Server Version#: 1.18.0.1913
Player Version#:
I saw there were transcoding bug fixes in some of the recent server pushes, so I re-enabled hardware acceleration (running an nVidia 960), and the video turned into a pixelated mess again. Are others still seeing this?
[I force transcode everything + burn in subtitles.]
Thanks!
The 1.18.1.1973 beta is working better for many people. Try it out and see if it solves your issue.
Interesting - is there a way to opt into the beta painlessly?
[update] Never mind - just noticed the drop down at the bottom. If i opt into the beta, can I toggle back to the public build fairly painlessly?
Sort of. You cannot go back to the previous public version, but it will allow you to switch to the next public version when that is released.
Thank you!
No it is not. The forum if flooded with reports of Plex Media Server crashing due to HW transcode. I being one of them.
Started immediately after 1.18.1.1973 upgrade.
Came to the forum to see several reports but no feedback whatsoever from the Plex team over a week…
When I suggested to arnoldburian that he try the beta, it was to see if it solved his problem.
That’s why you move to a beta, to solve issues or to test for issues.
So you’re decision was you wanted to test for issues in order to help Plex.
That’s very kind of you.
I totally understood that. My take was just informing that it was not stable or fixed.
i setup a test machine with latest windows 10 1909, current windows driver for intel gpu on a i5-6500, latest plex beta 1973, and I can play HEVC files with hw transcoding enabled. I confirm in the dashboard it is playing using hw transcoding. I tested five files and no pixelation or freezes. I don’t have a nvidia gpu to test with
I also had the pixellation problem and tried disabling hw acceleration. When I saw that the problem was fixed, I searched this forum for “hardware acceleration”, and here I am.
And here we all are 
We no official feedback from Plex and no fix in sight
Funny enough, even though we (Beta users) reported several issues with HW transcoding (effectively not working/crashing Plex Media Server), Plex team decides to publish the update publicly.
WOW! Just WOW!
And the prize goes to Plex!!! AHAHAHAHAH
Still broken for me too. Can’t believe they pushed it to public. Annoyingly I’ve just had to rebuild my server as my C:/ corrupted because of power loss, so my last backup didn’t have the working public release of 1.18.0*… So I had to track down a version online (Ended up getting it from FileHorse?). Can’t believe they’ve pushed out a broken release. What’s the point of beta testing…
Still broken here. Reverted back to software for now.
So when I have HW transcoding on it works for the most part, but I am getting random reports of some files buffering. Turning HW transcoding fixes it. Is this what everyone else is having issues with? This used to work no problem.
If you are using windows as a server and only accessing it remotely same way I was, this might help you - Transcoder crashing / not using HW acceleration on Windows running as a server - with WORKAROUND for RDP
It would just start pixelating for me, and then occasionally display a buffering error.
hw transcode is broken for me too, I had to disable it (running plex server on a w10 pc intel i5 8400 using qsv)
It just kills me how often this year Plex has been pushing updates with regressive bugs like this. HW transcoding was working fine for so long that it never occured to me when I had a couple people with stuttering and freezing that it might be a problem with this. I just assumed it was on their end. The constant breaking of features that seemed to be working fine just drives me crazy. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it!
Is it fixed now? The last update mentioned fixing a crash between integrated and dedicated graphics cards. Testing for a few minutes- things seem to be working ok again.
[update] After some additional testing, the picture does still take a quality hit when I enable hardware acceleration.
