Commercials not being marked for skipping

Live TV & DVR
,
1

I’ve set up multiple recordings at various times and none of what I record has any markings for skipping the commercials. I need someone’s help ASAP as my wife HATES the damn commercials haha.

All joking aside, I’ve attached the log files (I turned on verbose logging and restart my server about 5-10 min before the recording) as well as the log created for the recording. TPlex Media Server Logs_2020-10-13_12-33-14.zip (4.7 MB) hen I waited 30 min to download them to see if any post processing was taking place. But it’s not and I’m so beyond confused. And yes, I do have mark commercials for skipping selected on the DVR as well as the recording itself.

Any suggestions/ideas/etc?

Server Version#: 1.20.2.3402

The Carbonaro Effect (2014) - S03E02 - Holy Moly Mirror.log (14.3 KB)

2

Here are the log files:

Plex Media Server Logs_2020-10-13_12-33-14.zip (4.7 MB)

3

Also here is the XML info for the most recently recorded show. Nothing about commercials showing?

<MediaContainer size="1" allowSync="1" identifier="com.plexapp.plugins.library" librarySectionID="6" librarySectionTitle="TV Shows" librarySectionUUID="8ca2f5b0-7063-4b12-9c1d-fa7537de0994" mediaTagPrefix="/system/bundle/media/flags/" mediaTagVersion="1601657084">
<Video ratingKey="40708" key="/library/metadata/40708" skipParent="1" grandparentRatingKey="40706" guid="plex://episode/5d052bcef6ee20001e584732" parentGuid="plex://season/5cffa17449fba9001ea198fe/3" grandparentGuid="plex://show/5cffa17449fba9001ea198fe" type="episode" title="Holy Moly Mirror" grandparentKey="/library/metadata/40706" librarySectionTitle="TV Shows" librarySectionID="6" librarySectionKey="/library/sections/6" grandparentTitle="The Carbonaro Effect" parentTitle="Season 3" contentRating="TV-14" summary="Michael does tricks in a Chicago diner. Later, he discovers a new kind of fungus in Humboldt Park." index="2" parentIndex="3" year="2017" thumb="/library/metadata/40708/thumb/1602604936" grandparentThumb="/library/metadata/40706/thumb/1602604792" duration="1797686" originallyAvailableAt="2017-02-08" addedAt="1602604791" updatedAt="1602604936" oneShot="1">
<Media id="106336" duration="1797686" bitrate="5557" width="1280" height="720" aspectRatio="1.78" audioChannels="2" audioCodec="aac" videoCodec="h264" videoResolution="720" container="mpegts" videoFrameRate="NTSC" audioProfile="lc" videoProfile="main">
<Part accessible="1" exists="1" id="108269" key="/library/parts/108269/1602604792/file.ts" duration="1797686" file="Y:\The Carbonaro Effect (2014)\Season 03\The Carbonaro Effect (2014) - S03E02 - Holy Moly Mirror.ts" size="1248757100" audioProfile="lc" container="mpegts" packetLength="188" videoProfile="main">
<Stream id="223514" streamType="1" codec="h264" index="0" bitrate="5425" bitDepth="8" chromaLocation="left" chromaSubsampling="4:2:0" closedCaptions="1" codedHeight="720" codedWidth="1280" frameRate="29.970" hasScalingMatrix="0" height="720" level="32" profile="main" refFrames="4" scanType="progressive" streamIdentifier="256" width="1280" displayTitle="720p (H.264)" extendedDisplayTitle="720p (H.264)"/>
<Stream id="223516" streamType="2" selected="1" codec="aac" index="1" channels="2" bitrate="132" audioChannelLayout="stereo" profile="lc" samplingRate="48000" streamIdentifier="257" displayTitle="Unknown (AAC Stereo)" extendedDisplayTitle="Unknown (AAC Stereo)"/>
<Stream id="223515" streamType="3" codec="eia_608" index="0" embeddedInVideo="1" streamIdentifier="256" displayTitle="Unknown (Closed Captions)" extendedDisplayTitle="Unknown (Closed Captions)"/>
</Part>
</Media>
<Genre id="155169" filter="genre=155169" tag="Other"/>
<Genre id="103793" filter="genre=103793" tag="Comedy"/>
<Genre id="168751" filter="genre=168751" tag="Satire"/>
<Genre id="155170" filter="genre=155170" tag="Reality"/>
<Genre id="169442" filter="genre=169442" tag="Candid Camera/Spy Cam"/>
<Genre id="169443" filter="genre=169443" tag="Entertainment"/>
<Channel id="166995" filter="channel=166995" tag="683 TruTVD (truTV HDTV (East))"/>
<Extras size="0"> </Extras>
<Related> </Related>
</Video>
</MediaContainer>```
4

Turn off VERBOSE mode, leave DEBUG on though.

Verbose mode caused it to create .txt files but it failed while running. Are you using a custom comskip.ini file?

Oct 13, 2020 12:03:23.443 [18520] DEBUG - Jobs: 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Plex\Plex Media Server\Plex Commercial Skipper.exe' exit code for process 10372 is 1 (failure)
Oct 13, 2020 12:03:23.443 [8872] DEBUG - [Grabber/d72af3d8bee85caeda52c117a14a8d9fc96dd189] Recorder: EDL built after 212.1 seconds.
Oct 13, 2020 12:03:23.447 [8872] DEBUG - [Grabber/d72af3d8bee85caeda52c117a14a8d9fc96dd189] Removing intermediate files at path The Carbonaro Effect (2014) - S03E02 - Holy Moly Mirror.ts
Oct 13, 2020 12:03:23.450 [12452] VERBOSE - Library section 6 (TV Shows) will be updated because of a change in '"Y:\The Carbonaro Effect (2014)\Season 03"/The Carbonaro Effect (2014) - S03E02 - Holy Moly Mirror.edl'
Oct 13, 2020 12:03:23.451 [10896] VERBOSE - Library section 6 (TV Shows) will be updated because of a change in '"Y:\The Carbonaro Effect (2014)\Season 03"/The Carbonaro Effect (2014) - S03E02 - Holy Moly Mirror.edl'
Oct 13, 2020 12:03:23.453 [10896] VERBOSE - Library section 6 (TV Shows) will be updated because of a change in '"Y:\The Carbonaro Effect (2014)\Season 03"/The Carbonaro Effect (2014) - S03E02 - Holy Moly Mirror.txt'
Oct 13, 2020 12:03:23.454 [12452] VERBOSE - Library section 6 (TV Shows) will be updated because of a change in '"Y:\The Carbonaro Effect (2014)\Season 03"/The Carbonaro Effect (2014) - S03E02 - Holy Moly Mirror.txt'
Oct 13, 2020 12:03:23.456 [12452] VERBOSE - Library section 6 (TV Shows) will be updated because of a change in '"Y:\The Carbonaro Effect (2014)\Season 03"/The Carbonaro Effect (2014) - S03E02 - Holy Moly Mirror.logo.txt'
Oct 13, 2020 12:03:23.457 [10896] VERBOSE - Library section 6 (TV Shows) will be updated because of a change in '"Y:\The Carbonaro Effect (2014)\Season 03"/The Carbonaro Effect (2014) - S03E02 - Holy Moly Mirror.logo.txt'
5

I’m not using anything custom at all.

I’ll turn it off and start a new recording here shortly.

6

Here’s the new log files. Let me know what you see. Not sure what’s going on, but this really is frustrating and I’d like it to work if possible.

Plex Media Server Logs_2020-10-13_14-29-24.zip (3.8 MB)

7

Disable HW transcoding, if you have a supported GPU it isn’t being detected. Basically the transcoder is crashing. If you have the Tuner set to “Convert Video While Recording” set to transcode, disable that. It seems like something else modified the recording while Plex was processing the file. Is the D:\ drive a physical drive? and do you have any other scripts running against it.

If all the above doesn’t work then I would suspect a conflict between your tuner and Plex although on Windows, Plex has been having it’s fair share of unexplained transcoder crashes of late.

Oct 13, 2020 14:21:55.990 [19284] DEBUG - Job running: C:\Program Files (x86)\Plex\Plex Media Server\Plex Media Fingerprinter.exe -raw -length 838.35850000000005 "D:\Plex Transcoding\Transcode\Detection\dbe106cb-0649-45a4-9975-edbdb92b7271" 
Oct 13, 2020 14:21:55.998 [19284] DEBUG - Jobs: Starting child process with pid 19992
Oct 13, 2020 14:21:57.808 [11720] DEBUG - Jobs: 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Plex\Plex Media Server\Plex Media Fingerprinter.exe' exit code for process 19992 is 0 (success)
Oct 13, 2020 14:21:57.858 [19284] DEBUG - Activity: updated activity 3ec8260b-8e4f-4002-aa1c-2ceb88b2459d - completed 84.0% - Detecting intros
Oct 13, 2020 14:21:57.858 [19284] DEBUG - Activity: updated activity 3ec8260b-8e4f-4002-aa1c-2ceb88b2459d - completed 85.0% - Detecting intros
Oct 13, 2020 14:21:57.858 [19284] DEBUG - Activity: updated activity 3ec8260b-8e4f-4002-aa1c-2ceb88b2459d - completed 95.0% - Detecting intros
Oct 13, 2020 14:21:57.860 [19284] DEBUG - Updating part with ID=108275 [Y:\Mom (2013)\Season 03\Mom (2013) - S03E18 - Beast Mode and Old People Kissing.ts]
Oct 13, 2020 14:21:57.863 [19284] DEBUG - Doing expensive tags write for 'Beast Mode and Old People Kissing' because something changed.
Oct 13, 2020 14:21:57.863 [19284] DEBUG - Activity: Ended activity 3ec8260b-8e4f-4002-aa1c-2ceb88b2459d.
Oct 13, 2020 14:22:04.889 [11720] DEBUG - Jobs: 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Plex\Plex Media Server\Plex Commercial Skipper.exe' exit code for process 13136 is 1 (failure)
Oct 13, 2020 14:22:04.889 [4376] DEBUG - [Grabber/821f5fdf790ea908385f9c57a85108ec9700f43d] Recorder: EDL built after 319.8 seconds.
Oct 13, 2020 14:22:04.893 [4376] DEBUG - [Grabber/821f5fdf790ea908385f9c57a85108ec9700f43d] Removing all intermediate files at path Mom (2013) - S03E18 - Beast Mode and Old People Kissing.ts
8

In addition to the suggestions above, can you share:

  • Are you recording to dedicated DVR libraries, or are you recording to your existing TV/Movie libraries? That is, are you mixing recorded content with downloaded/ripped content?
  • What agents are you using for those libraries (the movie libraries in particular)?
  • Do you have your server configured to automatically scan libraries when changes are detected?

Also, I noticed that the root of your TV library appears to be a bare driver letter (Y:). It may not be contributing to this issue, but best practice is to not do this, rather to point your library at a directory containing you library’s media. For example, for a TV Shows-type library, you might do:
Y:\TV\Show Name\Season XX…

And your library would point to Y:\TV.

9

The D: Drive is a physical drive and there’s no other scripts running against it that I’m aware of. I disabled hardware transcoding as my GPU is supported but maybe it’s not detecting like you said. So not sure what’s up there. Hope this works, running a test recording now. Will know in about 30 min or so. Thanks for all the help.

10

Thanks for the ideas.

  1. It’s recording to the same TV library that my ripped/downloaded content is in. Should I have a separate folder for that?

  2. The agents are I believe the newest plex agents for scanning info

  3. The reason it’s just the Y drive is it’s a mapped network folder on a NAS. Could that be the problem? Should I rework how everything is scanned?

11

Commercial skipping works for me, so I was curious to see potential differences in our setups.

I use separate libraries for my DVR recordings. So, I’ve set up a libraries named “DVR TV Shows” and “DVR Movies” in addition to my “TV Shows” and “Movies.”

For those libraries, I use the “Personal Media” agents. This prevents Plex from attempting to match using the online databases; this is probably redundant since Plex, by default, uses the guide metadata anyway.

Regarding using a bare drive letter as the root of your library, I’d recommend using a sub-directory. As I said, I don’t know if it would contribute to this issue, but it couldn’t hurt.

As a test, you could create a new library of type “TV Shows” named “DVR TV Shows” and set its agent to Personal Media Shows. Then, try a test recording to the new library.

12

The recording I just did, I was able to skip ads. It had to do with the transcoding I’m guessing!!! Awesome work.

To @pshanew commments though… I do agree with having separate folders for the recordings and what not. Good call. And organizing my media a little cleaner in that regards too.

13

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