I am having trouble with transcoding 4K files on my plex server so thought of running it by the Plex gods here. It plays only for few seconds before throwing a message that server cannot handle it. I am aware of the recommendations that 4K media shouldn’t be transcoded so please don’t lecture me on that topic. This is more of an educational interest on my part to figure out why hardware transcoding is not working out in my situation.
Here is my setup - AMD CPU FX-8320E, 16GB RAM, evga GeForce 1050 ti, Windows Server 2016 Essentials. PMS is Server Version#: 4.38.1. 1050ti card is a new addition to try hardware transcoding. I bought it based on the information from the below website: https://www.elpamsoft.com/?p=Plex-Hardware-Transcoding
I read lot of material online about Windows Server 2016’s WDDM version being outdated. So I tried various versions of nvidia drivers ranging from the year 2017 to the latest and greatest available now.
I am attaching console log if anybody is interested to look at that. plex2.txt (233.0 KB) I couldn’t figure out anything from it though. For an older of nvidia driver I did see an error in logs to use a latest driver but after upgrading he driver, I couldn’t figure out what’s going wrong now. 1080p files are getting hardware transcoded fine though (I confirmed it on the plex dashboard).
When I turn off hardware transcoding, CPU is able to transcode with minor buffering issues every 5-10 minutes; so I guess Plex can transcode these files but it’s just that hardware transcoding is not working for some reason. Any insights from the experts here would be greatly appreciated.
Audio is still processed by the CPU and it can only use one core for the thread. While your CPU’s single thread rating may be borderline for processing HD audio, the partial log is complaining about the EAE codec. You could try deleting the file and restarting Plex to get a fresh file, monitor the logs to see if it has a problem with downloading.
Jul 14, 2020 15:27:07.002 [8008] Error — [Transcoder] [eac3_eae @ 02669c40] EAE timeout! EAE not running, or wrong folder? Could not read '\\?\C:\Users\Admin\AppData\Local\Plex Media Server\Cache\Transcode\Sessions\EasyAudioEncoder\Convert to WAV (to 8ch or less)\5407c74c-b468-4a87-a48f-a176e562cfb2-1_9128-0-5.wav'
Jul 14, 2020 15:27:07.004 [8008] Error — [Transcoder] [eac3_eae @ 02669c40] error reading output
Jul 14, 2020 15:27:07.007 [8008] Error — [Transcoder] Error while decoding stream #0:1: I/O error
I tried it. It’s still throwing server-cannot-handle message after playing the file for 5 seconds or so. Here is a log from the recent trail plex3.txt (394.4 KB) . I don’t see codec error in there but still couldn’t figure out what’s going wrong
I tried few more things - upgraded to Windows Server 2019 (now I see GPU’s performance), added an SSD to store few 4K movies for testing purpose, and started using RAM drive for transcoding. When I played 4k content, GPU utilization didn’t go past 50%. Interestingly “speed” parameter in verbose logging was 0.7 - 0.8 in many cases so that indicates some issue. In some places I have seen speed numbers like -17145088966656.0; don’t know what they mean though. Thought of proving this information if anybody find it useful to help me troubleshoot
Windows defender scanning is set to quick scan which was completed before I tested plex. This server got a fresh OS install so only windows files, nvidia driver and some movie files are on the SSDs; so scanning probably didn’t take long
It is a shame that elpamsoft doesn’t post their system specifications or the media test files used. Many will think all they have to do is pop in one of the cards and I will get the same results. The reality is that the CPU + RAM + DISK still have a lot to do with the overall throughput of the stream.
If one core is maxed out at 100% which is to be expected since that is the only way to keep the audio in sync with the video. Test with a file using no subtitles or HD audio, what is the result?
