Server Version#: 1.40.4.8679
Player Version#: various
About a month (or so) ago, I (and my users) started noticing that, every once in a while, the show/movie they are watching suddenly stops, with the “busy spinner” and then a message that the media is not accessible to the server (not sure the exact text, sorry). Then click the button to dismiss the message and click play on the show/movie again and it picks up right where it left off. Immediately. I have experienced this when playing a show on my desktop computer, which is only a few feet from my physical Plex system, and there were no notifications on the Plex system that anything went wrong (such as a USB device going away and coming back, which I do hear sometimes.)
Is there anything I can do to combat this or could it be an issue in the Plex server code that my system is somehow triggering? I’ve tried replacing (and upgrading) all of the USB hardware used to connect the media drives and even replaced the 4 drive enclosure that was going off/on line on its own, but the issue still occurs.
We have all learned to live with it, but it is a bit annoying. Can anyone offer any ideas?
Are you using a 3rd-party anti-virus software?
These can sometimes introduce major delays when accessing files.
Do you allow the hard drives to spin down their platters when not in use for a while? Try setting a longer time of inactivity before spin down is allowed.
(With some external drives this might not be possible, because the drive’s firmware is ignoring the timeout set by the operating system.)
I would agree about AV software, but I’m not sure that it should ‘hit’ 40 minutes into a show. Especially when I’m the only person accessing the server. Normally, the AV software delays the initial file access, otherwise it isn’t much use since it would detect malware after it has been accessed and possibly executed.
I will check in to the spin down permission and time, once I figure out where such settings are hidden in Windows.
That is only true when “Direct Playing”.
However when Trancoding and Direct Streaming, Plex server chops up the video file into small chunks and stores them in separate files in the transcoder temp folder.
Anti virus software can interfere with these chunks, as the byte pattern which triggers a “false positive” virus detection can occur at a random part of the video. And this byte pattern doesn’t necessarily occur in the source file, but only after it has been altered by the Plex transcoder.
Personally, I have excluded the Plex data folder and the transcoder temp folder from virus scans.
Thanks, excluding the transcode folder from AV is a good idea. Unfortunately, it does not seem to have had any effect on my issue. I’m still trying to find the “spin down time” setting, but I have trouble believing it could be less than a few minutes. The most recent time the issue triggered was at 0:00:55 into a TV show. That certainly seems much too quickly for a drive that was just accessed to be spun down, does it not?
[EDIT] I tracked down the setting (I think) in Power Options, Change Plan Settings, Change Advanced Settings, Hard Disk, Turn off hard disk after, Plugged in: Never
I hope that Never is long enough for a hard disk power off to not affect Plex playback. FWIW, I did not change this, it was, and always has been, Never.
There are external hard drives which ignore the OS setting and only go by their own firmware parameters. Which is why external HDs are ill-suited for server duty.
OK, so what might’ve changed in the Plex Media Server that is NOW causing this to be a problem? I’ve been using these external units for quite a few years no with no problems before the past couple months.
And before you claim age of the units or drives, all of the current hardware is less than two years old … I periodically replace the oldest components (drives and external enclosures) and use them elsewhere.
The only things that have changed since the issue started are the Plex Media Server and Windows 10 (and one of the external USB enclosures that I thought might be causing the problem – it wasn’t.)
[EDIT: I contacted the maker of my external USB enclosures and confirmed that I have them correctly configured to ignore the USB power down signal from Windows – a signal I told Windows never to send anyway. Other than using that signal to synch with Windows USB power state, the enclosures do not spin down the drives.
Solved! I have used a Mediasonic ProBox HF2-SU3S2 for my media drives for many years. My problems started when I added a second, identical unit – apparently they don’t play well with their siblings. I even replaced the one I added (which was a few years old, from another system) with a brand new one, thinking that the unit was at fault, but no, the issue persisted. Mediasonic adamantly disbelieves and blames everything else under the sun, but when I replaced the second ProBox with a Terramaster D4-320 (same hard drives, USB ports, etc., of course) the issue completely vanished.
So, if anyone else is using a ProBox – be aware that adding a second may cause unexpected headaches!
And apologies to the Plex developers for imagining that Plex could have a bug! I just had trouble believing (conceiving?) that the issue could be what it turned out to be!
