I am setting up my Plex Server for the first time ever and while everything seems to work fine, all of the clients I have tried seem to have buffering issues (Fire Stick, Apple TV and Web client).
As usual, the two suspects can be network connectivity or CPU specs. I have looked into other threads and it appears that transcoding can show as slow because the network is slow too. I’d like to confirm this so I can focus solely on fixing my network issues.
The client is consuming a Direct Stream but transcoding audio EAC3 to AAC, I am also watching the show with subtitles. The logs show me that transcoding speeds hover in the 50 to 100 range but I have seen instances where it shows numbers such as 2991.
This is surprising to me because my CPU should be able to handle faster transcoding speeds, plus while monitoring the transcoding process on htop it never utilises more than 3% of a single CPU (it is also steady at 0.2% memory). So even though I am currently using the Plex Server to write this post and deluge is downloading torrented files, it should show better transcoding speeds.
The speednet tests show me an upload speed capacity of 1.5Mb (deluge is seeding at 1.5kb). A very probable cause for the problem could be my network configuration. My Server PC is connected to the local network via a repeater, so there could be a bottleneck there (the Apple TV is also located on a different band: 5GHz). The Web player is also connected to the network through the repeater but I have seen no improvements.
I do think the main issue here is my network connectivity but I’d like to confirm this before going on to rearrange my network setup (it can get quite crafty). Many thanks.
Edit: another contributing factor could be that all of my media files are stored in a 3.5" HDD interfaced with a 6Gb SATA cable.
Server Version #: 1.13.8.5395
CPU: Intel Core I5-6600K Processor (3.5 GHz, 6 M Cache)
Thank you for that . It is much better.
Verbose only lets me see 2-3 minutes of elapsed time.
Debug lets me see up to about 2 hours .
I am not seeing any indication of error or the CPU being slow whatsoever.
I am seeing 35 minutes of particular files being played. (2099 seconds)
Oct 15, 2018 00:26:02.002 [0x7f33077ff700] DEBUG - Play progress on 5 'Virtù e Fortuna' - got played 2099000 ms by account 1!
Oct 15, 2018 00:26:02.005 [0x7f33077ff700] DEBUG - [Now] User is faurehu (ID: 1)
Oct 15, 2018 00:26:02.005 [0x7f33077ff700] DEBUG - [Now] Device is Firefox (Firefox).
I do not understand how it can be slow.
I see where the ASS subtitles are selected.
Are you forcibly burning them in? What does the CPU loading show?
Is this a network transport problem for this bitrate?
I thought it was because I switched subtitles off but then I tested them back on and everything is smooth now.
I have no idea what has fixed it but there are two events that could have impacted performance. I logged out of my session hence it might have restarted the PMS daemon (I suspect that because it is being run by its own user, the daemon runs even though there is no user logged into), and I restarted my cable modem.
