@alveox you don’t need ffmpeg, for subtitles you can enable a setting in the plex server to enable subtitles to not be hardcoded (select automatic I think) and they will play in html5 browsers. You also need to override the server not powerful enough error (see signature)
@blindpet ill try subtitles setting first.
btw did you ever try Emby on rpi2?
@alveox I did but transcoding didn’t work on the Pi, that was some time ago. I may try again soon.
@blindpet the subtitle setting did the trick… Is this new feature? I didn’t know it before you mentioned it.
Relatively new @alveox I will add it to the tutorial page for server is not powerful enough error fix page.
Hi All,
I hope my question is not duplicated, but I have one doubt: I would like to setup a Raspberry PI 2 as a Plex Media Server and be able to reproduce my movies on a Panasonic Smart TV connected to a Playstation having the Plex client installed. All my movies have external subtitles (srt format) and I want to be able to reproduce them correctly.
I read that the PI is not powerful enough to support the transcoding, thus the subtitles might not work.
My doubt is: is the transcoding needed even if I use the Plex Playstation client or would it handle the streaming without the need of the transcoding?
And what if I instead use the Plex client on an iOS device and then stream it to the Smart TV using Chromecast? Is the transcoding needed in that case (I mean for the subtitles) or not?
Last question: if any of the above would work in your opinion, is there any other option available? I read for example about Direct Play and Direct Stream but I am not sure if they will work in case of external subtitles.
Thanks a lot!
@francegue the best way is to not use the iOS app (I believe it forces using plex.tv and you’ll have to do DNS tricks to override the powerful enough error). The Pi does transcode but it is limited in how much it can handle. There is a new feature allowing players that support subtitles to be played directly without using transcoding.
The Smart TV can use DLNA from Plex which will have no issues at all if the Smart TV can play srt files.
The only way to find out is to try
iOS and Chromecast work great for h.264 with soft subtitles since the last PMS, iOS and Plex Web (includes Chromecast code) updates, at least for me. No DNS tricks, video transcoding and Co. required.
Never used the PS4 client, defeats the purpose of low energy consumption ^^
Plex even converts subtitles into a format suitable for Chromecast and iOS.
Relevant updates: Plex Web and iOS.
OK another edit: Is the “server is not powerful enough” even a real problem anymore? I only encounter it in the web player with Firefox or Opera (like on Smart TVs with OperaTV store). Chrome works great.
I hope to resolve my issue soon. So keen to pimp my Raspberry pi.
I have a Raspberry Pi2. I am using the tutorial found on htpcguides.com/install-plex-media-server-on-raspberry-pi-2/.
I am using method 1. I seem to be stuck on the following step “sudo apt-get install plexmediaserver -y”.
My error is as follows:
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
Package plexmediaserver is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source
However the following packages replace it:
plexmediaserver-neonless
E: Package ‘plexmediaserver’ has no installation candidate_
I have tried the plexmediaserver-neonless. Nothing 
Maybe my server was not available at that moment. Just try again:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install plexmediaserver
@uglymagoo said:
Maybe my server was not available at that moment. Just try again:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install plexmediaserver
Same error. Any alternative?
Just tried on my Pi2 and my repo works fine. So something went wrong with your installation. For the time being you can install the latest release manually.
cd /tmp
wget https://dev2day.de/pms/pool/main/p/plexmediaserver/plexmediaserver_0.9.15.2.1663-7efd046-1~jessie_armhf.deb
sudo dpkg -i plexmediaserver_0.9.15.2.1663-7efd046-1~jessie_armhf.deb
With this method we can make sure that you added my public key and that your network is working 
However, you will not get updates automatically if my repo does not work for you.
If this works you might have missed the steps to enable https:
sudo apt-get install apt-transport-https
Or you have a wrong entry in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pms.list . So please check the first link in my signature or the htpc guides tutorial again.
Thanks @uglymagoo. Going to try method one last time.
If all else fails, method 4 it is
Update: Method 4 worked and transcoding works. boom
Now just the auto boot script isn’t.
Thanks for the help @uglymagoo.
Hi! I’ve got a strange problem with the PMS running on Pi 2, streaming to Apple TV (but occurs on other devices too). Every 16 seconds I get a laggy frame drop. Tested on the test video pack I’ve got from https://www.sendspace.com/file/5mvgsn
Frame drop happens every 16 seconds, starting from a random second of the video. Tried tuning transcoding settings, renice’ing plexmediaserver process, nothing helps. Does anybody happen to experience something like this?
@davalnik if you are using WiFi this could be the problem, or if your sd card is slow and you are using the card for transcoding space. Use ethernet and make sure the hard drive is used for transcoding instead of the sd card.
@blindpet more information: I’m not using WiFi, only Ethernet. SD card class 10, transcoding is now set to use the card. Will try using HDD, but I think the SD card should be faster.
Hi All,
I managed to install the plex media server on my Raspberry Pi 2.
I am able to reproduce basically all the series I have, subtitles included streaming it over Chromecast from an iPhone 
No problem with transcoding, the cpu usage is actually pretty low.
But I have problems streaming movies (avi files). The strange thing is that the play starts but stay blocked, even if the cpu usage is pretty low. After few minutes I got an error on the device saying that it is not possible to reproduce the video. It happen either if I reproduce it on the iPhone directly or streaming it via Chromecast.
Any idea to solve the issue? Does anyone have the same problem?
Also, I wanted to check the logs to see what is going on, but it seems as my logs are not written.
I installed the server following the Method 1 of the guide (Install Plex Media Server on Raspberry Pi 2 •) and then I changed the user as pi: PLEX_MEDIA_SERVER_USER=pi
Since then, the logs are not more written. I checked the permissions and changed them (for the plexmediaserver folder and all the subfolders and files) to be pi instead of plex:
pi@raspberrypi:/var/lib $ ls -l plexmediaserver/
total 4
drwxr-xr-x 3 pi pi 4096 Jan 23 16:48 Library
rebooted the server, but still the logs are not updated.
Can you help me?
Thanks!
@francegue said:
Hi All,I hope my question is not duplicated, but I have one doubt: I would like to setup a Raspberry PI 2 as a Plex Media Server and be able to reproduce my movies on a Panasonic Smart TV connected to a Playstation having the Plex client installed. All my movies have external subtitles (srt format) and I want to be able to reproduce them correctly.
I read that the PI is not powerful enough to support the transcoding, thus the subtitles might not work.
My doubt is: is the transcoding needed even if I use the Plex Playstation client or would it handle the streaming without the need of the transcoding?And what if I instead use the Plex client on an iOS device and then stream it to the Smart TV using Chromecast? Is the transcoding needed in that case (I mean for the subtitles) or not?
Last question: if any of the above would work in your opinion, is there any other option available? I read for example about Direct Play and Direct Stream but I am not sure if they will work in case of external subtitles.
Thanks a lot!
Since I’ve updated to the latest plexmediaserver package, the transcoder no longer works.
The log keeps printing that the transcoding process has died and indeed, running Plex New Transcoder from the Terminal fails with the following errorr:
“error while loading shared libraries: libdcadec.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory”
Anyone else seeing the same problem?
@lukele said:
“error while loading shared libraries: libdcadec.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory”Anyone else seeing the same problem?
Which installation method did you use? libdcadec.so is definitely part of my packages and works fine with plexmediaserver_0.9.15.2.1663-7efd046-1~jessie_armhf.deb. If you just copied the synology package contents check the permissions of this file in /usr/lib/plexmediaserver.
Ah. Did you test with LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/plexmediaserver ./Plex\ New\ Transcoder when you performed your tests in the terminal? If not, this error is quite normal.
Edit: corrected error.
