Hardware transcoding (QuickSync) causing server crash

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
43

OK. I was pretty sure I had tried 1.18.0.1913-e5cc93306 and 1.18.0.1944-f2cae8d6b in the
past and had crashes. So, after your asking to try 1.18.0.1944-f2cae8d6b as a fix for the HW Transcoding issue, I sat down to give this another look. While trying to recreate the issue on my personal PMS, I tried various different builds, with or without Hardware Transcoding enabled.

1.17.0.1841-d42cfa161 - Seems to work reliably with HW or SW Transcoding.
1.18.0.1913-e5cc93306 - Seems to work reliably with HW or SW Transcoding.
1.18.0.1944-f2cae8d6b - Seems to work reliably with HW or SW Transcoding. But did appear to crash a couple times on me during testing today. Not sure why. May have caused some confusion in troubleshooting steps in the past.
1.18.1.1973-0f4abfbcc - Works with SW Transcoding. Crashes reliably with HW Transcoding.
1.18.2.2029-36236cc4c - Works with SW Transcoding. Crashes reliably with HW Transcoding.
1.18.2.2041-3d469cb32 - Works with SW Transcoding. Crashes reliably with HW Transcoding.
1.18.2.2058-e67a4e892 - Works with SW Transcoding. Crashes reliably with HW Transcoding.

So, I will do one of the workarounds… Disable automatic updates again, and fall back several versions in my PMS so I can enable HW Transcoding. Or just disable HW Transcoding and allow automatic updates. Hopefully the issues with HW Transcoding in PMS will be resolved soon.

2 Likes
44

Can confirm. Occurs in 1.18.2.2058 and whatever I was on before that - probably the last public version. Software transcoding still works.

6700k / GTX 1070, prefer higher speed encoding, very fast preset, transcoding on primary SSD

MediaInfo examples:
https://pastebin.com/b6Smvxci
https://pastebin.com/TnbWut9S

45

Thank you for posting this. I have been trying to diagnose this issue between work and was completely confounded by what was causing it. It was only last night that I attempted to disable hardware encoding and realized that was the issue. Hopefully this is resolved soon.

46

Can confirm I’m experiencing the same issue (including the same FFMPEG error in the logs) with recent Plex builds. Interestingly, these seem to manifest when viewing files via the Web interface with hardware transcoding; if viewing on the iPad, I did not experience the same problem (possibly because a different level of transcoding was being used).

As a workaround, I have reverted to software encoding for the time being.

47

Thanks for doing the research I’m going back to this version until it’s fixed.

48

Ok 1.18.0.1913 isn’t working either. I guess I’m on software decoding for a while.

49

The issue seems to stem from Intel’s drivers. Downgrading to 26.20.100.7000 fixed it for my 6700k (HD530).

And here’s how to selectively block driver updates per device: https://www.howtogeek.com/263851/how-to-prevent-windows-from-automatically-updating-specific-drivers/

50

We also have this intel driver version matrix based on users tests

The crashes that came in after plex media server version 1.18.0.1944-f2cae8d6b are still under investigation

1 Like
51

I’m also having this problem. It looks like for me at least, it only crashes when both hardware transcoding is enabled and it is a remote stream

52

Yes same observation. I was testing HW transcoding internally on my network and it was working fine, as soon as I turn wifi off and hit the site remotely it crashes.

53

Hardware transcoding has stopped working for me about a month or so ago. I have been waiting for an update to fix the issue. I started looking into the problem and found the FFMPEG error in my logs. I am confused as I am running Plex on a laptop running a Xeon E3-1575M, so I assume I am using QuickSync to transcode. My laptop also has an Intel Iris Pro P580 and NVIDIA Quadro M3000M. My question is how can I tell what hardware is being used by Plex for transcoding and is this a driver issue or a Plex issue

2 Likes
54

Same here :frowning: hardware acceleration crashing plex with h265
Server Version#: 1.18.2.2058
Windows 10
Nuc i7-5557u - 8gig Ram - 250G M2 SSD

55

did you try to back off your intel video driver to 7000? It seems to work for many using intel igpu

56

i allready seems to have old drivers as my igpu is a Iris Pro 6100 and my drovers from 2018 V 20.19.15.5058. Can’t find newer or older

57

I have the same issue, started on 1.18.1.1973-0f4abfbcc so i’ve reverted back to 1.18.0.1944-f2cae8d6b.

58

My setup is very similar to yours - same Windows build, i7 4770, except with AMD instead of NVIDIA GPU. I’m having similar issues with HW acceleration crashing PMS.

Thanks for doing some sleuth work and I’ll keep watch on this thread.

59

Fixed mine finally! Below you will see my setup and resolution.

Setup:
Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
Intel Core i7 3770 @ 3.40GHz
Ivy Bridge 22nm Technology
32.0GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 657MHz (9-9-9-24)
ASRock Z77 Extreme6/TB4 (CPUSocket)
Intel HD Graphics 4000 (ASRock)
1023MB NVIDIA Quadro P2000 (NVIDIA)
ForceWare version: 441.28

Solution:
Disable Intel GPU (Intel HD Graphics 4000)
Install latest NVIDIA Quadro drivers

Drivers Installed:
|Version:|R440 U3 (441.28) WHQL|
|Release Date:|2019.11.18|
|Operating System:|Windows 10 64-bit|
|Language:|English (US)|
|File Size:|415.44 MB|

Thoughts:
Could be a problem with dual GPU?
Could be a driver issue?
Could be a problem with Intel HD Graphics 4000?

Hope this helps others, as you can see without hardware accelerated transcoding my rig is almost useless.

3 Likes
60

@mmmmbop Thanks for the tip. Did you disable Intel HD Graphics in Windows, or in BIOS?

61

Just in Windows device manager, didn’t have to go the BIOS rout which is good because I RDP in.

62

I too have been having HW transcoding crashes since 1.18.1.1973 running both Intel and Nvida GPU’s I just confirmed as well that by disabling my IGPU in the BIOS and running straight off my GTX1070 with HW transcoding enabled I am no longer receiving crashes on the latest Plex build 1.18.2.2058