I have PMS installed on a PC. Win10, Intel Core i7, NVIDIA GTX-1050ti GPU.
I want to use the NVIDIA GPU to transcode videos for remote connections. When playing files locally on my PC, I do original quality (no transcode), and plex uses the NVIDIA GPU for playback.
On my phone via wifi on my local network… again, no transcoding, so no problem.
On my phone with wifi turned off, plex does the transcoding to a lower bitrate. Works fine with hardware acceleration turned off, but it pegs my CPU at 90-100%.
On my phone with wifi turned off, and hardware acceleration turned on, the PMS app on my PC crashes as soon as I hit play on a video.
PMS and NVIDIA drivers are up to date.
Is this a Plex issue, Windows issue, or NVIDIA issue?
Just upgraded to today’s PMS release ( 1.18.3.2156)… and it worked!
Happy to report that HW acceleration worked successfully on my phone. CPU was at 15%, NVIDIA GPU at 40%… which is much better than CPU being stuck at 100%.
Plex Media Server bug leading to crashes when testing the intel graphics adapter with hardware acceleration enabled
This was fixed as from Plex Media Server 1.18.3.2156-349e9837e Plex Media Server
Fix crash on Windows with Intel graphics adapter and hardware acceleration enabled (#10736)
There may be still be crashes when running Plex Media Server headless through RDP or as a Service or Scheduled Task.
For these, as from version 1.18.4.2164 of Plex Media Server, there is a new Advanced Setting for the Transcoder that allows user to disable Hardware Encoding whilst leaving Hardware Acceleration enabled and used for decoding. That would be a better option than disabling all hardware acceleration in such environment
I’m still having this problem. Have a Intel HD graphics 4600 at driver version 20.19.15.4835 running headless. PMS version 1.18.4.2171. If I disable hardware encoding I have no problems, but it will never use hardware acceleration for encoding or decoding. If I enable hardware encoding, PMS will crash and close out the first time I try to transcode a video. Open PMS again, will work fine when using hardware transcoding until the computer is restarted.
It does not seem to go away if I don’t run headless. I connected a monitor emulator to the display port and still have the issue where PMS crashes. With both encoding and hardware acceleration turned on. It only does it once when the computer first starts up, and I try to play a video that needs transcoding. If I leave settings alone and restart PMS, hardware transcoding and encoding work perfect, until the computer restarts again.
With hardware encoding turned off, I don’t have any issues with PMS crashing, it just doesn’t use hardware acceleration for decoding the videos.
I can collect the logs if you would still like to see them.
Sorry for the confusion, I’ll try to be more specific…
I’ve attached the logs to this post as well, if what your looking for doesn’t show up, I’ll duplicate the crash again and can upload the logs again.
I am sorry but it is still not clear - I am going to try and break this down:
Lets look at the last statement
Plex doesn’t crash after computer restart or PMS restart if
Video encoding is disabled
HW acceleration is enabled
Is this statement saying the following:
PMS does not crash after relaunching PMS with Video Encoding disabled and HW Acceleration enabled and then playing a video that needs transcoding
and lets look at the first statement and try and break it down in separate statements
Plex crashes if…
Both HW transcoder settings enabled
Computer restarts or PMS is shut down
Video requiring transcoding is played
PMS crashes
Re-open PMS after crash (computer is not restarted)
Video requiring transcoding is retried, no issues using HW transcoding
If PMS is closed or computer restarts, this process starts all over again.
Is this saying the following for the first part:
PMS crashes after computer start up, if both hardware encoding enabled and hardware acceleration enabled and playing a video that needs transcoding
and saying this for the 2nd part
After PMS crashes, relaunch Plex Media Server.exe from the command line and with hardware encoding enabled and hardware acceleration enabled still, playing a video that needs transcoding does not crash PMS
Are you still running PMS as a Service or scheduled task or headless on restart of the computer or do you have a windows desktop session started, logging into Windows automatically and then auto launching Plex Media Server in that desktop windows session?
It is possible the manual relaunch of PMS after the crash is running it then as a normal desktop session so it no longer crashes as was known to happen for headless / service / scheduled task
You are correct with the points you’ve made on how PMS crashes.
This server is running headless, however I still have the issue if I connect a monitor simulator dongle to the display port on the motherboard.
I do start a remote desktop session after the computer restarts and PMS crashes, but even if I don’t start a remote desktop session, PMS will crash when it tries to use HW encoding.
Does Plex automatically Install itself as a scheduled task or service? I have not made any changes to how PMS starts up or is loaded when the computer boots up. In other words, I downloaded PMS from the website and installed it. Have not made any changes to the way the program runs on windows.
Plex Media Server does not run as scheduled task on launch or service unless you set it up this way.
When the computer restarts - is it restarting in a desktop session that you are signed into. I do not really know what the technicalities of running headless are - except that I understand some codecs would not be available and if Plex Media Server is launched in such an environment then there would be an issue - with hardware transcoding - thought to be encoding issue - hence the introduction of separate setting to disable that part.
You did say - if you restart Plex Media Server manually in this session, it works ok. That would fit in with the issue of it arising when the PC is running headless when Plex Media Server is launched. What is triggering the auto launch of Plex Media Server.exe when the computer is started headless before you setup a connection to it?
The issue of crashes when running headless or as service has been around for almost 2 years. I do not see this new settings as a temporary work around.
The crashes are in the intel dll mfx_mft_h264ve_32.dll and it would need Intel to say what is wrong. The setting is a workaround against an intel driver crash.
Need to compare the restart of the computer and auto launch of Plex Media Server between a background headless operation and one where you do it yourself when sitting in front of the terminal and restarting the PC. If the issue only arises with the former then it is to do with running headless and I have no advice for you on that other than disabling encoding and see if that stops the crashes.
There are users who have managed to run in this mode with an HDMI connected stick - suggest you discuss this with the users that have managed it
