercial skipper works at detecting and creating the EDL. What doesn’t happen is the actual cuts being made.
Once the plex commercial skipper completes it scan and writes the EDL file, both the EDL and the TS files are moved from the .grab folder to the final destination folder.
On Windows, MCEBuddy will not re-run the comskip, but will instead use that EDL file, make the cuts, and convert the file to whatever format you want, depending on how the task is configured.
The downside to this approach is that the file extension is changed (in my case from TS to MKV), so you need to wait for Plex Media Scanner to pick it back up. Until that happens, the recording will show as “unavailable.”
It’s a workable situation, but definitely a step back from what it was prior to Plex breaking this.
Seeing the same Plex exit code and an Windows Error. The Skipper runs for about 1 minute then crashes.
Since this was after a computer migration I have done a remove and reinstall of Plex with the same problems.
Plex Error:
Mar 27, 2020 08:01:37.654 [4764] DEBUG - Jobs: ‘C:\Program Files (x86)\Plex\Plex Media Server\Plex Commercial Skipper.exe’ exit code for process 10176 is -1073741819 ()
Windows Error :
Log Name: Application
Source: Application Error
Date: 3/27/2020 8:01:37 AM
Event ID: 1000
Task Category: (100)
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer:
Description:
Faulting application name: Plex Commercial Skipper.exe, version: 0.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x5e3166ec
Faulting module name: unknown, version: 0.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x00000000
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x00000000
Faulting process id: 0x27c0
Faulting application start time: 0x01d60437d40972fd
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Plex\Plex Media Server\Plex Commercial Skipper.exe
Faulting module path: unknown
Report Id: f871d579-c120-4917-ab1c-a3c074216307
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:
System:
Mar 26, 2020 20:54:16.451 [3860] INFO - Plex Media Server v1.18.9.2571 - Microsoft PC x64 - build: windows-x86 windows - GMT -05:00
Mar 26, 2020 20:54:16.451 [3860] INFO - Windows version: 10.0 (Build 14393), language en-US
Mar 26, 2020 20:54:16.451 [3860] INFO - 8 3600 MHz processor(s): Architecture=0, Level=6, Revision=40457 Processor Identifier=Intel64 Family 6 Model 158 Stepping 9, GenuineIntel
Mar 27, 2020 07:59:00.197 [7760] DEBUG - Grabber: Allocated a tuner on device://tv.plex.grabbers.hdhomerun/10722062 (3 left)
Have you tried the comskip.ini file in the DVR directory as mentioned eerier in this thread It’s Not reraly a fix but it’s a workaround that works for me…
#KeepRight #WalkRight
I tried the comskip.ini thing from the other thread - no luck…
I have just noticed this issue with all of my recordings since I installed my outside antenna, after testing inside (where it used to work until I updated). I’m on windows server 2019 btw. I have used MCEBuddy before and I hate it. I need GPU acceleration or at least a part of it, and I let it do its thing for 12 hours (not an exaggeration) and it did a whopping 3 episodes on a system with 2 Xeon E5645’s and a 1050 ti (GPU acceleration and I had it laying around don’t make fun of me thanks) This was over a month ago, I spent $120 on lifetime plex pass and one of the main features was live tv and now it’s free till July? and not to mention the fact that one of the main features of live tv is no longer working makes me quite disappointed when it was working just fine in the first place. One thing is for sure, I am not doing MCEBuddy. I really hate it. A lot.
TL;DR
Hopefully, this gets resolved as I am also having this issue.
Not sure what to say. I use MCEBuddy on an older i7-3770 (3.40GHz) and 16GB ram and it rocks.
I use an i5-6600K (3.5Ghz) with 32GB of RAM - In review of my logs, it takes approximately 15 seconds to process a 30 minute show and 1-1.5 minutes for an hour show for commercial removal and transcoding to an mp4. I have a paid version of comskip and MCEBuddy, which I believe expedites the process of commercial removal from hours to minutes. Thinking back to when I used the free comskip included in MCEBuddy.
I already had the solution in place before Plex offered commercial removal. And if it ain’t broke, why fix it? I started with the “US - Comcast Xfinity” and sometimes it’ll miss a commercial or two, and sometimes it’ll cut a small portion of the show. When I review the tuning doc at http://www.kaashoek.com/files/tuning.htm, I found using the ComskipINIEditor in the comskip directory to help somewhat understand the settings.
I haven’t looked at this topic in quite awhile and found this Plex thread that hopeful will improve my commercial detection. PLEX DVR - Tuning comskip.ini - What are some changes that people are making to the default?
Happy Commercial Skipping
I have noticed that comskip will try its hardest to fix corrupted files. I’ve had recordings that don’t fail when recording, but had a very weak signal making the video drop in and out. Comskip sat for about a day on one file before I killed it. Perhaps this is part of the issue in the slow commercial detection?
I am not sure. I have a great signal though, I have never seen signal quality on HDHomerun below 70% and playback on all devices and clients have been smooth. I just really liked the included plex commercial remover.
Probably not the issue then as far as slow MCEBuddy, just a thought.
The commercial skip stopped for me at the same time. I’ve been on a thread about how “Play from Start” while a recording is still happening was broken. That’s 2 years for some but as with this problem we went from working to broken. For most of us, this is CORE functionality. I don’t care if Plex engineers have prettied up the UI. First, do no harm! Where is you QA group? What, if any, regression testing does Plex do before a release? No responses, just break things that were working. We’ve all go serious problems right now and this isn’t survival but…get your act together.
The Plex quality control has been a problem for years and this is the latest breakdown. I may not get my money back and Plex may not care, but who can recommend Plex versus other products when core functionality is ephemeral?
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Well I decided to purchase MCEBuddy and move forward. I’m glad I did as I’m able to send the skipped shows through without loss of Plex metadata.
I followed the guide below from years ago and the Batch file works perfect in the Plex DVR Post post processing script call.
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Good move. Now you are a little less married to Plex. You may want to give Emby a whirl and see if you like it better.
FWIW, there’s a capability to post-process in MCEBuddy as well.
Thanks some support from the team there, I’ve modified the conversion task to include a curl command to call the library update after MCEBuddy completes.
Take a look at this:
PostCustomCommandPath=C:\Windows\System32\curl.exe
PostCustomCommandParameters=http://[PMS_IP_ADDRESS]:32400/library/sections/[your_library_id]/refresh?X-Plex-Token=[YourTokenGoesHere]
PostCustomCommandHangPeriod=30
PostCustomCommandCritical=false
PostCustomCommandUISession=false
PostCustomCommandShowWindow=false
PostCustomCommandExitCodeCheck=false
This allows you to call the library update function as soon as MCEBuddy completes its conversion - that removes the latency of waiting for the library scan to pick back up the converted file.
Just to add, I found this thread : Commercial skipper putting commercial_markers.mkr file in the show directory with 1.19.1.2589 beta
after finding the same problem.
Progress? Well at least there is someone looking at this BUT IT’S BEEN BROKE FOR NEARLY 2 MONTHS…
That’s exactly the point. It’s been BROKEN for nearly 2 months. Plex broke something that worked and was important to the user back. This happens again and again and again. Releases should not be distributed before system (and regression) testing is performed! Plex should explain why they can’t or won’t fix this and why they are clearly not doing anything close to adequate QA (quality assurance).
I can assure you, they are actively working to solve this issue.
3 Likes
And to repeat again…why did they release an update that broke an important feature? One should not have to “actively work” to solve an issue if one doesn’t break it in the first place or has a test regime that catches regression. This ongoing cascade of breaking features is symptomatic.
Can you assure us that solving this issue will not break something else, as seems to be the tradition?
