My server has been working fine for years. Two weeks ago I upgraded Ubuntu from 20.04 to 22.04. Up till yesterday, I was able to watch content on the media server.
Today I tried to stream a show to my Google Chromecast and the show stopped halfway through. No errors, just continuously buffering. Tried to skip the episode, thinking it was a corrupt media file. Same thing with the next episode, stopped playback during the first minute. Tried another show entirely. Same thing again.
I’ve since updated my plex media server to the latest version and restarted the systemd service, but both to no avail.
I’ve also tried on my laptop, thinking it was a problem with the Chromecast, again, same results.
My initial thought was a hardware issue (CPU overloaded, full disk, RAM full, …) but all of those seem to check out.
Logs are attached. (usernames and emails stripped) Thanks for any help!
Jun 13, 2023 20:16:41.234 [139634536155960] DEBUG - [Req#156/Transcode] TPU: hardware transcoding: enabled, but no hardware decode accelerator found
Jun 13, 2023 20:16:41.234 [139634536155960] INFO - [Req#156/Transcode] CodecManager: starting EAE at "/tmp/pms-1c35e04b-c26f-4f3d-a01b-1537b6de1eab/EasyAudioEncoder"
Jun 13, 2023 20:16:41.234 [139634536155960] DEBUG - [Req#156/Transcode/JobRunner] Job running: "/var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Codecs/EasyAudioEncoder-1847-linux-x86_64/EasyAudioEncoder/EasyAudioEncoder"
Jun 13, 2023 20:16:41.234 [139634536155960] DEBUG - [Req#156/Transcode/JobRunner] In directory: "/tmp/pms-1c35e04b-c26f-4f3d-a01b-1537b6de1eab/EasyAudioEncoder"
Jun 13, 2023 20:16:41.234 [139634536155960] DEBUG - [Req#156/Transcode/JobRunner] Jobs: Starting child process with pid 307102
Jun 13, 2023 20:16:41.234 [139634536155960] DEBUG - [Req#156/Transcode] [Universal] Using local file path instead of URL: /mnt/plex/shows/Tom.Clancys.Jack.Ryan.2018/Season.02/Tom.Clancys.Jack.Ryan.S02E05.1080p.WEB.H264-STARZ.mkv
Jun 13, 2023 20:16:41.234 [139634536155960] DEBUG - [Req#156/Transcode] TPU: hardware transcoding: final decoder: , final encoder:
You have subtitles. Subtitle burning will suppress use of HW . you will really feel the pinch/pain of that on UHD HDR
Jun 13, 2023 20:21:47.517 [139634601466680] DEBUG - Subtitles: Found a candidate subtitle language [en] for a foreign film
Jun 13, 2023 20:21:47.517 [139634601466680] DEBUG - Audio Stream: 50069, Subtitle Stream: 50070
Jun 13, 2023 20:21:47.520 [139634601466680] DEBUG - There were 1 top-level paths for Yellowjackets.
Play something without subtitles to confirm normal operation
Any idea why it started affecting playback now? (it’s been working near flawlessly for years) Any way I could troubleshoot that?
I only stream 1080p content since my TV is 10 years old. So no UHD/HDR. So again, weird it’s causing issues.
I do have a Nvidia Tesla P4 lying around, but if I understand your reply correctly, that would not make any difference, since hardware accelerated transcoding is not supported when using subtitles?
As a side note: after disabling subtitles, I re-enabled them and the transcoding seems to work again… Odd
Independent of the resolution is the curation of the media itself.
The files have subtitles. Text-based (SRT, ASS, SSA) will play through easily.
Image based PGS, VOBSUB, or DVDRIP must be burned into the image.
You have a RocketLake CPU and an i7. It should smoke it’s way through any video it encounters (less the subtitle burning).
Take a look at your file(s). See if there’s been a change in how you started ripping/obtaining.
If you have a Nvidia Shield Pro 2019 as the player – It would DirectPlay anything you throw at it (mine does). IMHO, the Plex app for the Shield is top-shelf.
