New Guy, first post, because my Google- and forum-searching isn’t working:
I’ve been playing with Plex for a couple of months now, and I’ve found it to be an excellent piece of software with one exception. For some reason, it keeps hammering my modem with internet traffic. Last month’s increase was 20+ GB, and that’s after the previous month’s increase where I wrote it off to the initial metadata scraping and setup. I’ve turned off all the “automatic” functions, updates, etc., have enabled and disabled Secure/DLNA/Live Streaming etc. and the only time my modem doesn’t get hammered is when I stop and exit the Plex Server. After a restart, for several hours traffic will be fine, and then it starts the excessive internet usage again.
99.9% of our tv/movie watching is done from my local media storage, and really the only reason for installing Plex was for the great library and metadata functions. I’d be fine with a Plex version that didn’t hit the internet at all (except for pulling metadata), but realize that Live Streaming is an integral part of Plex and that it can be turned off in the software.
So… as a last resort I’ve uninstalled all the Plex software, have deleted my account, and am willing to wait the 30 days to sign up again. In the mean time, maybe some of you guys can help me figure out exactly what the heck is going on?
HI @gtriever_comcast_net - I think this was a little excessive, and I think what you have experienced is possibly coincidental.
Firstly, I am taking the assumption that you have not shared any of your content via Plex, with any friends or family, as this would obviously hit your internet bandwidth.
I am also assuming that you didn’t take a look at the Plex Activity Monitor which shows bandwidth being used?
If you were to reinstall Plex, get you libraries up and running again, and then within the Plex Web App, at the top right, you will see Activity…
If there are no streams, then you will simply see the icon as above, however if there are streams running, you will see…
Anyway, click on Activity, choose Dashboard, and you will be able to see a Bandwidth chart showing you both Local and Remote bandwidth in real time…
If Plex is moving lots of data over the internet, you will certainly see it happening here, however as mentioned above, if you have not shared any content with users Outside of your house, then I would not expect to see any major data movement here.
Next to the Roku icon it shows that the playback is consuming 1 Mbps of Local bandwidth.
Add: In a remote / indirect (relay) scenario, this would show accordingly.
A’ight… so let’s assume we’re in Relay, non-PlexPass, @ about the rate of Judge Judy (1Mbps)… how long would it take streaming 24/7 to generate 20G?
A Month?
A Year?
Also factor in the pain and suffering of a relay connection for Non-PlexPassers and the discussion would be about a lot more than 20G a month I think - if you could even get there in a month.
Thanks, guys. I agree that deleting my account and uninstalling was a bit excessive, but that’s a last-ditch move to start over with a clean account and installation, just in case all my changing things up had created some type of weird issue. Not being a Plex Pass subscriber, Dashboard was unavailable to me.
Andy, your assumption is correct, no sharing of any content, and no remote access at all. Everything should have been done within my local network, which is why I’m so surprised at the high internet traffic.
No Double-NAT, my cable modem is simply that; no built in router. My router shows the Cable Modem with a Public address and the LAN with private addresses. FWIW, my server hardware is an Asus NUC with USB-attached storage drives, running Win 10. WiFi is disabled on the NUC with connection by wired Ethernet only with a fixed IP address.
Also re the NUC, aside from the “normal” programs installed by Win 10, Plex was the only other installed software. And in Win 10, the Live tiles were all disabled, so aside from the Windows Update and Defender updates nothing else should have been accessing the Web.
A’ight… I’ll take your word for it - never had a relay or a data cap, but I know how easy it is to transfer 15G to G-Drive (at least 4 times a week) - so it adds up (also not in the mood for math this morning - lol - ur doing fine).
From what I’ve heard if one has to suffer a relay connection the conversation would certainly include mention of that suffering in some way - I would assume.
You get the same ‘Dashboard’ I get and there’s a picture of it up the thread a bit. That’s where you look to find out:
Direct Play/Transcoding
Local/Remote/Relay
Report your findings - after a re-install - and let’s see what’s up. A re-install will also facilitate those log files that will be so important very soon. Note: Activate ‘DeBug’ logging and await instructions.
Question re re-install: I saved a copy of my Plexdata folder. Can I copy only the metadata folder to the new install to avoid having to re-discover all my media files?
Logic dictates: re-install, shut down PMS, copy data back into where it was replacing what’s there. Pray. lol
There’s a support page for that I’m sure… but this early in the game it may be advantageous to just rebuild - a little at a time - after activating Debug logging - to afford a better picture of what’s happening this time…
Oookay… here we go. To avoid any old software issues, I did a brand-new install of Win 10, updated it, and loaded a new install of PMS. Settings changed to what I need/want, and my libraries recreated. Time to sit back and let it burn for several hours or overnight to see what happens.
Just to update, the fresh Win 10 and PMS installs seem to have done the trick. No high traffic after 24 hours so I think we’ll be fine. Chalk this one up to corrupted software somewhere…
