I am still having the issue mentioned in the post below and wondering if after one year it has been resolved.
In Plex/web, the official solution is to preset the maximum quality before starting the playback (just like you’d set maximum quality for your TV or player when remote)
When using the desktop, or any of the other compiled apps, you can change on demand. This is because the compiled apps use a different (more sophisticated) streaming protocol with PMS.
Thing is, with AMD iGPU it works with no problems, but with nvidia gpu it does not.
Please show me the server’s DEBUG logs which capture the Nvidia GPU failing.
Also please show me the nvidia-smi console output.
Video starts playing fine, then I change playback setting quality to any of them and the video does not play anymore. Seeking also does not work.
And btw, the windows plex app also has the same issue.
log.txt (602.8 KB)
nvidia-smi
When I change the quality, a plex process appears for a second and then disappears.
Wed Aug 27 13:12:00 2025
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 580.76.05 Driver Version: 580.76.05 CUDA Version: 13.0 |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
| GPU Name Persistence-M | Bus-Id Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan Temp Perf Pwr:Usage/Cap | Memory-Usage | GPU-Util Compute M. |
| | | MIG M. |
|=========================================+========================+======================|
| 0 NVIDIA RTX 2000E Ada Gen... On | 00000000:07:00.0 Off | Off |
| 30% 36C P8 4W / 50W | 4MiB / 16380MiB | 0% Default |
| | | N/A |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes: |
| GPU GI CI PID Type Process name GPU Memory |
| ID ID Usage |
|=========================================================================================|
| No running processes found |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
If I set quality to convert automatically it plays fine.
Wed Aug 27 13:18:37 2025
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 580.76.05 Driver Version: 580.76.05 CUDA Version: 13.0 |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
| GPU Name Persistence-M | Bus-Id Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan Temp Perf Pwr:Usage/Cap | Memory-Usage | GPU-Util Compute M. |
| | | MIG M. |
|=========================================+========================+======================|
| 0 NVIDIA RTX 2000E Ada Gen... On | 00000000:07:00.0 Off | Off |
| 30% 47C P2 22W / 50W | 348MiB / 16380MiB | 3% Default |
| | | N/A |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes: |
| GPU GI CI PID Type Process name GPU Memory |
| ID ID Usage |
|=========================================================================================|
| 0 N/A N/A 1671519 C ...exmediaserver/Plex Transcoder 338MiB |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Changing quality or seeking too far (subjective definition) are known issues and both rooted in the player apps.
Quality: Engineering Official workaround is to set quality before starting playback and not changing it.
Seeking: Let the buffer fill the first time then seek.
Both of these are player problems. The players are being rewritten.
For ref: I am using Nvidia 570.181 (from their PPA) on the RTX 2000 ada
[chuck@lizum ~.2000]$ nvidia-smi
Wed Aug 27 14:52:09 2025
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 570.181 Driver Version: 570.181 CUDA Version: 12.8 |
|-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
| GPU Name Persistence-M | Bus-Id Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan Temp Perf Pwr:Usage/Cap | Memory-Usage | GPU-Util Compute M. |
| | | MIG M. |
|=========================================+========================+======================|
| 0 NVIDIA RTX 2000 Ada Gene... On | 00000000:01:00.0 On | Off |
| 30% 39C P8 9W / 70W | 2601MiB / 16380MiB | 0% Default |
| | | N/A |
But with the older drivers do you also have problems? Or no?
Setting quality before starting playback works, and seeking also.
Anyway, I am looking forward the release of new players.
I have no problems with these drivers.
I have seen cases where ‘bleeding edge’ nvidia drivers cause problems.
I use the PPA vetted drivers and always lag behind a few versions.
PMS does not require latest-and-greatest
Thank you. I might try those.
Hi, @ChuckPa I’m running into the same issue as Webguy, actually, even worse.
I was lucky enough to get an RTX A4000 for free, so I installed the drivers to test it and compare it with my ARC 310. Honestly, I’m a bit shocked: it can’t even handle 5 streams without buffering, and load times are quite slow from the browser. It’s a bit better through the apps (Windows, TV, mobile), but still not great.
I installed the same drivers as you, but nothing changes, the experience is still worse than with my little ARC.
PS: Plex is up to date, and I’m running Debian inside an LXC container.
Do you have any ideas before I decide to sell the card and switch to another Intel ARC?
There is clearly something going on there.
- My little P2200 can handle 5 streams without buffering
- I’ve not found the limit of my RTX2000 Ada Gen.
I do need more info.
- Nvidia drivers installed on the host (what does
nvidia-smishow?) - Host CPU
- How the GPU is being passed into the LXC
(I do all Plex testing in LXC (Incus management now)
Here’s my machine
[chuck@lizum ~.1999]$ nvidia-smi
Wed Sep 10 16:16:40 2025
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 570.181 Driver Version: 570.181 CUDA Version: 12.8 |
|-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
| GPU Name Persistence-M | Bus-Id Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan Temp Perf Pwr:Usage/Cap | Memory-Usage | GPU-Util Compute M. |
| | | MIG M. |
|=========================================+========================+======================|
| 0 NVIDIA RTX 2000 Ada Gene... On | 00000000:01:00.0 On | Off |
| 30% 40C P8 8W / 70W | 2547MiB / 16380MiB | 2% Default |
| | | N/A |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
In my config:
- The container UID:GID is assigned my Linux UID:GID (idmap)
- I pass in all the nvidia capabilities
- The network is a veth adapter which is a member of
br0
which the host itself is also a member of - Nvidia GID (from /dev/dri) grants the GPU access (how udev works)
I do pass the entire GPU in. The Nvidia driver handles sharing with the host - Media is “disk” device
[chuck@lizum ~.2007]$ incus config show plex42
architecture: x86_64
config:
image.architecture: amd64
image.description: Ubuntu noble amd64 (20250808_07:42)
image.os: Ubuntu
image.release: noble
image.requirements.cgroup: v2
image.serial: "20250808_07:42"
image.type: squashfs
image.variant: default
nvidia.driver.capabilities: all
nvidia.require.cuda: "true"
nvidia.runtime: "true"
volatile.base_image: 3821fe47b3baa537c29739e974d80bfb933438451bfc73fd8fb113ae392b8f42
volatile.cloud-init.instance-id: 1e263380-79b7-4876-9496-ca5c34291e2b
volatile.eth0.host_name: veth3a6a0c5e
volatile.eth0.hwaddr: 10:66:6a:5d:58:59
volatile.idmap.base: "0"
volatile.idmap.current: '[{"Isuid":true,"Isgid":false,"Hostid":1000000,"Nsid":0,"Maprange":1000000000},{"Isuid":false,"Isgid":true,"Hostid":1000000,"Nsid":0,"Maprange":1000000000}]'
volatile.idmap.next: '[{"Isuid":true,"Isgid":false,"Hostid":1000000,"Nsid":0,"Maprange":1000000000},{"Isuid":false,"Isgid":true,"Hostid":1000000,"Nsid":0,"Maprange":1000000000}]'
volatile.last_state.idmap: '[]'
volatile.last_state.power: RUNNING
volatile.last_state.ready: "false"
volatile.uuid: 34d19e1e-90e3-4e64-9938-27feb51efa74
volatile.uuid.generation: 34d19e1e-90e3-4e64-9938-27feb51efa74
devices:
GPUs:
gid: "110"
type: gpu
disk-device-1:
path: /media
source: /glock/media
type: disk
ephemeral: false
profiles:
- default
stateful: false
description: ""
[chuck@lizum ~.2008]$
capturing 4 streams. 80+ Mbps each → 20 Mbps H.264 w/ tonemapping.
Device 0 [NVIDIA RTX 2000 Ada Generation] PCIe GEN 4@ 8x RX: 492.4 MiB/s TX: 52.34 MiB/s
GPU 2460MHz MEM 6801MHz TEMP 66°C FAN 43% POW 46 / 70 W
GPU[|||||||||||| 48%] MEM[|||||||6.118Gi/15.996Gi] ENC[||||||76%] DEC[||||||63%]
┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
100│GPU0 % │
│GPU0 mem% │
│ │
│ │
│ │
75│ │
│ │
│ ┌─┐ │
│ ┌───┐ │ │ ┌─┐ ┌─┐ │
│ ┌─┐ ┌─┐ │ └─┘ └───┘ └─┐ ┌─┐ ┌─┐ ┌─┐ ┌─┐ │ │ ┌───┐ │
50│ ┌─┐ ┌─┐ │ │ │ │ ┌───┐ │ │ ┌───┘ └─┘ └─┘ └───┘ └───────────┐ ┌─────┐ ┌───┐ ┌─┐ ┌─┐ ┌─┐ ┌─┐ ┌─┐ ┌─┐ ┌─┐ │ │ │ └─┐ ┌─│
│ ┌─┐ │ │ │ │ ┌─┐ │ │ ┌─┐ ┌───┐ │ │ │ └───┘ └─┘ └─┘ │ ┌─┐ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ └─┐ │ │
│────┐ ┌─┐ ┌─┐ │ │ │ │ │ └─┐ │ │ │ │ ┌─┘ │ │ │ │ │ │┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ ┌─┐ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │┌┼─┼──────┐│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │┌┼─┼──────┐│ ┌─┐┌────┼─│
│────┼─────┼─┼─┼─┼───┼─┼───┼─┼─┼───┼───┼─┴─┬─────┼─┼───┼───┼─────┼───┼─┼─┼───┼┘ └──────────────┼───┼─┴─┬─┼─┼─┼───┼─┼─┼─────┼─┼┘│ │ └┼─┼───┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼─┼┘│ │ └┼─────┼─┼┘ │ │
│ │ ┌─┐ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ┌─┐ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
25│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ┌─┘ │ │ │ │ │ │ └─┐ │ │ ┌─┘ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ └─┘ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ┌─┘ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ┌─┘ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ ┌─┘ │ │ └───┘ │ ┌─┘ └─┘ │ │ │ │ │ │ └─┘ └───┘ └─┘ └─┘ └─┘ └─────┘ └─┘ └───────┘ └───┘ └─┘ └─┘ └─┘ └─┘ └─────┘ └───┘ │
│ └─┘ └─┘ └─┘ └─┘ └─┘ └─┘ └─┘ └─┘ └─┘ │
0│ │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
PID USER DEV TYPE GPU GPU MEM CPU HOST MEM Command
4034629 chuck 0 Graphic 0% 1285MiB 8% 0% 113MiB /snap/signal-desktop/821/opt/Signal/signal-desktop --type=zygote --no-zygote-sandbox --no-sandbox
2687012 chuck 0 Graphic 15% 901MiB 6% 19% 428MiB /opt/google/chrome/chrome --type=gpu-process --ozone-platform=x11 --crashpad-handler-pid=2686971 --enable-crash-reporter=57b416da-a2e8-4e9e-a144-7ebbc3eb8f19, --change-stack
2779315 N/A 0 Compute 0% 660MiB 4% 1% 363MiB /usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Plex Transcoder -codec:0 hevc -hwaccel:0 nvdec -hwaccel_fallback_threshold:0 10 -threads:0 1 -hwaccel_output_format:0 cuda -hwaccel_device:0 cuda -c
2776004 N/A 0 Compute 0% 612MiB 4% 1% 369MiB /usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Plex Transcoder -codec:0 hevc -hwaccel:0 nvdec -hwaccel_fallback_threshold:0 10 -threads:0 1 -hwaccel_output_format:0 cuda -hwaccel_device:0 cuda -c
2777562 N/A 0 Compute 8% 612MiB 4% 12% 359MiB /usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Plex Transcoder -codec:0 hevc -hwaccel:0 nvdec -hwaccel_fallback_threshold:0 10 -threads:0 1 -hwaccel_output_format:0 cuda -hwaccel_device:0 cuda -c
2778381 N/A 0 Compute 0% 612MiB 4% 2% 360MiB /usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Plex Transcoder -codec:0 hevc -hwaccel:0 nvdec -hwaccel_fallback_threshold:0 10 -threads:0 1 -hwaccel_output_format:0 cuda -hwaccel_device:0 cuda -c
11225 chuck 0 Graphic 0% 409MiB 2% 2% 262MiB /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg vt2 -displayfd 3 -auth /run/user/1000/gdm/Xauthority -nolisten tcp -background none -noreset -keeptty -novtswitch -verbose 3
11612 chuck 0 Graphic 0% 402MiB 2% 10% 703MiB /usr/bin/gnome-shell
73417 chuck 0 Graphic 0% 83MiB 1% 1% 1034MiB ./steamwebhelper -nocrashdialog -lang=en_US -cachedir=/home/chuck/.steam/debian-installation/config/htmlcache -steampid=73197 -buildid=1751405894 -steamid=0 -logdir=/home/ch
73197 chuck 0 Graphic 0% 71MiB 0% 1% 283MiB /home/chuck/.steam/debian-installation/ubuntu12_32/steam -srt-logger-opened -nominidumps -nobreakpad steam://rungameid/2418520
73449 chuck 0 Graphic 0% 5MiB 0% 1% 268MiB /home/chuck/.steam/debian-installation/ubuntu12_64/steamwebhelper --type=zygote --no-zygote-sandbox --user-agent-product=Valve Steam Client --lang=en_US.UTF-8 --user-data-di
73449 chuck 0 Compute 0% 5MiB 0% 0% 268MiB /home/chuck/.steam/debian-installation/ubuntu12_64/steamwebhelper --type=zygote --no-zygote-sandbox --user-agent-product=Valve Steam Client --lang=en_US.UTF-8 --user-data-di
13885 chuck 0 Graphic 0% 3MiB 0% 0% 138MiB gnome-control-center display
No buffering in Plex/web .. but the Chrome Browser is sucking up some time
Also consider this is a NUC12 Dragon Canyon (NUC12DCMi9-FULL)
Device 0 [AlderLake-S GT1] Integrated GPU RX: N/A TX: N/A
Device 1 [NVIDIA RTX A4000] PCIe GEN 4@16x RX: 468.7 MiB/s TX: 63.87 MiB/s
GPU 650MHz MEM N/A MHz TEMP N/A°C CPU-FAN POW N/A W
GPU 1905MHz MEM 7001MHz TEMP 78°C FAN 57% POW 103 / 140 W
GPU[ N/A] MEM[ N/A] GPU[|| 9%] MEM[|3.098Gi/15.992Gi] ENC[||||100%] DEC[|||||67%]
┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
100│GPU0 % │
│GPU0 mem% │
│ │
│ │
│ │
75│ │
│ │
│ │
│ │
│ │
50│ │
│ │
│ │
│ │
│ │
25│ │
│ │
│ │
│ │
│ │
0│────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────│
└112s───────────────────────────────────────────────────84s─────────────────────────────────────────────────────56s─────────────────────────────────────────────────────28s────────────────────────────────────────────────────0s┘
┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
100│GPU1 % │
│GPU1 mem% │
│ │
│ │
│ │
75│ │
│ │
│ │
│ │
│ │
50│ │
│ │
│ │
│ │
│ │
25│ │
│ ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────│
│ │ │
│ ┌┼────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────│
│ ││ │
0│──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┴┘ │
└112s───────────────────────────────────────────────────84s─────────────────────────────────────────────────────56s─────────────────────────────────────────────────────28s────────────────────────────────────────────────────0s┘
PID USER DEV TYPE GPU GPU MEM CPU HOST MEM Command
671923 N/A 1 Compute 0% 688MiB 4% 1% 327MiB /usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Plex Transcoder -codec:0 hevc -hwaccel:0 nvdec -hwaccel_fallback_threshold:0 10 -threads:0 1 -hwaccel_output_format:0 cuda -hwaccel_device:0
675212 N/A 1 Compute 4% 688MiB 4% 10% 328MiB /usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Plex Transcoder -codec:0 hevc -hwaccel:0 nvdec -hwaccel_fallback_threshold:0 10 -threads:0 1 -hwaccel_output_format:0 cuda -hwaccel_device:0
678485 N/A 1 Compute 5% 688MiB 4% 7% 327MiB /usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Plex Transcoder -codec:0 hevc -hwaccel:0 nvdec -hwaccel_fallback_threshold:0 10 -threads:0 1 -hwaccel_output_format:0 cuda -hwaccel_device:0
681207 N/A 1 Compute 0% 688MiB 4% 8% 327MiB /usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Plex Transcoder -codec:0 hevc -hwaccel:0 nvdec -hwaccel_fallback_threshold:0 10 -threads:0 1 -hwaccel_output_format:0 cuda -hwaccel_device:0I’ve just made some changes and it seems to work better.
Switched secureboot to standard, I know that proxmox doesn’t like secure boot very much for drivers but it was deactivated in custom mode… so strange that it works better on the standard world or is it because of my multiple restarts 
4x sources 80mbps > 20 mbps also
There have been reports of Proxmox issues.
I can’t speak to them as I only have a 4x4" cube running ProxMox
As for 80+ → 20 , that’s actually 4x(80+ → 20) == 320+ → 80 Mbps
If I understand correctly
4 streams of 80Mbps (example 4K) trancoded in 1080p (20Mbps)?
Because that’s what I did on my side to see if I had a result similar to yours
Yes.
- 4 independent streams,
- all playing in browser tabs.
- Each tab was receiving 20 Mbps from PMS + audio
yes,
Thanks in any case!
Since it works, I’ll leave it like that and not touch anything else. 
