Help - Conversion failed. The transcoder exited due to an error. - cannot fine file

[mpit52]

Server Version#: 1.41.3.9292, Ubuntu 24.10
Player Version#: 1.107.2.300-7093f413,
I’m not sure exactly what happen but my Plex server started to have issues accessing older files. These files have been in my library for years and have not been modified recently… If I go to view one of the media files, I get an error message stating “Conversion failed. The transcoder exited due to an error.”

When I check/watch the console, I see error messages stating “couldn’t find the file to stream:/path/to/file”

When I do an ls -l on the file, it’s found in the appropriate path but ownership seems weird.
Permission: drwxrwxr-x 2 systemd-network plex
I tried changing permissions (group/owner) to match plex:plex but no change, same error. The non-working media file itself has the same exact permissions as working files. Plex Media Server is running as the ‘plex’ user and the ‘plex’ user is in the ‘plex’ group.

Any/all assistance would be appreciated.

[ChuckPa]

can you please provide a directory listing?

Listing a single file doesn’t provide enough info.

Also, please provide:

id plex
id systemd-network

Where is the directory mounted?

I am suspecting your /etc/passwd or filesystem is damaged somehow.
(you might need to dismount and run fsck)

[mpit52]

Not sure if you need a full dir listing but here is a subset…in the example provided, only ‘The Lord of the Rings The War of the Rohirrim (2024)’ works.

The export is mounted to /media/qnap2. Full path could be /media/qnap2/Movies/…

Not sure if this is relevant but in Plex I do not have a ‘Transcoder temporary directory’ specified.

drwxrwxrwx   2 plex            plex  4096 Mar 13  2023 'The Lord of the Rings The Return of the King (2003)'
drwxrwxrwx   2 plex            plex  4096 Mar 20  2023 'The Lord of the Rings The Two Towers (2002)'
drwxrwxr-x   2 systemd-network plex  4096 Mar  1 14:29 'The Lord of the Rings The War of the Rohirrim (2024)'
drwxrwxrwx   2 plex            plex  4096 May  4  2023 'The Martian (2015)'
drwxrwxrwx   2 plex            plex  4096 Jan 16  2024 'The Marvels (2023)'

plex@plex-ubunut-resize:/media/qnap2$ id plex
uid=1000(plex) gid=1000(plex) groups=1000(plex),4(adm),24(cdrom),27(sudo),30(dip),44(video),46(plugdev),100(users),992(render),114(lpadmin)

plex@plex-ubunut-resize:/media/qnap2$ id systemd-network
uid=998(systemd-network) gid=998(systemd-network) groups=998(systemd-network)

[ChuckPa]

You have some cross-system UID/GID ownership happening

This is my Ubuntu machine:

[chuck@lizum ~.2002]$ grep 998 /etc/passwd
plex:x:998:998::/var/lib/plexmediaserver:/usr/sbin/nologin

[chuck@lizum ~.2003]$ grep 998 /etc/group
plex:x:998:

[chuck@lizum ~.2004]$ 

and

[chuck@lizum ~.2004]$ id chuck
uid=1000(chuck) gid=1000(chuck) groups=1000(chuck),4(adm),24(cdrom),27(sudo),30(dip),44(video)
[chuck@lizum ~.2005]$ 

---

This:

plex@plex-ubunut-resize:/media/qnap2$ id plex
uid=1000(plex) gid=1000(plex) groups=1000(plex),4(adm),24(cdrom),27(sudo),30(dip),44(video),46(plugdev),100(users),992(render),114(lpadmin)

looks like you setup Ubuntu 24.10 for user plex to be the administrative user (first username created)

`

Is this true?

[mpit52]

Yes, primary and sole user on my plex server is “plex”. I repurposed my old gaming machine as a Plex Server with Ubuntu. The NFS Export is shared between 2 other Ubuntu systems which is why you’re prob seeing ‘cross-system’ ownership.
I’m not entirely sure this is a permission issue though… I changed perms to 777, changed group and owner to ‘plex:plex’ but still have issues.

while permissions are not ‘identical’, the non-working files have MORE permissions than the working ones. In either case, the owner ‘plex’ has read, write perms.

also, it seems that I can play the video in the Web Player but when I try to play it in either the Plex App in Windows or on an Android tablet, I get the original error. There seems to be something wrong with transcoding.

plex@plex-ubunut-resize:/media/qnap2$ ls -l Movies/The\ Lord\ of\ the\ Rings\ The\ War\ of\ the\ Rohirrim\ \(2024\)/
total 7109580
-rw-rw-r-- 1 plex plex      73156 Mar  1 14:29 'The Lord of the Rings The War of the Rohirrim (2024) WEBDL-1080p.en.hi.srt'
-rw-rw-rw- 1 plex plex 7280130243 Jan  8 04:22 'The Lord of the Rings The War of the Rohirrim (2024) WEBDL-1080p.mkv'

plex@plex-ubunut-resize:/media/qnap2$ ls -l Movies/The\ Martian\ \(2015\)/
total 35084420
-rwxrwxrwx 1 plex plex 35926438726 May  4  2023 The.Martian.2015.EXTENDED.1080p.BluRay.REMUX.AVC.DTS-HD.MA.TrueHD.7.1.Atmos-FGT.mkv

[ChuckPa]

On the QNAP, do you have a username plex (exact case match of the ubuntu username) ?

If not, create one.
make the password extremely complex

Now go to the shared folder which contains the media and add plex to the permissions list for the shared folder

Try that.

If still not working, then go to where the qnap2 shared folder is on the QNAP.
Right-click Movies → Properties → Permissions

Make certain to check the Apply changes to the folder(s), subfolder(s) and files box.

Retest

---

Final straw would be to get into the QNAP, at the command line, and force the ownership and permissions manually.

It’s not a big deal but you do need to figure out what’s needed and where to apply it

I’ll help you with applying that if/when needed

[mpit52]

Thanks for the assistance guys but I figured it out. Seems I still had an old mount configured in my plex library that was causing conflicts. Last October I migrated to a larger QNAP NAS but it seems I forgot to remove the ‘Movies’ library folder in Plex. Not sure why this wasn’t an issue sooner but once I removed the ‘no longer existing’ folder, everything started working.

For reference,

/media/qnap2/PlexData/Movies/ 
/media/qnap/PlexData/Movies <- Old mount path.