From what we have seen, it was the encoding that was causing issues on some systems and for this reason a separate switch is now available to optionally inhibit it
I am not aware of systems that have hardware encoding working but not hardware decoding.
Err…why not? As long as you don’t log out, RDP fully opens a desktop session. Plex runs normally (not as a service) and so does everything else, as if I were in front of the PC in question.
At this point, we do not know if your crashes are the ones seen when running as service / through RDP. Best to get some dmp files and logs to see
as long as you configure windows 10 to automatically logon at bootup, and PMS to start with Windows, I have not had an issue running my test system headless with all transcoding enabled (i5-6500K) o dedicated GPU. You don’t need to configure it as a service, nor use RDP to startup PMS.
granted it is just a test system not my 24/7 system, I use synology OS for that.
This (auto logon). I only run into issues with PMS if I interact with Windows via RDP after it starts.
thanks. I will test and see. have you tried VNC? its free.
@sa2000 I was seeing intel quick sync crashes as well, but on the decoding side. When I upgraded to the newest beta version of plex (1.18.4.2171) and ONLY selected the hardware for decoding and not the encoding option, I was still getting crashes during a conversion. Before I saw this post, I updated to Windows 1909 and ran the intel driver update wizard. I am running the “legacy” version 
of the intel graphics driver (20.19.15.5058) which is the newest version for my PC and it seems to be properly transcoding again with both hardware transcoding options selected.
For what it is worth, I have windows 10 machine, with a user logged in and plex set to start on login with a hdmi out hooked to my TV.
I haven’t tried VNC… I don’t really need remote access that often since my TV is connected to the PC, so most of the time I just interact with it directly. According to another thread VNC should work without causing problems.
PLEX MEDIA SERVER.zip (101.4 KB)
Here are two crashes i have on the newest version @sa2000
The crashes are within intel driver igdumdim32.dll similar to what is in the table in bullet 1 in this post Hardware transcoding (QuickSync) causing server crash - #75 by sa2000
Okay than this is my issue 
Tried to change igpu driver but because i have custom hp drivers it is not letting me install the most recent or the compatible ones - will just work with server over vnc or something for now
Thanks for the help
Welp. it’s April 2020 now and I thought a combination of Intel drivers and Plex Media Server updates would have fixed it, but it has not. I still have PMS crashes due to Intel QSV in a headless environment.
Windows 10 (1909) Pro x64 - Intel i5-8400 CPU
Plex Media Server 1.19.2.2673
Intel Drivers 26.20.100.7985
Apr 20, 2020 16:06:48.263 [1620] DEBUG - Codecs: testing h264_qsv (encoder)
Apr 20, 2020 16:06:48.263 [1620] DEBUG - Codecs: hardware transcoding: testing API qsv
Apr 20, 2020 16:06:48.265 [1620] ERROR - [FFMPEG] - Failed to create Direct3D device
Apr 20, 2020 16:06:48.265 [1620] DEBUG - Codecs: hardware transcoding: opening hw device failed - probably not supported by this system, error: Unknown error occurred
Apr 20, 2020 16:06:48.265 [1620] DEBUG - Codecs: testing h264_nvenc (encoder)
Apr 20, 2020 16:06:48.265 [1620] DEBUG - Codecs: hardware transcoding: testing API nvenc
Apr 20, 2020 16:06:48.266 [1620] ERROR - [FFMPEG] - Cannot load nvcuda.dll
Apr 20, 2020 16:06:48.266 [1620] ERROR - [FFMPEG] - Could not dynamically load CUDA
Apr 20, 2020 16:06:48.266 [1620] DEBUG - Codecs: hardware transcoding: opening hw device failed - probably not supported by this system, error: Unknown error occurred
Apr 20, 2020 16:06:48.266 [1620] DEBUG - Codecs: testing h264_mf (encoder)
Apr 20, 2020 16:06:49.190 [1620] INFO - [FFMPEG] - MFT name: 'Intel® Quick Sync Video H.264 Encoder MFT'
Apr 20, 2020 16:06:49.377 [11592] DEBUG - Job running: C:\Plex\CrashUploader.exe "--directory=[SANITIZED] --vendor=Microsoft --model=x64 --device=PC
Apr 20, 2020 16:06:49.380 [11592] DEBUG - Jobs: Starting child process with pid 968
I’ve given up at this point getting HW transcoding working the way it use to.
Yes that is still an issue and it is mentioned in the post I linked earlier Hardware transcoding (QuickSync) causing server crash - #75 by sa2000
Disabling hardware encoding (now a separate server setting) may help
Some users got round the problem by having dummy monitor Plex Media Server Crash with Hardware Acceleration Enabled - #57 by TeknoJunky
Just want to add my experience here as it may be related.
Running Plex server on a NUC 10 windows 10.
Going to switch to VNC for now as others have said that works, but this is a relatively recent problem for me.
Is this a plex issue or a windows issue? I’d prefer to continue to use RDP and also not have to worry about HW transcode unreliability. Any info?
Thanks.
Windows CVE-2019-0708 and another one that relates to video drivers disabled the decoder. If you login with keyboard + monitor the first time after reboot then you can use RDP.
I had this issue with my new Plex server build on a Dell 7040 with i7 and integrated graphics. I didn’t note what version driver I had when the issue was occurring, but Version: 26.20.100.8141 (Latest) Date: 4/27/2020 fixed the issue for me. I had previously used Dell’s driver tool to download the latest drivers and assumed they were the most recent. When debugging this issue I went to Intel’s site and ran their detection and got this latest build that fixed the issue.
Thank you so much, sa2000.
I purchased an inexpensive HDMI dummy plug off Amazon and it resolved the issue. I have the VNC service installed as a backup, but RDP in a headless environment works much better for me, least personally. Cheers.
I managed to fix this by swapping to ubuntu server 20. Worked out of the box without any additional tweaks. No dummy hdmi needed, no drivers.
I’m able to transcode 5 4k streams simultaneously using my 7700k without buffering. Perfect
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