Server Version#: 1.25.8.5663
Player Version#: iOS, Plex 8.0
For many months the download features didn’t work for me and I always thought “the next update will probably fix it” but since it’s not working until today, I wanted to reach out for help.
My latest testing shows that from my Android phone (9.0.1.317929) I can download media without any problems. The iPad is the more important device, though. Sitting on the same network, I can initiate downloads of video files and the item will show in the “Downloads” menu as an item. So far, I haven’t been able to download anything successfully to the device, though.
On the server-side, I can see a transcode and download job to appear under the activities menu in the top right menu. It don’t think I ever saw something specific actually fail, but also it never finished. The closet thing to an error I saw was, when I downloaded an entire tv show it showed something like “Error downloading item”. On the other hand, it said that it had already downloaded a bit more than 5GB. To me, that means some episodes are working and others fail!? Well, not sure.
I exported and uploaded logs from the server and client hoping that helps someone who knows what they’re doing to figure out what’s happening.
I am looking into download issues. There have been a number of bug fixes recently. Please could you try it using the latest releases - for Plex for iOS that would be Plex for iOS version 8.5 and for the Plex Media Server - please use the current Plex Pass Beta download - version 1.27.2.5929
Please run with debug server logging enabled and capture the server and the Plex for iOS logs when you get an error
Thanks for the help you gave to @mewald. I was surprised to see this thread today here with someone from the plex team so actively helping! Thanks a lot!!
Unfortunately since @mewald didn’t reply to confirm if version 1.28.1 did sorted it out for him, I don’t a confirmation if this issue was fixed for him or not.
Which is unfortunately, since I’m still experience problems with download using server version 1.28.2.6151 to this day.
Sometimes it works and transfer a couple of files and stops, sometimes it just doesn’t work at all.
I’ve noticed that, about 70% of time when I restart the server, the download resumes and 1 or 2 files get through and after that it start fails again. (30% of the time it fails right away)
I was able to capture the logs after restarting plex server, and I think it’s a perfect example since I got a file downloaded successfully and it started failed after.
Also, please let me know if I you prefer I create a new thread post for this problem, or if it’s ok to continue on this one.
One last thing: where can I find server version 1.28.1 to download (debian x64)? I would love to give it a try and see if it works better than the last version. Maybe there’s a regression on the version 1.28.2.6151.
One last thing, but really important one!
I’ve noticed plex was reporting about 10GB less disk space on my sdcard. (I’ve added a SDcard on my phone just for plex download content)
By looking at it on my pc, I’ve found 10GB of failed sync files left behind by plex, even after I’ve selected “delete offline content” multiple times in the plex app.
It seems Plex doesn’t cleanup after itself when download fails, wasting a lot of disk space with garbage files.
This is with the latest version 1.28.2.6151.
It’s not the first time this happened when I try to use the download function. Last week I had to switch my server off/on again because I couldn’t log in into it anymore due to the amount of “Plex Transcoder” processes hogging the resources.
I’m having downloads fail with music attempting to sync to an SD card. I can confirm this on android and linux. All current as of today. Even on plexamp.
I resorted to syncthing.
I have to say, the choice to prevent my audio/video apps on my phone from reading plex saved files is a poor choice as well.
I’ve just installed the latest beta 1.29.0.6219, and the problem with download is still there. After installing as restarting the server, it was able to sync one file and everything else after that keeps failing.
I have also decreased the number of simultaneos video transcode to 1 now, but I still keep seeing 2 or more “Plex Transcoder” proccesses running at the same time.
I’m also seeing a log of garbage files consuming disk space without reason in the transcoder temp folder (booth Sessions and Detection subfolders). It seems plex server doesn’t care about cleaning up the temp folder.
I would love to try 1.28.1 if I can find a way to download it for debian x64.
I started looking at your diagnostics and have looked into failures on the 12th September for downloads for Star Trek Voyager (1995) - They failed after reporting an exception during the communication with the server,
I have referred the diagnostics relating to these failures to the Android app development team. I am yet to look at the other failures and other issues you mentioned.
Hi @sa2000 . Just an FYI, if you are trying to download on iOS (iPad or iPhone) your download will likely fail if you do not keep the app in the foreground and the device unlocked. This is because PLEX does not implement background downloads. Once the app is placed into the background or the device locks, the download will stop and/or fail after about 30s. I’m not sure if this pertains to your issue, but it sounds like it. Please see this Feature Request and vote accordingly.
I don’t follow. Do you mean PLEX iOS does implement full background loading and the specific issue in this thread was positively identified as server related?
Or that the PLEX iOS team is aware of the lack of background downloading and this is a Can’t Fix/Won’tFix?
I am not sure of the technicalities. My understanding is that the implementation is similar to what is described in the linked article. I will ask for it to be looked into again.
It’s very broken on android. and very tragic plex hides the downloads from other apps on the device. The temp dir gets filled up too, and never cleaned.
Btw, I’m running Plex on android device. I did tried to keep it in foreground multiple times, but it still fails. Actually, the last log I submitted was with PLEX in foreground.
If keeping it in foreground worked, I wouldn’t mind leaving it be for a few hours so it could finish the download, but that doesn’t work unfortunately.
The diagnostics you provided have been looked into. At the moment it is looking like some networking issue where periodically the Plex for Android is failing to connect to the server on the local network and leads tod downloads being marked as failed.
Tapping on the failed download within the Downloads screen should retry
There is no indication as to why there was a network connection failure to the local server during the downloads
I wonder if you could run some network connectivity tests on the android device to repeatedly - say ping - the server IP to see if there are any issues
