Sometimes I stay in front of my work computer for several hours a day. I have another computer right next to it, which is my Plex server, among other things. Lately, even with low bitrate video I’m getting a not enough bandwidth error at the top right of the screen. The computer I use Plex on is just the front end, all my content is in my closet on my unraid server. So I did some testing last week. Two days I used Plex to watch TV shows - regular stuff like Criminal Minds, BlindSpot. Nothing out of the ordinary. These were all MKV files. Throughout Monday and Tuesday I would randomly get the “not enough bandwidth” message from Plex. Restart playing the show, sometimes restarted the computer. All throughout Monday and Tuesday this would happen to me. And then I played the files directly with VLC right off the server. And of course no errors pop up for two days. If I do just a large file copy to or from my unraid server to the computer where Plex is running I will see 112MB/sec each way sustained. I never had issues like this at all with Plex. Seems they just started maybe about 3-4 weeks ago. Nothing on my end has changed. I still watch the same media content on that same unraid server with iPads, and TV’s with no buffering problem or tiling. I also went through the computer where Plex is installed, made sure there weren’t any programs or processes hogging any memory or anything that shouldn’t be running. The computer is a Windows 10 Pro x64 bit.
Previously with Plex when issues started (this was a long time ago) I would normally just uninstall the whole program and reinstall it. But now since my library is larger, I don’t want to have to do that. I saw many log files in the Plex associated folders, maybe someone can point me in the right direction or have an idea on what could be going on?
Thanks.
Can you post your Plex Media Server.log file that covers a time frame when this issue occurs?
REF: https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/201643703-Reporting-issues-with-Plex-Media-Server
Very long log, I did a search on “error” and you’ll see what I’m talking about. I do have CRASHPLAN running and sometimes on rare occasions that will screw up other things but I never had it screw up watching video.
Thanks.
Nothing on this? I supplied a detailed description, a full log and I also notice lots of other users are seeing playback issues to now.
That error is a generic error that basically means the client did not receive the video quick enough. This could be due to several factors. I see one error in your log.
Mar 14, 2016 15:29:19:333 [9596] ERROR - Couldn’t rename file C:\Users\mdelig00\AppData\Local\Plex Media Server\Cache\Transcode\Sessions\plex-transcode-kwzgwe495buzncdi-b6073cb8-ea49-46ac-9718-f474c2ab6d7f\chunk-temp to C:\Users\mdelig00\AppData\Local\Plex Media Server\Cache\Transcode\Sessions\plex-transcode-kwzgwe495buzncdi-b6073cb8-ea49-46ac-9718-f474c2ab6d7f\chunk-00205: The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process
The transcoder created a temporary file, then in the process of renaming it to the actual file chunk that gets used by the client, something interrupted the process and accessed the temprorary file so Plex could not continue. Do you have any virus/malware or other internet security programs running on the PMS machine? Make sure these programs do not monitor the Transcode folder. Could also be Crashplan. Make sure no other programs accesses this transcoder folder.
I only use Windows defender, the one built into Windows 10. And I use Crashplan which by default saves all the files in c:\users\USER% folder. I can configure Crashplan (I think) to ignore those folders, but not sure about Window defender. I’d figure lots more users would be seeing this generic error since Windows defender is on A LOT of computers.
I temporarily disabled Crashplan and been watching all hi bitrate content with no problems. I have to see if there is a filter on Crashplan to not backup any “temp” or “cache” folders and then take it from there.
I don’t use Crashplan but this was provided to me by another person. Here is a link to how to exclude folders from Crashplan. https://support.code42.com/CrashPlan/4/Configuring/Excluding_Or_Filtering_Files_Using_File_Type_And_Regular_Expressions
I wanted to open this comment back up since I’m having issues again. I really want to start using my Plex portal as my starting point for movies and TV shows but I’m constantly receiving pauses and time outs. I’ve checked the connectivity from the NAS all the way back to the router. It is a full 1gb network so it’s pretty hard to boil down. I hope I don’t need to get Wireshark out and review logs for days for this. Right now I use a Dune media player that connects right to my NAS via SMB shares to access my content. Been like that few years no problems. Very plain, no poster art or anything hence wanting to switch. When I switch over to using the RasPlex setup most movies and the time they work but several times they will timeout and tell me there’s not enough bandwidth. My Plex server is connected to a high powered desktop and not the NAS itself. So when using the RasPlex it goes through that computer and back to my TV. Same as my Dune media player without the extra desktop in the loop. I really want to switch over to Plex %100 but these pauses and timeouts are keeping me from moving forward. I’ve checked cables, modules, cards, switches, router, raw copy speed from NAS (105MB/sec) same as copy speed from the high end computer as well. My Dune media player can only max out at around 30mb/sec which tells me the PMS is dropping below that.
Sorry for such a long winded post but I’m really liking the new features and want to start using my Plex all the time. I’m finally done converting all my ISO files into MKV files, so hopefully it’s something I can fix this weekend. Would anyone have real suggestions for something like this? I did not want to install PMS directly on the NAS system since I keep that as clean and bare as possible. Plex should be able to feed one stream to a TV that’s in the same house anyway with no converting just like my Dune player does right?
Thanks.
