Hi @sa2000
Been an hectic day with my 3 year old son in Cardiff, but I’m running the tests my end when my ex-wife said it had dropped their end using PMP in Web Client, so I remote connected to them and got them to switch to TV Mode as I hadn’t thought she and her partner was using the server, currently have my PMS and Laptop running in Web Client mode, with my ex-wife and her Partner running in TV Mode, with my Smartphone running Live TV and my Girlfriend taking it easy watching something from the HDD on her Xbox One in the bedroom.
I’ll continue tests for a little longer this evening, but will carry on tomorrow, and hopefully get to the bottom of the dropout issue over the next 24 hours, I’ll include times it dropped etc.
I’d have thought with 4 streams going my CPU usage would be a lot more, but it seems my nVidia GTX-750ti is also working for the Hardware Transcoding, below is what is running!! 2 of the streams are HD the others are SD channels, which the Ste-Desktop is the only machine running HW Transcoding…
P.S. I will add that I’ve noticed when running in TV mode and selecting a channel it doesn’t affect any other Machine now that also runs TV mode or device running PMP, it only affects the machine, my laptop, when I say affect, I mean even a channel buffers and starts the machine running in TV mode doesn’t pixelate or stutter when a channel is selected when it’s streaming but when in web client mode streaming a live TV channel and a remote device selects a channel, the PC in web client mode stutters and pixelates for a few seconds, as if the transcoder in web client mode takes a hit of stone sort? Just something my ex and her partner along with myself have noticed, just thought I’d throw that in…
@sa2000 I seem to have messed up the transcoder already in the latest PMS! I switched to a channel on my phone then answered a text then tried to load the channel back up only to find it won’t load and the server is showing 3 tuners on one USB device being used, and even I switch to another channel 1 tuner on the second USB device shows being used while 3 are still being used in the first device… Any advice?
Hi @sa2000
The issue cleared itself, and at three moment I’m at the beckoned call of my girlfriend, but if it happens again I shall send the logs, as it’s happened a few times in the older versions of Plex also.
Back to the current issue, I shall do more tests tomorrow when I have more time, and will post logs as TV client is terrible, especially for TV guide and accessibility with my screen reader, as it doesn’t show channel names on the TV guide in TV mode on any device, so you can see one of the reasons I’m trying to get this issue fixed quickly with the transcoder handshaking.
@sa2000 I’ve sent you a DM with the logs, my apologies that I couldn’t do anything else what with the imminent birth and the Girlfriend in constant pain etc. I just hope it’s enough to show that where others aren’t having this issue on the server and web client is that it’ll be fixed soon…
Fingers crossed it’s what I thought it was all along, and you pointed out that the transcoder only goes once a second in Web Client but twice? in TV mode and Android plus other devices, which means it’s handshake…
If there is a buffering issue and PMP is not allowing for enough to be buffered by the transcoder, you could try as a test to pause for a couple of minutes and then we can see if there is a difference - unless we find that for some reason the transcoder cannot keep up
That issue isn’t a buffering issue I’d already tried pausing it etc. The issue is that when one user is watching like TV and another times to a new TV PMP pixelates on all the devices on live TV, the worst time it did this was yesterday after I wrote that it doesn’t do it in TV mode, sorry to say it does, I had my Dad on a video call with me and whole he was watching TV and I had it running on the laptop I switched over to a new a channel on the Cubot Max first and it literally paused the video but kept the audio going both Roku and PMP on both devices that was already tuned to a separate channel then it came back and the video played quickly to catch up with the sound on both Roku and PMP in TV mode, yeah I know, I did say it didn’t do it when I sent that message but it just started doing it, but TV mode definitely doesn’t drop like Web client does at random intervals.
Hope this helps explain the more? And have you had chance to look at both sets of logs I sent you yet? I’m curious to what you have found the issue to be?
@sa2000 I have to add that running PMP in TV mode currently on 2 machines, one being the desktop/server and the other my laptop, both are buffering live TV like crazy! Along with my girlfriend streaming a movie on the Xbox One, I’m monitoring everything from CPU usage to Network bandwidth, and neither are going crazy! I’ve tested TV signals on both channels I’m streaming and signals are very strong. My Nvidia GTX750ti is only using around 6% GPU.
I have noticed while monitoring the CPU from time to time the usage spikes. Going back to what I mentioned about channels pixelated when one device is watching while another tunes in to smother channel, the CPU for around 3-6 seconds on all 4 cores hit 100%
So, do we think it’s a transcoding issue? It would be nice to see or hear from someone who is using live TV with a similar issue with either a similar CPU or i7 and see if the transcoder hits that just as bad.
I’m baffled to why the server has to buffer TV as it’s directly connected to the TV Tuners.
I can understand the reason for remote devices, but hey, I’m just a self obsessed passionate about Plex user
Here’s hoping we get to the bottom of the web client dropping issue first as I said, then we can concentrate on getting to the others…
Oh average network bandwidth used is 20.81Mbit/s with my laptop streaming 1080p stream and girlfriend streaming 720p movies…
Hi @sa2000,
Here’s the final lot of logs from both my server with Verbose on and the Laptop running PMP.
There were 3 streams running, 2 Live TV, the second you’ll see was via WAN, and the remote device was running PMP on Ubuntu in TV Mode and no dropout, and the second device was on the network which is my Girlfriend streaming merrily on her Xbox One. The only one to have a dropout… you probably guessed it, the device running in Web Client mode in PMP.
The time it dropped was around 2230 on channel 107. the server isn’t under any strain, network bandwidth was around 20Mbit/s to 30Mbit/s and the Nvidia transcoding to the WAN device was using 2-3%.
I’m going to be busy now, especially with the birth of my Daughter quite possible within the next 48 hours, so I am hoping I have given Plex Dev’s and yourself enough data to hopefully fix the Web Client glitch???
The logs are all similar - Plex Media Player stops playback because it appears to have run out of cached stream data
As I mentioned before the issue has been referred to the development team Of course more evidence of the same issue from other users would help in assessing the severity and impact
So when in PMP in web mode, click on Settings at the top right, click on show advanced. In side bar on the left find Plex Media Player web settings and click on Debug and set logging to verbose and save
Hi @sa2000
I’ve set it to do Verbose logging, but since the last update yesterday, Web Client mode isn’t dropping at all, I’ve been watching a channel along with my ex-wife and 3 year old son watching his cartoons over the internet.
If it does drop I’ll send logs in… I shall keep you posted
Could you check the versions for all 3 through settings for each and presumably now it is only plex media player that is failing ? There was an update to that - I have not checked if the web component got updated
According to the latest release notes,
Plex Media Player has web 3.77.2 embedded
Plex Media Server has web 3.77.4 bundled (previously 3.69.1)
Plex web hosted is 3.79.0
Those are all the same versions now as you have. It used to fail on both Browser and PMP Web client, but it’s still running without missing a beat. One thing I have noticed is that it doesn’t put each user on the same Tuner now, so if I’m using one, another user then gets put onto one of the unused tuners also, it’s a nice workaround, but not sure till I run more tests that it pixelates when more than 3 users are watching TV.
I’ll keep testing and trying to break it… I enjoy trying to break things
Not clear on what you are saying - there are 3 different versions of the web client available now - hosted at 3.79.0, in PMP at 3.77.2 and in PMS at 3.77.4
Do all three now run without any issue .?
If there is a change as to which tuner is picked up, that would be Plex Media Server - I will check
I’ve ran PMP for 3 hours and no drops in the client on there, now running it in the browser, but have noticed it transcoding unlike the version in PMP, but the GPU is handling it nicely, will run it for a few hours then try the 3rd version and will get back to you with my findings while my girlfriend’s sloooow labour continues, it’s like my daughter is giving me time before she arrives
Dave
@sa2000 I’ve tested the direct link on the server while another is streaming and the CPU usage using the localhost from the Server itself used 100% CPU and crashed out on the server but using localhost on my laptop and PMP on the server with Android PMP streaming at the same time and my girlfriend doing her bit upstairs on the Xbox, and with 2 HD Channels and I’ve purposely chosen an SD channel on my Smartphone as it goes into HW transcoding, the CPU with 4 devices using average of 40% across 4 cores with GPU usage at 5% and video engine ticking at 16% on the server.
I’ve begun to think using either PMP or the web method is better than using the direct localhost on the server itself, especially as I run this machine through a 5.1 Surround Sound, plus it doesn’t give the server a huge hit like localhost does.
These are my findings and both localhost on the Laptop and PMP on the server are still streaming happy running 2 HD channels!! If either one drops I shall let you know…
@sa2000 Ah, not a problem, just doing my little bit to help, even if I was a little annoying to start with. I’m a huge Plex fan, and having a working TV side now is just super!
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas! And I know Plex is going to be used a lot here over the festive season both at home and remotely streaming movies and TV. Laptop is still going strong to on PMP on the HD channel! I’ll give another channel a try…
May the Plex be with you!
Dave
@sa2000 Ah it’s crashed at 1637! I’ll try again, and I’ll send the logs to you once more… Hopefully find out what’s causing it? It came back “Playback Error” on one of the none HD channels, so if the same happens again I’ll DM all logs to you if that’s ok?
@sa2000 Well, I’m about to throw a curve ball at the issue we’ve been trying to solve. Plex still crashes on live TV, but for me it’s only on SD channels, HD channels don’t drop out at all!
Could this be a definite issue with transcoding handshakes? Or something that’s been staying us all in the face?
Would be great if we can finally put this one too rest before my daughter is finally here, and the holiday season also.
@sa2000 Well, that’ll teach me for opening my mouth and jinxing everything!!
HD Channels are dropping out, and the error code given in the log for the player is a strange one, cplayer error message #2 which upon Googling, seems to point at Gapless Audio with Opus which is what PMP uses for Transcoding on remote users PC’s connected to my server.
I shall run a couple more tests before the upcoming birth of my daughter, and will use Google Chrome and Firefox and have logs for both of these also for checking.
It’s a strange issue…
Update 1950GMT 19/12/2018
My findings so far for running Plex web through Chrome browser are looking better than using PMP which is strange, I ran an HD channel for over 3 hours and now I’m trying an SD one. The only difference is that I have found is that everything is transcoded through Chrome, both SD & HD channels, where as in PMP the only channels to be transcoded while on the home network in PMP were the SD ones, but as everyone following my plight it crashed miserably on both.
So whatever the developers have done for the web client it seems to be working, which means the player in PMP needs looking at? As I said, it’s still early days, but I’ll keep @sa2000 informed.
