How to debug a new playback issue?

[infomofo]

I’m looking for help debugging the log files for my server. For the past week or so I have had playback errors with my video files on my plex server, streaming remotely from a linux server to an Nvidia Shield TV.

Most commonly the error will be that the playback will jump forward about 20 seconds intermittently. Sometimes the audio and video will just repeat themselves, but out of sync for about 5 seconds. Is there anything I can do to debug these issues? I have the log files downloaded but I’m a little wary of attaching them here in the forum as they might contain my personal information?

[nibbles]

Two things can help you with posting log files.
When you restart PMS, give it 6 min., then cause the issue, stop playback, and download logs, you will see a number of the logs are timestamped after the reboot. Those are the only ones we need, and they will be reasonably clean.

Two, you can use a text editor to redact things based on the privacy info

Posting Log Files

In an effort to help troubleshoot an issue you post about, you may be asked to post your log files. While posting your logs in the forum is optional, some issues cannot be investigated without logs to review. It may be difficult or impossible for the community to help you without your logs. We respect your privacy and want to ensure you are fully aware of what kind of personally identifiable information may be contained in your log files, so you can make an informed decision that best suits your…

And another that includes an example at the bottom of details that help

How to get Help in the Forums

Community members who are trying to help, generally gravitate and hang out in the forum sections in which they are most knowledgeable. The best way to get the appropriate help is to find the most closely related section for the issue you are having. For instance, if you’re having trouble installing Plex Media Server on a Windows computer, then the “Windows” forum in the Plex Media Server area would be the most appropriate place to post. If you don’t know the most appropriate forum for your issu…

[infomofo]

I’ve seen in some other threads that people were able to DM files to someone rather than post them on the public facing forum as an attachment?

That being said, I think what I missed from before was to restart right before causing the issue so the logs aren’t massive. What I had downloaded before was huge, so I was worried it might have PII or other information. I will try to get a more narrow set of logs that I can upload when I reproduce this issue. Thanks!

[infomofo]

Ok I’ve captured the logs the way you suggested. This time the problem happened after about 10 minutes of resuming playback of a file. The audio just completely cut out after a bit. Any help with debugging my setup would be greatly appreciated.Plex Media Server Logs.zip (401.2 KB)

[nibbles]

Hey thanks for the logs. This is the software/hardware:

Oct 23, 2019 00:23:40.069 [0x7fb06e2ac700] INFO - Plex Media Server v1.18.1.1973-0f4abfbcc - Docker Docker Container x86_64 - build: linux-x86_64 debian - GMT 02:00
Oct 23, 2019 00:23:40.070 [0x7fb06e2ac700] INFO - Linux version: 4.15.0-58-generic, language: C
Oct 23, 2019 00:23:40.070 [0x7fb06e2ac700] INFO - Processor        Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3930K CPU @ 3.20GHz

And this is the dominant error:

Oct 23, 2019 00:27:31.914 [0x7fb01e7fc700] ERROR - [FFMPEG] - Cannot load libcuda.so.1
Oct 23, 2019 00:27:31.914 [0x7fb01e7fc700] ERROR - [FFMPEG] - Could not dynamically load CUDA
Oct 23, 2019 00:27:31.915 [0x7fb01e7fc700] ERROR - [FFMPEG] - Cannot load libcuda.so.1
Oct 23, 2019 00:27:31.915 [0x7fb01e7fc700] ERROR - [FFMPEG] - Could not dynamically load CUDA

Because you’re using a docker and because I’m pretty clueless, you’re going to have to solve why it can’t dynamically load that one library. If it’s not a docker thing, you can stop PMS and delete the shared library. It will download it again when you start PMS.

Unfortunately I couldn’t see any good details in your logs about the playback issue because the server was not placed into Debug mode. Set up your logging options for Debug only like this:

So set it for debug mode, restart PMS, give it 6min, then capture the problem and upload the logs again.

You probably also want to add a tag to your original topic server-docker in order to attract people with that experience.

[infomofo]

Thank you! I have gotten some good leads based on the errors you pointed out so I’ll chase those down. If the issue happens again after I do the suggestions (update kernel etc) I’ll try to update this ticket with the debug logging attached.

[infomofo]

So it happened again and I was able to capture the debug log. There seem to be two errors, one is about a missing font which I can investigate but the other error is pretty hard to understand.

Oct 26, 2019 04:36:27.172 [0x7fd1b5ffb700] ERROR - [FFMPEG] - Cannot load libcuda.so.1
Oct 26, 2019 04:36:27.172 [0x7fd1b5ffb700] ERROR - [FFMPEG] - Could not dynamically load CUDA
Oct 26, 2019 04:36:27.172 [0x7fd1b5ffb700] DEBUG - Codecs: hardware transcoding: opening hw device failed - probably not supported by this system, error: Unknown error occurred
Oct 26, 2019 04:36:29.023 [0x7fd1b67fc700] DEBUG - Job running: EAE_ROOT='/tmp/pms-e0020637-3fc7-4095-a93b-9b35fbe63380/EasyAudioEncoder' FFMPEG_EXTERNAL_LIBS='/config/Library/Application\ Support/Plex\ Media\ Server/Codecs/395e79c-2735-linux-x86_64/' XDG_CACHE_HOME='/config/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Cache' XDG_DATA_HOME='/usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Resources' X_PLEX_TOKEN='xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx' '/usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Plex Transcoder' '-codec:0' 'h264' '-codec:1' 'eac3_eae' '-eae_prefix:1' 'd2426b978e91afb2-com-plexapp-android_' '-analyzeduration' '20000000' '-probesize' '20000000' '-i' '/mnt/unionfs/tv/Sunnyside (2019)/Season 1/Sunnyside (2019) - S01E05 - Schnorf Town [h264-WEBDL-1080p EAC3-5.1].mkv' '-map_inlineass' '0:2' '-filter_complex' '[0:0]scale=w=720:h=406[0];[0]format=pix_fmts=yuv420p|nv12[1];[1]inlineass=font_scale=1.000000:font_path=/usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Resources/Fonts/DejaVuSans-Regular.ttf:fontconfig_file=/usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Resources/fonts.conf:language=en[2]' '-filter_complex' '[0:1] aresample=async=1:ocl='\''stereo'\'':osr=48000[3]' '-map' '[2]' '-codec:0' 'libx264' '-crf:0' '19' '-maxrate:0' '1188k' '-bufsize:0' '2376k' '-r:0' '23.975999999999999' '-preset:0' 'veryfast' '-level:0' '5.2' '-x264opts:0' 'subme=2:me_range=4:rc_lookahead=20:me=hex' '-force_key_frames:0' 'expr:gte(t,0+n_forced*3)' '-map' '[3]' '-codec:1' 'aac' '-b:1' '193k' '-segment_format' 'mpegts' '-f' 'ssegment' '-individual_header_trailer' '0' '-segment_time' '3' '-segment_start_number' '0' '-segment_copyts' '1' '-segment_time_delta' '0.0625' '-segment_list' 'http://127.0.0.1:32400/video/:/transcode/session/d2426b978e91afb2-com-plexapp-android/75e357ae-c7cc-4daf-bd50-2a9d9df771d9/seglist' '-segment_list_type' 'csv' '-segment_list_size' '5' '-segment_list_separate_stream_times' '1' '-segment_list_unfinished' '1' '-max_delay' '5000000' '-avoid_negative_ts' 'disabled' '-map_metadata' '-1' '-map_chapters' '-1' 'media-%05d.ts' '-map' '0:2' '-f' 'null' '-codec' 'ass' 'nullfile' '-start_at_zero' '-copyts' '-vsync' 'cfr' '-y' '-nostats' '-loglevel' 'quiet' '-loglevel_plex' 'error' '-progressurl' 'http://127.0.0.1:32400/video/:/transcode/session/d2426b978e91afb2-com-plexapp-android/75e357ae-c7cc-4daf-bd50-2a9d9df771d9/progress'
Oct 26, 2019 04:36:29.368 [0x7fd1b6ffd700] ERROR - [Transcoder] [Parsed_inlineass_2 @ 0x1370080] fontselect: Using default font family: (Arial, 400, 0) -> /usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Resources/Fonts/DejaVuSans-Regular.ttf, 0, DejaVuSans
Oct 26, 2019 04:36:30.870 [0x7fd1effff700] ERROR - Error issuing curl_easy_perform(handle): 7
Oct 26, 2019 04:36:30.870 [0x7fd18a7fc700] ERROR - Error issuing curl_easy_perform(handle): 7

Plex Media Server.log (608.0 KB)

[nibbles]

Darn you’re getting two difficult errors that I’ve seen before.
The libcuda GPU driver issue did you try my suggestions? What happened?
The subtitle issue, try Settings - Account - Audio & Subtitle so that it’s 100% manual.

Uncheck that box and Save. Try the playback again.
When it burns subtitles, that can easily cause stutter.
Were you using subs in VLC? Thanks

[infomofo]

Thanks, I’ve gone ahead and done the subtitle change so hopefully that will help.

Secondarily, I didn’t quite understand your suggestion on the codecs and I was scared to mess it up. I wasn’t sure exactly what you meant when you said “delete the shared library”.

Is your suggestion that I delete the entire directory here:
/config/Library/Application\ Support/Plex\ Media\ Server/Codecs/395e79c-2735-linux-x86_64/ ?

That’s what I did and it did download the codecs again on restart, but I still am seeing the error messages about LIBCUDA pop up. Let me know if I misunderstood, or if this was correct and I should upload a new set of logs if I can reproduce the error again.

[nibbles]

You did well removing that directory. A website article has some information on clearing codecs and cache like that iirc.

I was offline due to power cuts in California.

As you’re on a Docker, the best I can do is help you to log this with steps to reproduce your issue. If we develop a good basis of evidence, we can ask another Linux pro to help us. You will probably want to explain exactly how you set up your Docker permissions with screenshots etc. Have a read over the Linux Tips here on the forums and let us know what you’ve tried and what you saw.