To preface: I’m not sure the logs will show anything as they were pulled after I reinstalled (the installer didn’t offer a repair option, which was odd) and restarted the server.
Problem that manifested: godawful sluggishness on the part of the computer. I’ve been troubleshooting that, and seem to be mostly sorted, but the thing would slow to a crawl. That’s an aside.
In digging for clues, I noticed in Task Manager that memory kept pegging the needle and CPU use was doing the same. Going down the processes list…there’s Plex. And there’s Plex. And there’s Plex. Two round icons, one square. Two of those processes were grabbing 2.5Gb+ of memory apiece, and even after I hit quit neither was releasing anything. I finally had to shut the processes down manually.
It wasn’t that Plex was doing anything at the time: I’d rebooted the computer (HP laptop running Win 10 pro and, yes, I know) and while Plex had started that server wasn’t showing up.
To cut the third act short, I downloaded a new copy of the 64 bit install package and ran it. Last I looked there was one Plex icon (round) and it was dawdling along on minimal memory and cpu usage.
So…anybody run into this previously? Could it be a conflict with leftovers from the 32 bit version that I uninstalled before installing the the 64 bit? Could this be related to the 64 bit installer not offering to uninstall the 32 bit when I upgraded? Windows is pretty much Voodoo IT, honestly. Could Plex have been affected by degradation of the OS (an ongoing Windows issue.)
Definitely. You may have had the 32 bit, 64 bit, and the player installed. Which may have caused some odd interaction. Are you using a physical hard drive or an SSD? Classic drives tend to show early stage failure by making the OS run really slow.
System claims it’s an SSD, but it might actually be a hybrid. Things are running fine at the moment, though. I’ve been checking the drive and finding no issues, but the near-term plan is to clone the drive to an SSD.
I didn’t have the player installed, but the server installation was originally 32 bit, and I suspect there was some cruft. I’m loathe to lay this at Plex’s feet, honestly, unless there’s a bunch of similar reports.
You might want to look into Veeam, It allows complete PC backups including restoring to a new hard drive. Ive been using it for awhile and its saved my bacon a time or two.
Screenshot of the icons please.
Inspect their properties (right click) and see what the connected files are named like (and the folder where they are stored).
Here you go…with three round icons, no square. Also, fairly calm despite media scanning. I’ll have to go back and see what’s running by way of processes, but I’m not seeing the needle pegging on cpu or memory right now (where Plex was grabbing 2.5Gb of memory and not releasing it at all, even when quit.)
Login to every Windows user account on your computer. Make sure that the Plex taskbar icon is only present in one of them. Ensure that Plex server is only automatically started in this particular account.
Make double sure that you do not run “Plex as a Windows service” and the regular Plex server concurrently.
When I looked at Task Manager again all the Plex processes pointed to C:/Program Files/Plex Media Server, which is where they should point. I’ll take a look at the multiples if I can catch them when they occur.
As far as I remember Plex isn’t running as a user service. It’s pretty much a default Windows 64 bit installation, but as I noted upthread when I ran the 64 bit installer originally, it didn’t offer the option of uninstalling the 32 bit option (which had been emphasized when the 64 nit became available.) I uninstalled the 32 bit version manually after aborting the installer, then ran the installer.
It took me a while to dig down, but I was prompted to get a new copy of the installer and run it…and the overall issues have faded, mostly.
I’ll double check the services. I’m curious about what’s going on here.
Rebooted the Windows server as it seemed helplessly stuck in Sonic Analysis with 54 albums to go, though in which library I have no idea. I’m getting the impression SA pulls from more than one library, though. At this point I’m so confused about what’s where on the Windows machine that about all I can tell us that no Jpop is getting mixed into Sonic Adventures…yet.
The Plex Media Scanner did grab a ton of CPU, though not memory, on restart, but that was triggered by my being able to remove some leftover media that was mousetrapped (due to a different scan.)
The Windows box continues to putter along currently. There might be something of note in the log. This machine is on Ethernet, but I sometimes get odd messages about connections in one piece of software or another.
