@BRBMan Actually, one question - Do I need to backup and/or move the Plex config before uninstalling?
@djcordel said:
@BRBMan Actually, one question - Do I need to backup and/or move the Plex config before uninstalling?
those folders are typically huge, you can always back it up but I have never had issues where It was needed. Mine is about 110gb
@bsmith120276 I am still wanting to get this done, however, please keep in mind I’m not a Plex Employee, so I’m doing this in my time outside of my day job. My job has taken up quite a lot of my time, even outside normal work hours in the last few weeks, so I’ve not had as much time to dig into this as I’d like. I will get to it, and I am working through several other issues too. So this hasn’t been forgotten, and it will be resolved.
@DaveBinM I owe you an apology. I thought you were a Plex employee. Thanks for continuing to look into this.
@bsmith120276 No worries! I just wanted to clarify. Plex employees have that title next to their name (Plex Employee), and have an orange header. Ninjas (who are volunteers) have the Plex Ninja title, and a blue header. So while ninjas work with the Plex team in the forums and assist in finding and diagnosing issues, we’re not actually employees. 
***See Update to this post below: ***************** I was/am also having this issue even with 1.9.0 upgrade. Out of frustration decided to fully delete (for windows 10) PLEX along with all meta data. Reboot and fully reinstall per https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/201941078?mobile_site=true. After reinstalling 1.9.0., I rebooted and reloaded all libraries. So far, I recorded 6-8 items successfully. I will record for the next few days and let you all know if this truly fixed my problems.
**Update: still recording ok for Day 2, no problems after the reinstall.
**Update: still recording ok for Day 2, no problems after the reinstall.
Excellent data point… keep us updated. This is sort of the nuclear option for me, but I’m willing to give a shot if it fixes everything.
Has anyone tried just deleting the DVR from the server settings and restarting?
So on Windows anyway (cannot confirm on other OS’s), when you encounter this issue you will notice a handful a “PlexTranscoder” processes actively running. One of them will be showing zero CPU activity, while all the others will be using 1-2% every few seconds. In my experience, if you kill the one that has no activity the others will continue on and all of your recordings will finish. This is by no means a fix for the problem but seems to be an OK workaround until they can release a proper fix. I originally thought that I would lose whatever video was associated with the hung process, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Anyways, hope that helps anyone not looking to reinstall or switch versions.
Yes I have tried removing the DVR and stopping and restarting Plex then re-adding it. With 1.7, 1.8 and 1.9. No luck, same issue. I had a couple of successful recordings with 1.7.5.4035 but then that experienced the issued. Not had a single successful recording on my main server with any of the versions above that. Whereas I am now running 1.6.1 and it has been rock steady for days.
I too tried a fresh install but it still proved not to be foolproof fix for me. I have a X10 Nighthawk and setup Plex (its latest version is 1.7.5.4035) on that then added the DVR function to it instead of my main server. It worked for a couple of recordings and then it too experienced the issue.
I am not in a position to wipe and start again on my main server. I don’t want to lose all my viewing history for me and my family. I would not be popular at all if I did that. Nor should it really require that either.
@djcordel That’s an OK workaround. However won’t that only help if you are around to monitor the recordings to kill the transcoder process you mention?
I have found that it just continues on recording capturing 1 second videos in your transcoder folder until I assume your drive fills up and it fails. I also would anticipate any scheduled recordings will fail as the tuner(s) are not released back to move to the next one?
@“beastarman@gmail.com” - Yes, that is correct. It is something you will need to monitor until we get a proper fix for this I guess. Depending on how much you record it could get away from you pretty quick.
As far as the tuners being released, I think that is actually happening though. I’ve had upwards of 8-10 recordings that were hung and it was still recording new shows, so considering that I only have 3 available tuners I would think it would’ve been failing on the 4th show if the tuners were not being released. That is of course just an observation and nothing I have actually tested.
I’m getting this problem with at least 50% of my recordings, probably more. Example: JAG was set to record from 0900 to 1000 this morning, September 14th. The “completed” recording was about 3 minutes long and only caught the last three minutes of the program (almost exactly). There was nothing recording at the start time and while another recording was due during the first, it was only between 0925 and 0950, therefore it should have completed several minutes before the system finally started recording JAG.
***See Update to this post below: ***************** I was/am also having this issue even with 1.9.0 upgrade. Out of frustration decided to fully delete (for windows 10) PLEX along with all meta data. Reboot and fully reinstall per https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/201941078?mobile_site=true. After reinstalling 1.9.0., I rebooted and reloaded all libraries. So far, I recorded 6-8 items successfully. I will record for the next few days and let you all know if this truly fixed my problems.
**Update: still recording on Day 3. Will report in a week. Can’t record on more than 2 tuners at a time (I have 4) but recordings are consistent and completing/finishing at 100%.
Was that a completely clean database rebuild or did you restore any viewstate information (e.g. by following these instructions)? I’d hate to lose my history, but if it’s necessary in order to get recordings working properly, I’d be prepared to fix it by hand.
I didn’t restore from any previous location . Not sure if it’s required, but I deleted 2 things (the registry key and the plex server directory) per the instructions for Windows only (see link). I didn’t follow the last paragraph
which references ‘removing your account on the devices page of the Web App.’
https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/201941078?mobile_site=true
I rebooted and then downloaded and ran 1.9.0 and then reloaded all libraries and DVRs as if it were a new install. Rebooted again then started recording as usual. You might try deleting some parts and not others to save your history (e.g. delete the registry but not the plex server directory folder). I just deleted it as noted above and started from scratch the 1st time.
I sure would like to see your fix tested on a couple more systems before I would be willing to uninstall everything.
I’m running 1.6.1 and things are fine. Though I don’t have all the live tv improvements they don’t count for me. I need them for PMP or Roku to count.
I’m running on Mac OS with Homerun Extend (latest firmware) and have been having all the problems mentioned - truncated recordings, recordings stuck in processing etc. I haven’t had a successful recording in months. I upgraded to 1.9x when it became available and saw no improvement whatsoever. I then took the plunge as others have suggested, and did a complete reinstallation, following the steps in the help article referenced by others. I am happy to say, that since yesterday when I did the reinstall, all my recordings have completed successfully and with no processing lag. As far as I can tell, everything is working perfectly (knock on wood). I am certain the only thing that changed was the reinstallation, so I suspect there must be something in the old code causing the problem. I’ll continue to monitor and let everyone know if things go south. I haven’t tried live TV yet, so we’ll see if that breaks it.
@daveleast said:
I’m running on Mac OS with Homerun Extend (latest firmware) and have been having all the problems mentioned - truncated recordings, recordings stuck in processing etc. I haven’t had a successful recording in months. I upgraded to 1.9x when it became available and saw no improvement whatsoever. I then took the plunge as others have suggested, and did a complete reinstallation, following the steps in the help article referenced by others. I am happy to say, that since yesterday when I did the reinstall, all my recordings have completed successfully and with no processing lag. As far as I can tell, everything is working perfectly (knock on wood). I am certain the only thing that changed was the reinstallation, so I suspect there must be something in the old code causing the problem. I’ll continue to monitor and let everyone know if things go south. I haven’t tried live TV yet, so we’ll see if that breaks it.
Are you running 1.9 or you downgraded to an older version?
There maybe some validity to the clean install. I running Plex 1.8 on a windows 10 and it was a fresh install to use with a new Homerun I got strictly to use as live brand dvr. I have Plex also on myQNAP NAS but did not want to bog it down handling the live tv DVR piece so did a fresh install on a old spare pc I had. Had a lot of issues with mcebuddy and network NAS mapped drives but gave up and just run it to local drive and scripted a monitor to move completed files to my NAS separately but not a Plex issue. I do not record a large volume yet (like 3-4 shows a day) but it never fails unless there is an antenna problem which is not Plex issue but my own issue with my hd antenna setup I’m working through.
I have just rebuilt my Mac mini (late 2014) from scratch and did a fresh install of Plex 1.9. We shall see what happens…
