Hardware transcoding no longer working

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
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1

Server Version: Debian 11 (64 bit)
Docker Version: 20.10.17, build 100c701
Server Version: 1.28.0.5998
Player Version: Multiple

I’m running Plex via Docker on my Debian host. My host has a P400 that at some point was working for hardware transcoding. I recently noticed that Tautulli no longer reported hardware transcoding for items being transcoded. I verified this with nvtop, which shows no load from Plex on the P400.

My compose is:

version: "3.4"

services:
  pms-docker:
    container_name: plex
    hostname: plex
    image: plexinc/pms-docker:plexpass
    deploy:
      resources:
        reservations:
          devices:
            - capabilities: [gpu]
    ports:
      - "3005:3005"
      - "8324:8324"
      - "32400:32400"
      - "32469:32469"
      - "1900:1900/udp"
      - "32410:32410/udp"
      - "32412:32412/udp"
      - "32413:32413/udp"
      - "32414:32414/udp"
    environment:
      - "ADVERTISE_IP=http://192.168.2.100:32400/"
      - "PLEX_UID=1003"
      - "PLEX_GID=998"
      - "TZ=America/New_York"
      - "NVIDIA_DRIVER_CAPABILITIES=compute,video,utility"
      - "NVIDIA_VISIBLE_DEVICES=all"
    volumes:
      - "/dev:/dev"
      - "/docker/config/plex:/config"
      - "/mnt/zpool/plex/localhost:/config/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Media/localhost"
      - "/mnt/zpool/media:/media:ro"
      - "/etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro"
      - "/docker/config/certbot/etc-letsencrypt:/etc/letsencrypt:ro"
    devices:
      - "/dev/dvb:/dev/dvb"
      - "/dev/dri:/dev/dri"
    restart: unless-stopped
    labels:
      - "com.ouroboros.enable=true"
    logging:
      driver: json-file
      options: 
        max-file: "3"
        max-size: "10M"
    network_mode: VergilNet

I have “Enable HDR tone mapping”, “Use hardware acceleration when available”, and “Use hardware-accelerated video encoding” enabled in the server settings. Notably, the container is able to see the P400:

[goose@Vergil: ~ ] $ docker exec -it plex nvidia-smi
Sat Jul 23 23:39:59 2022
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 470.129.06   Driver Version: 470.129.06   CUDA Version: N/A      |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| 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  Quadro P400         Off  | 00000000:05:00.0 Off |                  N/A |
| 58%   54C    P0    N/A /  N/A |      0MiB /  2000MiB |      0%      Default |
|                               |                      |                  N/A |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                                  |
|  GPU   GI   CI        PID   Type   Process name                  GPU Memory |
|        ID   ID                                                   Usage      |
|=============================================================================|
|  No running processes found                                                 |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
[goose@Vergil: ~ ] $

I’m not sure what changed/at what point hardware transcoding stopped working. Any idea where I need to adjust things to get it back?

Edited to fix the block text formatting

2

I have a P2200 , using Ubuntu 20.04 (server)

  1. Check your driver version. it’s a bit dated
[chuck@glockner ~.2001]$ nvidia-smi
Mon Jul 25 11:57:11 2022       
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 510.73.08    Driver Version: 510.73.08    CUDA Version: 11.6     |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| 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  Quadro P2200        On   | 00000000:07:00.0 Off |                  N/A |
| 48%   38C    P8     4W /  75W |      1MiB /  5120MiB |      0%      Default |
|                               |                      |                  N/A |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
                                                                               
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                                  |
|  GPU   GI   CI        PID   Type   Process name                  GPU Memory |
|        ID   ID                                                   Usage      |
|=============================================================================|
|  No running processes found                                                 |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
[chuck@glockner ~.2002]$
  1. Also check here please. I don’t see where the P400 is supported for transcoding.
3

Thanks for the response. My driver is the best I can get through backports, as my server is also a Proxmox host, and the more modern drivers available through NVIDIA and/or the standard repositories conflict with Proxmox.

Checking that page, I do see the P400 supported:

image
image1314×435 28.7 KB

4

I found it… Sorry

Check / upgrade the driver version. 470 is a bit old.

PMS updates the nvidia drivers in a delayed-sync with Nvidia

5

Followup.

Running the checklist:

Make certain the PLEX_GID is a member of the group (either render or video) which owns /dev/dri

1 Like
6

Check / upgrade the driver version. 470 is a bit old.

I wish I could update it further. I think we replied at the same time earlier, but I described why I can’t update past 470 at the moment. While it is 13 months old, I am hoping that is not the culprit. I don’t have a good way to test right now, without entirely reinstalling the OS/removing Proxmox.

Make certain the PLEX_GID is a member of the group (either render or video) which owns /dev/dri

I think you meant make sure the UID is in the proper group? Or should I be setting my PLEX_GID to GID 44 (The video group)? For reference, my PLEX_UID is 1003 (User cortana), and my PLEX_GID is 998 (Group docker).

The UID that Plex runs as is in the groups for video and render, which is the group for /dev/dri:

[goose@Vergil: /dev/dri ] $ ls -lah
total 0
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root        120 Jul 23 19:48 .
drwxr-xr-x 25 root root       6.1K Jul 25 01:31 ..
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root        100 Jul 23 19:48 by-path
crw-rw----  1 root video  226,   0 Jul 23 19:48 card0
crw-rw----  1 root video  226,   1 Jul 23 19:48 card1
crw-rw----  1 root render 226, 128 Jul 23 19:48 renderD128
[goose@Vergil: /dev/dri ] $ grep -E "^(video|render)" /etc/group
video:x:44:goose,cortana
render:x:107:goose,cortana
[goose@Vergil: /dev/dri ] $
7

No… I mean the GID (group ID)
All ownership is UID:GID format.

In your /dev/dri, renderD128 is UID=root, GID=render.

You do have coverage.

I don’t know how to update proxmox core packages (it’s not one of the distros we support) but I would think there must be a published way to install new drivers on top of existing drivers.

8

I’ll look into it on their forums and report back if/after I can. The host itself is Debian, it’s just using a Proxmox kernel (5.15). The default nvidia-driver in the Debian repos only supports up to kernel 5.10. I’ll see if they can support me in installing the newest driver from NVIDIA’s website, rather than the repo.

9

The driver does appear to have been the culprit. Using 515 directly from NVIDIA seems to have alleviated my problems. I can no longer use nvtop, since it is not compatible with the NVIDIA-direct driver. But both nvidia-smi and Tautulli now report hardawre transcoding.

Thanks @ChuckPa :heart:

10

@goose_ws

Given this is a media server, I’ve never found a need for nvtop. (we’re not gaming)
:slight_smile:

Glad it’s resolved for you.

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