Server Version#: 1.24.5.5173
Web Player#: 4.63.0
All of a sudden - I am getting this error. I am a Plex pass subscriber. The server runs on Synology DS1821+ which DSM7.0 which is powerful enough. What is going on ?
These are the logs
Plex Media Server Logs_2021-11-06_18-56-48.zip (4.4 MB)
according to compatibility guide it can only transcode 480,720p . and cannot do HW transcoding so a Plex Pass would not have an affect on that feature.
do you have Video stream transcoding disabled in the servers transcoder settings?
Video stream transcoding was disabled, now I enabled it, but I get the same error. The DS1821+ has a relatively new CPU - what do you mean by "it can only transcode 480,720p ". As far as I know it can also perform 4K transcoding. I only get this error on 4K content - how am I supposed to configure the Plex server inorder to get 4K played on a HD PC ? One of my laptops has a HD display - that is where I have issues.
The DS1821+ uses an AMD Risen Embedded V1500B as its CPU.
The chip has no iGPU, so there’s no hw-accelerated transcoding.
This leaves you only the bare CPU for any required transcoding… and to put it blunt, the CPU is far from having sufficient power to transcode a 4K file. Transcoding 1080p sources could work to some degree (mostly for lower bitrate files).
TL;DR: if you want to play 4K videos from a Plex Media Server on this NAS you need to ensure it’s compatible with what the player / client can deal with (=avoid transcoding at all cost).
try using the Plex for Mac/Windows player available on our downloads page, rather than the web app in browser. it can play many more file types natively than a web browser can and won’t need the server to transcode. it has basically the same interface as the web app.
Thank you both BigWheel and tom80H for all your advice and suggestions. Can you tell me what the best settings are for my Plex server ? Shall I switch off all encoding options in this case ? Or leave it the way it is to automatically handle whatever encoding it can handle ? I will download the Plex player later and give it a try.
What puzzles me is that the laptop I am talking abou (8th generation core i7 with HD display and AMD FirePro 7100) handles fine the 4K files when I play them directly from my Synology Samba shares, but when using the Plex Web player it does not. On the other side - I have a new LG Gallery series (2021) 4K OLED TV which plays the 4K content without any issues. Also my NVIDIA 2019 Shield does not have any problems with it. Apparently the Plex Web player does not allow the PC (client) to transcode the video - correct ? So either the video must be HD format in order to play on this laptop OR transcoding should happen serverside (on the Plex Server platform). Do I understand this correctly ?
P.S. Even my iPhone XS Max plays this 4K content via the Plex without any issues - apparently the transcoding happens in the phone. I am surprised that Synology are producing in 2021 NAS with such a low powered CPU and asking 1000 USD for it. Apparently they focus purely on the IO (disk and LAN) and do not provide any CPU power for tasks like transcoding :).
That’s not exactly surprising. A browser is among the worst options to play your media. Browsers have very limited capabilities when it comes to playing media files… no matter how powerful the underlying machine is. That leaves the hard job with your server which needs to „pre-digest“ the video to convert it so the browser can deal with it.
Well… a NAS is „network attached storage“, not a super computer. They’ve been getting significantly more powerful over the last few years and you’ll find models which are optimized for video streaming (to some degree)… but they’re still mostly low-powered storage devices
https://support.plex.tv/articles/201373823-nas-devices-and-limitations/
https://support.plex.tv/articles/201373803-nas-compatibility-list/
Your computers processor has nothing to do with it if it is not the thing running the server. The device the server is running on is what always does the transcoding/conversion and in this case that is your NAS.
A web browser as a player is very limited. Think of it as an extremely basic device. It cannot play/decode as many types of files/codecs as most other dedicated video playback apps/devices. Generally you should think of a web browser as a separate device than the computer it is on. So the server needs to transcode to make something compatible to send to it and your NAS is not powerful enough to do that.
The dedicated Plex apps on your phone, and TV simply can play/decode more types of things. because the devices themselves have more codec support than a web browser.
For your laptop you should download the dedicated Plex player app available for Mac/Window on our downloads page
I have a very similar problem: I am using Plex Server on a Synology DS215j NAS for many years since 2015 now to stream TV recordings (HDHomeRun) to an Amazon Fire TV 4k box. Recently, I upgraded the server on my NAS to version 1.24.5.5173-6000 and all of a sudden I cannot play any files from the Plex server on my Amazon Fire TV 4K box anymore. Instead, I get the “This server is not powerful enough…” message. All I did was upgrading the server to the mentioned version.
Playback on my phone and PC still works (as they are more powerful), but not on the Amazon Fire TV box. Did the Plex team drop any formats or make any format changes w.r.t. supporting older devices?
Please start collecting the following for me to give to engineering
I will take everything presented here and fold together, including all the posted data for Engineering and the Player Product team to
I was able to solve the problem for my instance. I did two things at the same time, so I am not sure which of the steps solved the issue, but it’s working for me again.
Step 1: Update the Plex Media Server software to version 1.25.0.5246-6000 on the Synology DS215j NAS
Step 2: Full reset of the Amazon Fire TV 4K box under Settings → My Fire TV → Reset to Factory Defaults.
I did the reset in step 2 mainly because I initially deleted the Plex app from the Fire TV box and wanted to re-install it to exclude any issues with the app. The following install of the app was then stuck in an install loop. I did let it sit and work for hours, but it never finished the install. After a full reset of the Fire TV box, I was was able to install the Plex app again, connect to the Plex Media Server with the new software version and everything works beautifully again.
P.S.: Thanks ChuckPa for your quick response. I appreciate it.
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