Running Version 1.12.1.4885 on Ubuntu 16.4. Feed by an HDHomeRun EXTEND Model: HDTC-2US. Recording is hit or miss with many shows not recorded with an error of “There was a transcoder error”
Today a show should have recorded at 20:00 2018-03-30 and two shows yesterday did not record.
Logs attached…
Any suggestions on what to do?
Sam
Had another show not record properly with a transcode error
This doesn’t seem like the current EPG issue or at least not as i understand it. Is there a way to check?
Thanks
Sam
Hi
Maybe somebody will help on this post.
I have posted this issue 2 or 3 time in the last 6 months, provided logs, and waited indefinitely with no response at all.
I also would like some help with this issue. It has been occurring off and on since the beginning of DVR.
I feel a bit like I am shouting into the void. I am hoping the logs and screen shots will help Plex support understand and fix the problem. As such I will continue to document the events.
After recording were scheduled to start one said it was working and one didn’t
As an experiment, I restarted the plexmediaserver process. This just switched the show that was being recorded. The screen show below shows a recorded show of 1 minute long. I went to program guide and manually tried to start the recording again, and it errored out with transcode error.
Next I tried a system reboot… that seemed to make it worse…
Eventually, one of the recording failed out with transcode error and of course the one that did end up recording didn’t actually start until about 10 minutes after the server restart, so I missed part of the show.
As always I hope this helps Plex solve this problem.
Sam
Plex Ninjas,
I noticed that Version 1.12.2.4929 was released. I have upgraded to it and will see how that impacts the issue.
Thanks
Sam
Why don’t you just disable transcoding while recording? It doesn’t make any sense for plex to dump your entire program when there is an error; but since the feature doesn’t work very well, why do you keep it enabled and then complain that it doesn’t work very well?
Plex uses the transcoder ALWAYS… (Even when “Transcode While Recording” is off)
I have NEVER had the Transcode while recording function turned on and I still get transcoder error failures.
That isn’t true.
Well maybe you can tell me why I am getting Transcoding Error for all my recordings??
I NEVER transcode while recording and I get this error.
I look into the Logs and it says “Transcoder Failed” for some reason I do not understand…
Since Plex NEVER gets involved in the posts regarding this, (I have posted this issue a few times in over a year including logs, Not a single response from Plex) we might not know the real functions going on during DVR recording…
LOL
I really do not understand why Plex totally ignores this issue.
It just seems to me that this indicates the Transcoder IS running…
Probably just to mux the MPEG2TS into a TS container not actually Transcoding to h264.
Just a guess on my part since Plex has not answered ANY of these transcoder errors failures that I can see.
For me, transcoder is always running when recording, not just with the convert files turned on
From Task Manager in windows
This is while a recording is in progress, option to convert is off
The name of a running process is not indicative of anything.
Record a broadcast without “transcoding while recording” enabled and dump the resulting file. Nothing has been “transcoded”.
You can clearly see in the screenshot i provided, the transcoder is running while recording, even if that just captures the TS file and dumps it to disk without doing anything with it
You just repeated what I said and claimed you didn’t understand. “captures the TS file and dumps it to disk without doing anything with it” is not transcoding anything. And naming the process “PlexTranscoder” that “captures the TS file and dumps it to disk without doing anything with it” doesn’t magically mean transcoding is happening.
The error people are reporting is “transcoding error” not “the process named PlexTranscoder failed” If PlexTranscoder stops transcoding and just saves the stream to disk, the errors stop.
I am sorry but you are wrong.
The Plex Transcoder IS running…
Plex uses ffmpeg to transcode and to re-mux content.
With the transcode on record shut off ffmpeg is still kicked off to mux the TS stream into the TS container.
No actual transcoding is taking place but the transcoder runs to perform the mux to the TS file…
Hence… The Transcoder IS running but failing for some reason and nobody can seem to tell us why.
This has been part of the Plex DVR train wreck for years now with no apparent notice taken by Plex.
No one is disputing that there is always a process with the word “Transcoder” in its name that runs. But if you disable the feature “convert while recording” the process with the word “Transcoder” in its name no longer transcodes anything and the reported problem stops.
You don’t have to take my word for that. You can use ffprobe to examine a ts file recorded with the feature off to a ts file recorded with the feature on. The file created “convert while recording” is disabled is just the raw stream with no transcoding.
There is no reason for you to be sorry, but if you insist on being sorry, a better reason would be for being intentionally obtuse by conflating a process’s name with what the results of the process clearly show it’s doing.
Cburn11 - Thanks for jumping in and helping debug the issue. I am confused on where to make a change to the setting you are referring to changing.
Transcoder Options - no trans-coding off option that I can see
DVR Settings - no trans-coding off option that I can see
Device Settings - no trans-coding off option that I can see
Can you help me turning off transcoding while recording?
Thanks
Sam
On the screen shown above… Click on the little gear top right next to the DVR Box Name…
Sorry should have included that screen shot… There s no config for that…
now just to let you know I have the HDHomeRun EXTEND which is supposed to do the transcoding all I can select is the quality.
forums.plex.tv/discussion/comment/1614849#Comment_1614849
I have the options of “Off” or “Transcode”. But that is with a wintv-quad with the debian version of the server.
@Cburn11 said:
forums.plex.tv/discussion/comment/1614849#Comment_1614849I have the options of “Off” or “Transcode”. But that is with a wintv-quad with the debian version of the server.
I don’t have that option.
On a hopeful note, I have only attempted to record one show yesterday and one show today and both recorded fine. So I am hoping the new version has addressed this issue. Fingers crossed.
