[Feature Request] Show progress of Video Preview Thumbnail Generation

Feature Suggestions
1

Plex has a feature that generates thumbnails that can be used when scanning through a video. This feature is explained on these two Plex pages.

Video Preview Thumbnails
What are video preview thumbnails in Plex?

However when these preview files are bring generated the Plex Status page does not show anything even if the “Plex New Transcoder” process is using 100% of your CPU! Can we please add the thumbnail progress (BIF file creation) inside the Status UI page (see image below)?

julm1zlgxs07.png1110×342 16.7 KB

Phase 1 Simple Solution
Just display a string saying “Thumbnail file generation in progress” so users know something is happening as this will allow users to know when the Thumbnail process is running so they don’t get confused when their CPU usage is high or the performance of Plex slows or effects the performance of other applications on their machine.

Phase 2 More detailed information
Show a list of all the episodes/films that are scheduled to have thumbnail generation. Any shows that are being processed should also show the percentage completed. The actual thumbnails would NOT be displayed on this screen. Thumbnails would only be visible when you playback the episode once the process is complete as per the description links above.

This would be similar in how the Sync / Conversion tabs work currently.

How to vote for this feature
If you’d like to have this feature please give this post a Like. Replying to the thread with “+1” etc doesn’t count.

Additional benefits:
I have noticed a number of threads while researching how to track CPU usage during Thumbnail creation that could likely be solved by adding this information to the status page. Below are a few of the more common ones that usually track back to thumbnail creation when you dig into the logs.

My fans are on high speed until I quit Plex Server even if I am not watching anything.
Plex New Transcoder stuck on 100% even when I stop playing a show/converting a show.

These all usually track back to someone having added some new shows and the thumbnail generation running in the background.

Additional Technical information for implementation:

Implementing should hopefully be a relatively simple process as a lot of the information needed already exists. If you look at the logs for the Plex server when making a Thumbnail BIF file for an episode/film you’ll see something like this:

Aug 18, 2015 15:17:11 [0xebe23b70] DEBUG - Request: [127.0.0.1:42476] PUT /video/:/transcode/session/bif/progress?progress=26.2&size=-22&remaining=-1 (20 live)

This shows the progress as being 26.2% in this example for the file being processed.

Updates

  • Added screenshot to help illustrate the lack of info and where it would be useful to have the information placed.
  • Added additional clarification to avoid some confusion where people thought the progress would be for every single image
  • Fixed edits that got lost in the scheduled downtime for forum maintainable that coincided with an edit I was making.
2

I don’t know if we really need to see each thumb as it’s created, but at least something showing up in the Alerts page showing that there is something being done would be of immense value. And perhaps a progress of the file, so at least we know how long the system is likely to take making the files.

1 Like
3

@MikeG6.5 said:
I don’t know if we really need to see each thumb as it’s created,

Agreed that would be madness! I wasn’t requesting something like that at all.

Perhaps a progress of the file, so at least we know how long the system is likely to take making the files.

That’s what this request is about, showing the progress of the thumbnail generation underway not every individual image that would be crazy there are thousands per episode/film :slight_smile:

Edit: Added clarification to the original post as well just in case anyone else thinks the update would be per image not per episode/film based on your comments. Thanks for raising it helped me clarify just in case others read the request and got similarly confused.

4

hehe, No, I certainly didn’t think that you were requesting that, but I can see if this goes live, someone isn’t going to see their thumbs as they get created and then complain… I just wanted to make sure this was clarified before we get too far along in the request. (And I was sincerely hoping that you weren’t requesting this as well!) :slight_smile:

We get some real “smart” people that once a feature is explained to them, they still can’t come to grips with what it can do, versus what they “think” they want. Sometimes the reality of what there is available is drastically different than what people think we have. Not just in Plex, but in life in general.

Making these thumbs is a priority for some people, even though they might not even have a client app that can use them. Or a server that has the hardware able to make them in a timely manner. Having this info reported in Plex at least gives someone the information of why their device is running slowly, on a machine with a low end CPU.

Turning these index files off can be a make or break for low end systems… At least knowing they are being made could solve a lot of support headaches.

5

@MikeG6.5 said:
hehe, No, I certainly didn’t think that you were requesting that, but I can see if this goes live, someone isn’t going to see their thumbs as they get created and then complain… I just wanted to make sure this was clarified before we get too far along in the request. (And I was sincerely hoping that you weren’t requesting this as well!) :slight_smile:

Always good to clarify things :slight_smile:

We get some real “smart” people that once a feature is explained to them, they still can’t come to grips with what it can do, versus what they “think” they want. Sometimes the reality of what there is available is drastically different than what people think we have. Not just in Plex, but in life in general.

As someone who works in software development I completely understand you on that one :slight_smile:

Making these thumbs is a priority for some people, even though they might not even have a client app that can use them. Or a server that has the hardware able to make them in a timely manner. Having this info reported in Plex at least gives someone the information of why their device is running slowly, on a machine with a low end CPU.

Turning these index files off can be a make or break for low end systems… At least knowing they are being made could solve a lot of support headaches.

These two factors are two of the upsides to adding this that I think will make a difference as the feature is not only useful to people who know about the feature but also help explain to users who as you say have lower end machines or don’t know the impact of making these files.

Given your comments I’ll look to tweak my request explanation again to clarify the benefits more.

6

I vote for this. It would be nice to know how many items I have left to index and how many or finished. Or even a way to check if the process has failed or is not finished for a specific move. Right now the only way I know it worked is if thumbnails show up on a movie I’m watching.

7

@webmedic@gmail.com said:
Right now the only way I know it worked is if thumbnails show up on a movie I’m watching.

You’ll get also information whether the item has thumbnails or not when you inspect its Plex media info

721×514 32.1 KB

1 Like