Hardware Acceleration Crashing Server After 1.25.0.5220 Update

Plex Media Server
1

Server Version#: 1.25.0.5220
Player Version#: Web 4.69.0
OS: Ubuntu server 20.04.3

Updated to 1.25.0.5220 and was suddenly not able to play a lot of my media, trying to play it would cause a network error then media unavailable because the server had crashed on the back end. Install was fine, no errors shown

(Reading database ... 143746 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack plexmediaserver_1.25.0.5220-de6e61df7_amd64.deb ...
PlexMediaServer install: Pre-installation Validation.
PlexMediaServer install: Pre-installation Validation complete.
Unpacking plexmediaserver (1.25.0.5220-de6e61df7) over (1.25.0.5220-de6e61df7) ...
Setting up plexmediaserver (1.25.0.5220-de6e61df7) ...
PlexMediaServer install: PlexMediaServer-1.25.0.5220-de6e61df7 - Installation starting.
PlexMediaServer install: 
PlexMediaServer install: Now installing based on:
PlexMediaServer install:   Installation Type:   Update
PlexMediaServer install:   Process Control:     systemd
PlexMediaServer install:   Plex User:           plex
PlexMediaServer install:   Plex Group:          plex
PlexMediaServer install:   Video Group:         render
PlexMediaServer install:   Metadata Dir:        /var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support
PlexMediaServer install:   Temp Directory:      /tmp 
PlexMediaServer install:   Lang Encoding:       en_US.UTF-8
PlexMediaServer install:   Intel i915 Hardware: Not found
PlexMediaServer install:   Nvidia GPU card:     Found
PlexMediaServer install:  
PlexMediaServer install: Completing final configuration.
PlexMediaServer install: Starting Plex Media Server.
PlexMediaServer install: PlexMediaServer-1.25.0.5220-de6e61df7 - Installation successful.  Errors: 0, Warnings: 0
Processing triggers for gnome-menus (3.36.0-1ubuntu1) ...
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils (0.24-1ubuntu3) ...
Processing triggers for mime-support (3.64ubuntu1) ...

I have a 980Ti in this machine and as noted in the install it is found and used to work. I found that by disabling hardware acceleration the server will then play media as normal (HDR tone mapping still enabled). I seem to recall in the last update batch I saw something about an nvidia driver update so that could be the result, but this being a headless system I am not certain how to tell what the driver is.

I tried rolling back to a previous version (1.24.5) but still crashing. Not sure if this would work to begin with as a new major version downgrade (database issues?).

Not sure if there is an issue with the nvidia driver or a compatibility issue between the driver and the new Plex version. Also the only machine I have the nvidia driver on (for hardware acceleration for plex specifically) so not sure how to pull up the driver version and check on the driver integrity.

2

Are the drivers up to date / proper ? There have been some bad releases.

4

Thats what I am not sure how to validate. If I ran a apt list and grepped the nvidia drivers there is a whole bunch listed. Not sure how to tell what I am actually using/their integrity. It’s a headless server so literally only thing using the drivers is Plex. When Plex crashes the listed log location also has no output in it for me to reference.

5

@piskieee

  1. Create a new directory and library section of type “Other Videos” to hold some test videos - name “Jellyfish”

  2. Go to this site: https://jell.yfish.us

  3. Download the H.264 and H.265 videos for up to about 50 Mbps.

  4. Place them in the new test library

  5. Now you have controlled test reference files to work from.

There must be normal PMS output in the Logs directory up until that point

6

Mine crash as well.
I’m using Intel quick sync
And it only crash if it have to transcode.
Both h.264 and h.265
But direct play no issues.

7

@handswork

I believe this release has the new transcoder. It might have a few issues if it is.

Please run the test files above and see if you can reproduce (with DEBUG logging enabled).

Let’s see if we can pin down the problem with a controlled test case.

After you recreate it, please attach your log files ZIP

8

I have tested a bit.

I can only replicate it after the jellyfish-60-mbps-hd-hevc-10bit.mkv (included)
So it seems to be the part where 10bit comes in, at that rate and above.
I hope the attached log files are enough?
logs.zip (843.6 KB)

9

I have not had an opportunity to do this yet as I was busy all weekend, but I can confirm all my media is h264 encoded base. Will try to get this running today as well with an nvidia hardware acceleration perspective.

10

Need to do some more testing but looks like 1.25.0.5246 might have fixed the issue

11

The latest update did not fix it for me. Same same

12

@handswork

  1. Please turn VERBOSE logging back to the OFF (unchecked) setting. It makes too much noise in the logs. We only use it in extreme cases.

  2. I do not know how HW transcoding works on Windows. (I don’t have a Windows machine + Windows itself manages the QSV work)

13

This is the same issue we are having as well seems more Linux users are now experiencing it.

14

@Davidtt485

Do you have DEBUG log files which capture the failure ?

15

Version 1.25.0.5246 is working for me. I can confirm this with hw transcoding of even “H.264 High 10 HDR” formatted media with “make my cpu hurt” transcoding quality (if applicable) it is no longer having the crash.

16

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