Installed update .4035 & now I get "Conversion failed. The transcoder crashed or failed to start up"

General Discussions
1

Hi
Can anyone help? I just installed the update on my Windows 10 Pro machine, and since then I can’t play any of the videos on any device, including the same computer. (I had to manually install the update, in case it matters) I get a spinning orange wheel and then I get that message. How can I fix/troubleshoot? Logs attached. Gonna be a long weekend without my PLEX server!

2

Here’s what I’ve tried:
rebooting the PC
exiting PMS, waiting, restarting PMS, waiting
renaming RSA folder
checking settings pointing to temp transcoder and plexdata folders files
all library tasks: update, scan, clean, optimize
everything I could find except deleting libraries, downgrading, and uninstalling/reinstalling

3

I would say downgrade. Theirs been a bug going around some are worse then others. For me it’s mobile android apps. That’s giving me issues.

4

Does that mean essentially uninstalling and then installing a lower version? Are settings etc. preserved?

5

Okay, I went ahead and uninstalled and reinstalled to earlier version (did not strip anything out).

Same problem on web and on any devices like AppleTV. Plex Media Player on local machine is the only thing that works.

What can I do now?

6

Most recent logs attached.

7

Anyone able to help? Blew through the weekend and now past the holiday. I"d like to get this working for my friends and family and I!

8

Is there some codec I need to reinstall, like ffmpeg?

9

Thanks for all the logs and the older logs were useful

Something must have gone wrong when the h264 codec (h264_decoder) was downloaded

Jul 01, 2017 19:24:05.260 [4028] INFO - CodecManager: obtaining decoder 'h264'
Jul 01, 2017 19:24:05.260 [4028] DEBUG - HTTP requesting GET https://plex.tv/api/codecs/h264_decoder?build=windows-i386&deviceId=d079baaf-5a9b-4b2b-b8df-f5f540598dd6&oldestPreviousVersion=legacy&version=46b03cf-1241

Jul 01, 2017 19:24:06.064 [4028] DEBUG - HTTP 200 response from GET https://plex.tv/api/codecs/h264_decoder?build=windows-i386&deviceId=d079baaf-5a9b-4b2b-b8df-f5f540598dd6&oldestPreviousVersion=legacy&version=46b03cf-1241
Jul 01, 2017 19:24:06.065 [4028] DEBUG - HTTP requesting GET https://downloads.plex.tv/codecs/46b03cf-1241/windows-i386/h264_decoder.dll
Jul 01, 2017 19:24:06.382 [4028] DEBUG - HTTP 200 response from GET https://downloads.plex.tv/codecs/46b03cf-1241/windows-i386/h264_decoder.dll


Jul 01, 2017 19:24:06.527 [23956] ERROR - [Transcoder] Unknown decoder 'h264'
Jul 01, 2017 19:24:06.540 [4792] DEBUG - Jobs: 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Plex\Plex Media Server\PlexTranscoder.exe' exit code for process 3728 is 1

Could you look at the directory and get list of files and date/time updated / created and length

E:\PlexData\Plex Media Server\Codecs\46b03cf-1241-windows-i386

And check permissions - there were no access errors logged when downloaded - so ought to be ok

10

Hi

Thanks for replying. Here are the contents.
Permissions look okay. I appear to own the folder and files.

11

@ataribaby said:
Hi

Thanks for replying. Here are the contents.
Permissions look okay. I appear to own the folder and files.

“Could you look at the directory and get list of files and date/time updated / created and length”

You didn’t really answer his question fyi. :slight_smile:

12

Sorry! I was exhausted and dealing with a work project keeping me up day and night. I have since completely reinstalled and it’s working. Only caveat is, if I try to move PlexData to E, I get the crash error message again. Any idea why? Also, I attempted a screen shot this time that answers your questions: Date created/updated (modified) and length (file size?). And the permissions look okay to me but you tell me. They are folder properties me (htpc), h264 file properties me (htpc) and h264 file properties (system).

5eko46yha65d.jpg936×164 52.6 KB

o8e10s530lrm.jpg468×600 84.5 KB

6g0h5uz5njmj.jpg462×588 83.4 KB

13

the files all say 7/1/2017 because of my reinstallation attempts.

14

@ataribaby said:
if I try to move PlexData to E, I get the crash error message again. Any idea why?

What is E: ? Internal / External ? Network Drive? Pool? Is it NTFS?

How did you move PlexData? What steps? What was copied over?

15

and where is PlexData ?

I presume you meant move to E:\xPlexData

16

Sorry I’m doing a terrible job here! I need to be clear and not assume everyone has nuances of previous discussions.

  1. I moved Plexdata to a separate internal storage drive “E:”, years ago.
  2. Updated Plex
  3. Plex immediately started crashing with “transcoder crashed” error messages when trying to play any file.
  4. Downgraded Plex. Same crash.
  5. Reinstalled. (Plexdata is now in default location). Worked fine again.
  6. Tried to move Plexdata back to E:
  7. Same Crash
  8. Moved Plexdata location back to default. Worked fine again.
17

worst update ever. please roll it back.

18

works if i use default locations; breaks if i don’t. lame i have to buy a bigger c: drive because of this!

19

@ataribaby said:
works if i use default locations; breaks if i don’t. lame i have to buy a bigger c: drive because of this!

It should work ok with internal drive that is always available and you have set permissions ok and if local app data path setting set correctly and the plex transcoder temp directory path if set to also be on internal drive

The program files are best kept in default location of c:\Program Files (x86)\Plex\Plex Media Server

Media could be stored locally or network share

20

it worked for years with the caches on the other drives! i even expanded my c: partition but it stops at 50% sync and says “waiting for server”. spent hours trying to get it to work before a flight and now i’ll be watching nothing.