Failed to download XML for codec 'h264_decoder'

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
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1

Server Version#: 1.15.0.659
Player Version#: Using Web
Windows 10 Pro

Transcoding is not working… it actually hasn’t been for well over a year. I’ve just now started to look into it. I’ve come across a lot of threads with this issue, but haven’t been able to find a solution that works for me. I’ve repaired the media server, I’ve uninstalled and reinstalled, I’ve uninstalled / deleted registry keys / deleted local data. At this point I’m at a loss. I cannot seem to connect to plex to download the codecs, my codec folder under appdata is empty. I waited several hours even after doing all of the above and still cannot download the codecs. I cannot ping plex.tv, all packets are dropped. I have nothing in my hosts file, nor on my router that should stop the traffic. I even disconnected my phone from wifi and was unable to ping plex.tv from the terminal on my android phone. WTF. When I first setup Plex it worked perfectly, no issues, now it’s nothing but a headhache…

Please help.

Server logs: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1U4RulBWRL7RYiv2wjvbmSObaca5tiuLf

Feb 15, 2019 22:53:57.820 [5368] DEBUG - MDE: Star Wars (1977): Direct Play is disabled
Feb 15, 2019 22:53:57.820 [5368] DEBUG - MDE: Star Wars (1977): media must be transcoded in order to use the dash protocol
Feb 15, 2019 22:53:57.820 [5368] DEBUG - MDE: Star Wars (1977): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/h264
Feb 15, 2019 22:53:57.820 [5368] DEBUG - MDE: Star Wars (1977): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/h264/dca
Feb 15, 2019 22:53:57.821 [5368] DEBUG - Star Wars - audio.channels limitation applies: 7 > 6
Feb 15, 2019 22:53:57.821 [5368] DEBUG - Codecs: testing aac_mf (encoder)
Feb 15, 2019 22:53:57.822 [5368] INFO - [FFMPEG] - MFT name: 'Microsoft AAC Audio Encoder MFT'
Feb 15, 2019 22:53:57.827 [6148] DEBUG - Completed: [127.0.0.1:49943] 200 GET /photo/:/transcode?width=1920&height=937&opacity=30&background=36383b&minSize=1&url=%2Flibrary%2Fmetadata%2F158%2Fart%2F1550292829%3FX-Plex-Token%3Dxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (9 live) GZIP 412ms 73255 bytes (pipelined: 16)
Feb 15, 2019 22:53:57.924 [5368] DEBUG - Star Wars - audio.channels limitation applies: 7 > 6
Feb 15, 2019 22:53:57.924 [5368] DEBUG - MDE: Cannot direct stream audio stream due to profile or setting limitations
Feb 15, 2019 22:53:57.925 [5368] DEBUG - MDE: Star Wars (1977): selected media 0 / 158
Feb 15, 2019 22:53:57.925 [5368] DEBUG - Streaming Resource: Added session 0x7a28c58:qchj07fqo2pl9hcz7l3wgqh4
Feb 15, 2019 22:53:57.926 [5368] DEBUG - Streaming Resource: Reached Decision id=158 codes=(General=1001,Direct play not available; Conversion OK. Direct Play=3000,App cannot direct play this item. Direct play is disabled. Transcode=1001,Direct play not available; Conversion OK.) media=(id=158 part=(id=158 decision=transcode container=mp4 protocol=dash streams=(Video=(id=1100 decision=copy width=1920 height=824) Audio=(id=1101 decision=transcode bitrate=256 encoder=aac_mf channels=2 rate=48000))))
Feb 15, 2019 22:53:57.930 [6148] DEBUG - Completed: [127.0.0.1:49995] 200 GET /video/:/transcode/universal/decision?hasMDE=1&path=%2Flibrary%2Fmetadata%2F158&mediaIndex=0&partIndex=0&protocol=dash&fastSeek=1&directPlay=0&directStream=1&subtitleSize=100&audioBoost=100&location=lan&addDebugOverlay=0&autoAdjustQuality=1&directStreamAudio=1&mediaBufferSize=102400&session=5wixqcywe6g0b508lp3iiw5n&subtitles=burn&Accept-Language=en (9 live) GZIP 271ms 6891 bytes (pipelined: 6)
Feb 15, 2019 22:53:58.010 [6148] DEBUG - Auth: authenticated user 1 as patmann03
Feb 15, 2019 22:53:58.013 [12600] DEBUG - Request: [127.0.0.1:49995 (Loopback)] GET /video/:/transcode/universal/start.mpd?hasMDE=1&path=%2Flibrary%2Fmetadata%2F158&mediaIndex=0&partIndex=0&protocol=dash&fastSeek=1&directPlay=0&directStream=1&subtitleSize=100&audioBoost=100&location=lan&addDebugOverlay=0&autoAdjustQuality=1&directStreamAudio=1&mediaBufferSize=102400&session=5wixqcywe6g0b508lp3iiw5n&subtitles=burn&Accept-Language=en (9 live) GZIP Signed-in Token (patmann03)
Feb 15, 2019 22:53:58.013 [12600] DEBUG - Found session GUID of 5wixqcywe6g0b508lp3iiw5n in session start.
Feb 15, 2019 22:53:58.015 [12600] DEBUG - TranscodeUniversalRequest: using augmented profile Web
Feb 15, 2019 22:53:58.016 [12600] DEBUG - Downloading document http://127.0.0.1:32400/library/metadata/158?checkFiles=1&includeBandwidths=1&offset=-1&X-Plex-Session-Identifier=qchj07fqo2pl9hcz7l3wgqh4
Feb 15, 2019 22:53:58.017 [12600] DEBUG - Auth: authenticated user 1 as patmann03
Feb 15, 2019 22:53:58.029 [12600] DEBUG - It took 0.000000 ms to retrieve 206 items.
Feb 15, 2019 22:53:58.054 [12600] DEBUG - We're going to try to auto-select an audio stream for account 1.
Feb 15, 2019 22:53:58.054 [12600] DEBUG - Selecting best audio stream for part ID 158 (autoselect: 0 language: en)
Feb 15, 2019 22:53:58.054 [12600] DEBUG - Audio Stream: 1101, Subtitle Stream: -1
Feb 15, 2019 22:53:58.066 [12600] DEBUG - Found session GUID of 5wixqcywe6g0b508lp3iiw5n in session start.
Feb 15, 2019 22:53:58.067 [12600] DEBUG - Cleaning directory for session 5wixqcywe6g0b508lp3iiw5n ()
Feb 15, 2019 22:53:58.068 [12600] DEBUG - Starting a transcode session 5wixqcywe6g0b508lp3iiw5n at offset -1.0 (state=3)
Feb 15, 2019 22:53:58.071 [12600] INFO - CodecManager: obtaining decoder 'h264'
Feb 15, 2019 22:53:58.072 [12600] DEBUG - HTTP requesting GET https://plex.tv/api/codecs/h264_decoder?build=windows-x86-standard&deviceId=f73b7e54-d0be-4a5d-9738-f2817ac504e1&oldestPreviousVersion=1%2E15%2E0%2E659-9311f93fd&version=a22632d-2034
Feb 15, 2019 22:53:58.605 [12600] DEBUG - HTTP 429 response from GET https://plex.tv/api/codecs/h264_decoder?build=windows-x86-standard&deviceId=f73b7e54-d0be-4a5d-9738-f2817ac504e1&oldestPreviousVersion=1%2E15%2E0%2E659-9311f93fd&version=a22632d-2034
Feb 15, 2019 22:53:58.605 [12600] ERROR - Codecs: Failed to download XML for codec 'h264_decoder'
Feb 15, 2019 22:53:58.606 [12600] ERROR - Error configuring transcoder: Decoder install failed: h264
Feb 15, 2019 22:53:58.606 [12600] DEBUG - Streaming Resource: Terminated session 0x7a28c58:qchj07fqo2pl9hcz7l3wgqh4 with reason Conversion failed. A required codec could not be found or failed to install.
Feb 15, 2019 22:53:58.606 [9568] DEBUG - Killing job.
Feb 15, 2019 22:53:58.606 [9568] DEBUG - Job was already killed, not killing again.
Feb 15, 2019 22:53:58.606 [9568] DEBUG - Stopping transcode session 5wixqcywe6g0b508lp3iiw5n
2

I tried it on my other PC and it worked fine… Although, I just did it with one sample file.

3

I’m seeing a 429 error in your log. That means there have been too many attempts to download the codec file so you’ve been temporarily IP blocked. Do you use a proxy server to access the internet? Since these use the same IP address for all users, it could be there are lots of users with the same IP so you are unluckily blocked.

4

Nope, no proxy. Used my other PC, also windows 10 on the same network (they were 2ft from each other). I even tried using a VPN to see if that would help.

5

This was my problem, EXCEPT THAT I tried just removing the RSA folder as suggested, that did not work. I removed both the key and rsa folder within the crypto folder and also deleted the device id in the plex media server app data folder under codecs… rebooted. Boom, back up and running.

HORRIBLE. This is obviously a problem that people are having… those that are not technically savvy would never be able to fix this. Plex should have a way to clean this up in the event of these errors.

https://support.plex.tv/articles/227341367-windows-key-not-valid-for-use-in-specified-state-error-and-transcoding-analysis-issues/

6

Glad you found the problem. That’s odd, since I did not see the normal symptoms of that issue in your PMS logs.

I wonder if this was your actual issue, a bad device ID file.

7

I don’t think so as I did a clean uninstall before this which resulted in deleting the server data on my pc. The next morning I tried again and noticed the key error which I then resolved via the steps above.

8

If you saw the key error then, that was it. I hadn’t seen it in your earlier log.

9

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