While working with the Plex settings a week or two ago, I inadvertently set the # of simultaneous transcodes to 3 when I meant to set the # of simultaneous streams per user to 3. Yeah, I had a user who seemed to launch copies of the exact same show on multiple devices at the same time. Anyway, after I made this faux pas, my users and myself started intermittently seeing the error ‘Not enough CPU for conversion of this item’. I was investigating the logs, verifying available cpu, memory, storage. The point is that the error message and the logs had me looking everywhere but the right place. It wasn’t until I started to question the timing that I made the correlation and found the config issue. The point is that this isn’t the first time I’ve run into an issue like this. I would greatly appreciate it if they would at least output something to the log like, ‘Stream transcoding refused to to simultaneous connection limitation’. I’d like to know what everyone else thinks. I think this is something that plex could really do better at.
There are many possible causes for what you describe.
The most common two are:
-
Burning subtitles into the video stream on a CPU which isn’t strong enough.
-
Converting video encoding without hardware acceleration. (HEVC → HDR)
Can you do the following please?
- Settings - Server - General - Show Advanced
- ensure “DEBUG” is enabled
- ensure “VERBOSE” is disabled
- click “SAVE” if changes were made
-
Play 20 seconds of one of the files where the problem was observed
-
After stopping playback, wait 20 more seconds for logs to flush out
-
Settings - Server - Troubleshooting - Download Logs
-
Attach the ZIP file here
ChuckPa, I thought I was clear on this. By changing the Setting/Transcoder/Maximum Simultaneous Video Transcode to Maximum the problem disappeared. My comment/complaint is that the logs and error messages gave no indication this was the issue.
I read your description.
I am asking for the logs because you did not detail:
- CPU
- Operating system
- Type of video being played (Codecs being used)
I am specifically wanting to see the decisions made by the logic for the video being played.
If there is a playback setting to change - it will be identifyable
If there are truly insufficient resources - it will be immediately obvious
if there is a bug – the debug logs will be the first place to start.
The log files remove any chance of misinterpretation.
ChuckPa,
- cpu - 9700k
- Linux - Kernel 5.13.0-21-generic within an Ubuntu 21.10 distro
- multiple videos (one mpeg2 dvd, one h264)
We used the exact same files for testing both before and after the parameter change.
As far as the logs, the Plex Media Server.5.log only goes back to 4am this morning. You will not be able to see anything from the time that the issue was occurring. If you set the # of simultaneous transcodes to a # and then try to exceed that number, you should be able to easily replicate the issue.
If you don’t wish to share logs in any way, I can respect that but my ability to help you will end very quickly.
If you try to hardware transcode more than 6 HEVC HDR video files simultaneously on the -x7xx SKU, you will find yourself out of QSV ASIC bandwidth and PMS will complain there is not enough CPU .
You must also take into consideration the Internal GPU (non QSV) is used for HDR tone mapping. It too has resource limits.
ChuckPA, I have no problem in sharing logs, but you are missing some key points.
- I can’t replicate the issue without changing the previous mentioned settings
- The setting was set at 2. At an attempt to start ANY video for a third session the error message was seen. Again, it was tested with both mpeg2 files and h264 files. There was no HDR in play. And again, goes away as soon as I changed from 2 to unlimited. If nothing else, since the same files were attempting to be played this indicates that the problem was not due to actual resource limitations.
- we were not even approaching the 6 transcodes you mentioned hdr or otherwise.
- the problem does not manifest while playing a video, but upon the start of the video exceeding the transcode setting. For example, If I set the # of transcodes to 1 then try to start 2 transcodes, I get the error message upon the attempt to start the second video.
With that in mind, I replicated the issue by following my own example above. I set it to 1. I started a very simple mpeg2 stream and then upon attempting to start the second the error message popped up. I am also including my logs as you requested.
Thank you for laying it out more clearly for me.
If I may ask about the above.
For clarification:
- You set the transcoding limit to 2.
- You attempted to start a 3rd session
- You received the error “Not enough CPU for conversion of this item” ?
If this is so, PMS is doing exactly as it should independent of actual resources.
The administrative transcode limit is set at 2.
It will not allow a 3rd transcode session to be started.
That said, if the third session is DirectPlay , it will be allowed.
(is this the error point?)
Do I understand better now?
I think the complaint is that
is not actually the error that occurred. The error that occurred was that the server had been artificially limited by the administrator to only allow X streams in this case 2 and when that number was exceeded it gave the above error message instead of a message indicating that the limit imposed by the admin had been exceeded.
The message should probably been more indicative of what is actually going on.
Examples: “The server stream limit has been exceeded” or “The servers transcoding limit has been exceeded”.
This is and will continue to be an issue that I really hope the Plex team will one day address. A lot of the error messages that are sent out by Plex are not specific enough and typically take a lot of troubleshooting to solve because of the vague and unhelpful nature of the messages.
Blkbyrd, thank you. That is exactly what I was trying to get across. I do find the Plex software to be quite functional and for lack of a better word, fantastic. However, many of the features and functions are less than apparent and many of the error messages not specific enough. So, I guess, what I am saying is that this software could use more polish before more functions/features are added.
It is definitely a balancing act, if they start to only focus on fixes, the features people get butthurt cause it doesn’t change what they want. If they only focus on features they get the opposite. Plex definitely work hard, and I love the software. I have used it for absolutely ages now, but I do agree that some little things could definitely use some polish that wouldn’t be too hard to figure out. Updating error messages to more accurately reflect what is going on is one of them.
I hear you Blkbyrd. I’ve been using Plex for a couple of years now myself. As has been discussed on Reddit though, it feels like Plex is focusing on trying to be a media provider as opposed to continuing to support and polish the media server. In addition, the learning curve for setup and admin is a little steep due to a lack of documentation and support process. I’d honestly be willing to pay a reasonable price for a yearly support contract along with my plex pass.
Given this is a change request to make what’s happening more clear, I will file it as such.
Thank you.
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