Daily PC and or Plex crash - seemingly EPG related

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
,
1

Server Version#: 1.40.0.7998 (and months (years?) versions before)
Player Version#: 4.123.2 (and many before)

Win10 Pro 22h2 server - AMD 3800x - 16gb RAM - average 3-5gb in use.
Plex runs as non-admin user which logs into Windows and runs Plex automatically.

TLDR: Will someone please review my logs and tell me what i have to do to keep Plex and or the PC from crashing due to Plex maintenance schedules.

Long:
For months, if not years, my Plex would stop responding, and or, lately past 6 months more often, PC would memory dump some time during the 2-5am hours.
After a month of frustrating troubleshooting of general maintenance of drivers/disks/general PC updates, and one bad driver install that a system restore only partially fixed, I decided to totally wipe my C drive (that Plex runs from) and the D drive (That hosts 100gb of it’s metadata) and re-install windows and restore D drive data (music/pictures) from backup NAS. That took all last weekend (Mar 8-10, 2024).

At 446am Monday 3/11, the PC did exact same thing. Full memory dump.
Reviewed the memory.dmp file with Windbg/analyze -v, and, like 2-3 others of the past 4-5 I’d reviewed prior to wipe, Plex Media Server.exe was listed as the primary process.
I did quick review and thought maybe my poor named collection of ‘1000s of mp3s backed up from CD before ID3 tags ware really a thing and thrown into multiple various genre folders’ might be helping to cause problems, got rid of my music library.
Also doing that Monday evening, checked on program guide - hadn’t updated it in a while and some new networks had popped up locally. Rescanned - re-assigned ~40 of 73 networks Plex program guide knew.
While refreshing the program guide for those, Plex became unresponsive for 5-10minutes, but finally started responding to requests again.

Today Tuesday, 1137am, while I was at work, Plex Media server became unresponsive.
I came home to family complaining ‘you didn’t fix it’.
Quick review of logs, seemed to be EPG related.

I’ve seen many articles here and on Reddit - some have fixes I’ve tried.
I’m still hoping to use Plex to replace an aging Tivo for DVR, and, have yet to be able to commit.

Thanks.
JamminR
Plex Media Server Logs_2024-03-12_20-29-35.zip (2.4 MB)

2

I’ve adjusted Windows update to not run anywhere near time that Plex maintenance might update, and I reduced guide to about 26 local - 4 big networks plus their secondary digital networks.
Though Plex didn’t totally crash overnight, it did go ‘remote not available’ at ~530 am local (per Tautulli monitoring).
I’ve tested it through out my day using the Plex Dash ios app and it’s still responded.
Few family members have used it to watch content too.

Anyone had chance to review logs and see outstanding single item or two fix?

3

Can you please look in %TEMP% for files with filename extension of .dmp that were created at time of the crashes

When you find them, please look also for files with the same filename but with .log filename extension

Copy out these .dmp and .log files, zip them and send to me by Private Message

Thanks

4

Thanks for the dmp file and associated log snippet file

The dump is showing a heap_corruption with no pointers to where the problem is.
I would like to see more examples

The two logged actions just before the crash were related to the periodic checks on synchronizing watched status data and the periodic purge of expired EPG items

6

No thanks to me needed - appreciate the assist attempt.
I’ll add back the other networks and half the mp3 library as I’ve not had a crash of Plex or the PC since the Mar 13 530 am non-response (but no crash)

7

Bingo.
Adding more channels and some music back to Plex seems to have helped cause PC reboot again.
It rebooted twice last night.
Whether or directly or indirectly related, I’m not sure.
Unfortunately, no %temp% dumps exist at time of restart.

General timeline from what I can tell of event logs and email from tautulli.

  1. event log - 310am - The previous system shutdown at 2:59:57 AM on ‎3/‎16/‎2024 was unexpected.
  2. event log - 1110am - The previous system shutdown at 3:10:57 AM on ‎3/‎16/‎2024 was unexpected.
  3. Tautulli - 311am - Sends an email indicating Plex is back up - never any email prior indicating it’s gone down
  4. Me - 1110am - Though I’d gotten the above email, take a cup of coffee and sit down to look for the %temp% logs for you. Find PC unresponsive, sitting at lock screen. PC has a 10minute lock timeout after the plex user logs in (so apparently the 310am reboot apparently ran tautulli/plex long enough to send email, but not register event log about power restart). No screensaver. I hit the power button in hopes it will shut down properly. No response. I wait ~5m. No response on a second power button hit. I hit reset button. Come here. Make this post after downloading logs and looking through event logs.
    Plex Media Server Logs_2024-03-16_11-26-50.zip (3.3 MB)
8

No crash of Plex or PC since yesterday early AM multi-crash.

9

strange - a windows reported shutdown at 02:59:57 am on 16th March when I have a contiguous log file showing Plex Media Server process continued to run past that time until 03:09 am

Could you add the registry setting mentioned on this support article Crash Logs: Plex Media Server | Plex Support to see if PMS itself is crashing and get a windows generated dmp file for it within the %LocalAppData%\CrashDumps folder

10

Yeah, tell me about it, 2 within a few minutes of each other and the 2nd report wasn’t in event log until 1110am.
PC was just unresponsive at 11, but apparently still trying to function during those two times.

@sa2000 - per the linked article, the crash reports disappear when Plex is restarted (due to supposed upload to Plex) - I’ve disabled my Tautulli ‘restart plex when server not detected’ notification script, and ‘start on Windows login’ plex setting. I presume those will need to be done to collect the Plex specific folder data.

Also, all my plex meta data is on a “D:\plexcache\plex media server”, so the appdata folder paths don’t seem to apply. Not a big deal, i understand the paths your giving and the KB give and am easily translating.

EDIT - No PC/Plex crashes since 3/16.
(Ignore 3/17, it was attempt to run SeaTools, which apparently doesn’t like my current setup_
image

11

dmp files captured by Plex Media Server internal crash reporting will be created in D:\PlexCache\Plex Media Server\Crash Reports area and then when processed moved to %TEMP% which in your case is C:\Users\hxxxxx\AppData\Local\Temp
We have a .dmp file saved and also a .log file with the same random filename as the .dmp file

When the registry change outlined in https://support.plex.tv/articles/201455336-crash-logs-plex-media-server/ is added, windows OS will try and create a dmp file for application crashes and the dmp file will be placed by windows in folder %LocalAppData%\CrashDumps - if the folder does not exist, you could create it. This %LocalAppData% is a windows path and is independent of what you have as local app data path for Plex Media Server.

12

No further full crashes of Plex or PC since 3/16. Sigh. Figures. Was quite frequent until I ask for help.
Tautulli did report that Plex was unresponsive 512am 3/19, but by time I’d checked later in day Plex still up/running/responding. (Tautulli waits 60 seconds before warning me, so it had been unresponsive at least that long)

@sa2000 - I do have some Plex crash dumps from version 1.32 from before I updated Plex server to 1.4x and before I wiped system drive/re-installed Windows - want any look at those, or think they’re too old to tell what’s been happening ‘recent’ versus the ‘daily before Windows was wiped/rebuilt from ground up’
image

13

Lets concentrate on new crashes only on 1.40.x

14

I’ve updated Plex to latest official release 1.40.1.8227 Friday 3/22 (3am)
Server box has been re-racked. No crashes of Plex, PC or other apps lately.

Plex (and apparently entire PC) still seems to lose connection to internet during EPG update or other Plex maintenance.
I say ‘apparently’ because I get almost a daily ‘plex remote access is back UP’ message from Tautulli, but never get the Plex remote access is ‘down’ message like it should send. (I do have Tautulli trigger to do so, and have in past when internet or other plex.tv access goes down)

15

Since end of march I’ve been remodeling my home office so the only access I had to the rack was standing at the console which I only do in emergencies - very few crashes happened in which Plex didn’t come back so none were enough of an ‘emergency’ for me to dig into logs.
Now that i have my main office back up, today at 530am my local time, Plex crashed. Machine stayed up, but, Tautulli seemed to crash along with it.
As i was on way to work, i didn’t get home to restart until many hours later.
I’ll be sending you the crash report from %temp% in just a few moments.

16

I’ve just learned of @sa2000 leaving Plex support.
What a vacuum he will leave behind for so many he’s helped.

Will anyone else here carry the torch for this issue on his behalf?
I’d greatly appreciate it.
I have a dmp and log file from 2 days ago.

17

This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.