Massive buffering through NAS

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
1

Server Version#: 4.30.2
Player Version#: multiple platform

Hey there!

I have a plex server hosted on a Ubuntu server. My media files used to be on a local drive and everything worked perfect.

But as I wanted to increase my available space I bought a NAS drive with 4 HDD in Raid5.
I configured it in my plex server, got the permissions right and finally having it functionnal.

The problem is that since then, my plex is frenquently buffering, feels like the server is having a hard time transcoding now that it’s on a NAS.

Is there a specific configuration that I need to check in order to increase performance while using a NAS drive?

Thanks!

2

Would you please start a playback session, let it play for 30 seconds, then stop it.
After letting sit an additional 30 seconds after stopping,

Settings - Server - Troubleshooting - Download Logs

Please attach the ZIP file it presents you.

3

The Transcoder “temporary” directly remains locally on your disk ?? What is in the “Settings” -> “Transcoder” -> “Transcoder Temporary Directory” ?

If there is nothing in the field, then for ordinary Linux installs it defaults to

$PLEX_HOME/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Cache/Transcode/Sync/

I guess this still is local on your disk and only have your MEDIA files on NAS ??

4

I tried both using the default “/transcode” (local drive) then “/mnt/data/plex_temp” (on the NAS).
Not sure wich one is the best practice, but it didn’t seem to improve the speed.

I’m doing some tests on my NAS right now, might be the one causing the issue (tranfer speed from my Windows PC in the network drive seems really unstable.

5

Plex Media Server Logs_2020-05-19_15-54-47.zip (4.6 MB)

There it is!

6

Best practice for sure is NOT on any remote drive!
But OK, it made no real difference.

7

Right now it is on the “/transcode” directory, wich is on the local drive. Will post an update after I made some testings on my NAS

8

First off, an I do not mean to deflate your hopes, the CPU is not very strong. 3149 Passmarks.

May 19, 2020 15:13:19.331 [0x7f95b27e6700] INFO - Plex Media Server v1.19.3.2764-ef515a800 - Docker Docker Container x86_64 - build: linux-x86_64 debian - GMT -04:00
May 19, 2020 15:13:19.332 [0x7f95b27e6700] INFO - Linux version: 4.15.0-99-generic, language: C
May 19, 2020 15:13:19.332 [0x7f95b27e6700] INFO - Processor Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU           X5570  @ 2.93GHz

This is a lot of CPU load for the processor.
(The Xeon does not have hardware transcoding capability)

May 19, 2020 15:53:54.746 [0x7f953cff9700] DEBUG - MDE: analyzing media item 10384
May 19, 2020 15:53:54.746 [0x7f953cff9700] DEBUG - MDE: Wonder Woman (2017): Direct Play is disabled
May 19, 2020 15:53:54.746 [0x7f953cff9700] DEBUG - MDE: Wonder Woman (2017): media must be transcoded in order to use the dash protocol
May 19, 2020 15:53:54.747 [0x7f953cff9700] DEBUG - MDE: Wonder Woman (2017): selected audio stream is not the first audio stream and direct play stream selection is not enabled
May 19, 2020 15:53:54.747 [0x7f953cff9700] DEBUG - MDE: Wonder Woman (2017): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/h264
May 19, 2020 15:53:54.747 [0x7f953cff9700] DEBUG - MDE: Wonder Woman (2017): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/h264/truehd
May 19, 2020 15:53:54.747 [0x7f953cff9700] DEBUG - MDE: Wonder Woman (2017): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/h264/ac3
May 19, 2020 15:53:54.747 [0x7f953cff9700] DEBUG - MDE: Wonder Woman (2017): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/h264/ac3
May 19, 2020 15:53:54.747 [0x7f953cff9700] DEBUG - Wonder Woman - video.bitrate limitation applies: 25309 > 8000
May 19, 2020 15:53:54.747 [0x7f953cff9700] DEBUG - Wonder Woman - audio.channels limitation applies: 8 > 6
May 19, 2020 15:53:54.747 [0x7f953cff9700] DEBUG - MDE: Wonder Woman (2017): Direct Streaming is disabled, so video stream will be transcoded
May 19, 2020 15:53:54.747 [0x7f953cff9700] DEBUG - MDE: Wonder Woman (2017): no remuxable profile found, so video stream will be transcoded
May 19, 2020 15:53:54.747 [0x7f953cff9700] DEBUG - MDE: Cannot direct stream video stream due to profile or setting limitations
May 19, 2020 15:53:54.747 [0x7f953cff9700] DEBUG - Scaled up video bitrate to 37963Kbps based on 1.500000x fudge factor.
May 19, 2020 15:53:54.747 [0x7f953cff9700] DEBUG - Scaled maximum bitrate for resolution reduction to 5351Kbps.
May 19, 2020 15:53:54.747 [0x7f953cff9700] DEBUG - MDE: Wonder Woman (2017): Audio Direct Streaming is disabled, so video's audio stream will be transcoded
May 19, 2020 15:53:54.747 [0x7f953cff9700] DEBUG - MDE: Cannot direct stream audio stream due to profile or setting limitations
May 19, 2020 15:53:54.748 [0x7f953cff9700] DEBUG - MDE: Wonder Woman (2017): selected media 0 / 10384
May 19, 2020 15:53:54.749 [0x7f953cff9700] DEBUG - Streaming Resource: Session 0x7f95543041b0:8l8omcas7p4vvbgvrney2666 changed from using 7878kbps to 1489kbps of WAN bandwidth.  Used bandwidth is now 1489kbps
May 19, 2020 15:53:54.749 [0x7f953cff9700] DEBUG - Streaming Resource: Reached Decision id=9613 codes=(General=1001,Direct play not available; Conversion OK. Direct Play=3000,App cannot direct play this item. Direct play is disabled. Transcode=1001,Direct play not available; Conversion OK.) media=(id=10384 part=(id=10444 decision=transcode container=mp4 protocol=dash streams=(Video=(id=37850 decision=transcode bitrate=1290 encoder=libx264 width=720 height=406) Audio=(id=37853 decision=transcode bitrate=128 encoder=aac channels=2 rate=48000))))
May 19, 2020 15:53:54.749 [0x7f953cff9700] DEBUG - Transcode Session: Going to restart at offset 36.036037 with segment number 12
May 19, 2020 15:53:54.749 [0x7f953cff9700] DEBUG - Killing job.
May 19, 2020 15:53:54.749 [0x7f953cff9700] DEBUG - Signalling job ID 956 with 9
May 19, 2020 15:53:54.749 [0x7f953cff9700] DEBUG - Job was already killed, not killing again.
May 19, 2020 15:53:54.749 [0x7f953cff9700] DEBUG - Stopping transcode session 9m0yu6uhlql83vhciy2bolc0
May 19, 2020 15:53:54.750 [0x7f953cff9700] DEBUG - Starting a transcode session 9m0yu6uhlql83vhciy2bolc0 at offset 36.0 (state=3)
May 19, 2020 15:53:54.752 [0x7f953cff9700] DEBUG - [Universal] Using local file path instead of URL: /data/films/Wonder Woman (2017)/Wonder Woman (2017) Remux-1080p.mkv
May 19, 2020 15:53:54.752 [0x7f953cff9700] DEBUG - TPU: hardware transcoding: zero-copy support not present
May 19, 2020 15:53:54.753 [0x7f953cff9700] DEBUG - Job running: EAE_ROOT='/tmp/pms-a7e111c8-5d36-4aaf-9040-990845cc1e22/EasyAudioEncoder' FFMPEG_EXTERNAL_LIBS='/config/Library/Application\ Support/Plex\ Media\ Server/Codecs/99c90e0-3095-linux-x86_64/' XDG_CACHE_HOME='/config/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Cache' XDG_DATA_HOME='/usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Resources' X_PLEX_TOKEN='xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx' '/usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Plex Transcoder' '-codec:0' 'h264' '-codec:3' 'ac3' '-ss' '35.946665666666675' '-analyzeduration' '20000000' '-probesize' '20000000' '-i' '/data/films/Wonder Woman (2017)/Wonder Woman (2017) Remux-1080p.mkv' '-filter_complex' '[0:0]scale=w=720:h=406[0];[0]format=pix_fmts=yuv420p|nv12[1];[1]select=gte(t\,35.994327)[2]' '-filter_complex' '[0:3] aresample=async=1:ocl='\''stereo'\'':osr=48000[3]' '-map' '[2]' '-metadata:s:0' 'language=mul' '-codec:0' 'libx264' '-crf:0' '22' '-maxrate:0' '1290k' '-bufsize:0' '2580k' '-r:0' '23.975999999999999' '-preset:0' 'veryfast' '-x264opts:0' 'subme=2:me_range=4:rc_lookahead=10:me=dia:no_chroma_me:8x8dct=0:partitions=none' '-force_key_frames:0' 'expr:gte(t,36+n_forced*3)' '-map' '[3]' '-metadata:s:1' 'language=fre' '-codec:1' 'aac' '-b:1' '128k' '-bsf:1' 'framedrop=count=2' '-f' 'dash' '-seg_duration' '3' '-init_seg_name' 'init-stream$RepresentationID$.m4s' '-media_seg_name' 'chunk-stream$RepresentationID$-$Number%05d$.m4s' '-window_size' '5' '-delete_removed' 'false' '-skip_to_segment' '13' '-time_delta' '0.0625' '-manifest_name' 'http://127.0.0.1:32400/video/:/transcode/session/9m0yu6uhlql83vhciy2bolc0/0a30a4ea-0176-4ab1-8ee7-2cdfac14448c/manifest?X-Plex-Http-Pipeline=infinite' '-avoid_negative_ts' 'disabled' '-map_metadata' '-1' '-map_chapters' '-1' 'dash' '-start_at_zero' '-copyts' '-y' '-nostats' '-loglevel' 'quiet' '-loglevel_plex' 'error' '-progressurl' 'http://127.0.0.1:32400/video/:/transcode/session/9m0yu6uhlql83vhciy2bolc0/0a30a4ea-0176-4ab1-8ee7-2cdfac14448c/progress'
May 19, 2020 15:53:54.753 [0x7f953cff9700] DEBUG - Jobs: Starting child process with pid 1112
May 19, 2020 15:53:54.753 [0x7f953cff9700] DEBUG - Started session successfully: 9m0yu6uhlql83vh

The CPU is limiting the source video to 8 Mbps (a streaming limit or player setting - or both)

To compound this, TrueHD is a CPU-intensive audio codec.

From all indications here in this log, the CPU is not strong enough for the task requested.

9

Thanks for you analysis.
I know about the fact that my server is pretty old (hp proliant ml150 g6) will try to upgrade to a better one someday.

The fact was that before moving the file to the NAS, the buffering time was almost absent and worked pretty well. (I don’t steam at 4k and does not plan to)

I completely recreated my raid in the nas, putted some files there and it seemed better.
For now I will telerate it this way, but I will follow your advice and begin to look for a better server.

Thanks!

10

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