Playback Error: Conversion failed. The transcoder exited due to an error. PMS 1.21.X

Plex Media Server
,
1

TrueNas Plugin
Server Version#:1.21.3.4015
Player Version#:4.51.1

Windows Server 2019
Server Version#:1.21.4.4054
Player Version#:4.51.3

I’ve recently upgraded my Plex on Truenas and have been seeing this playback error “Conversion failed. The transcoder exited due to an error.” frequently. I thought this was an issue with my truenas plex version so I’ve spun up a Windows server 2019 VM, but in the Windows PMS build I’m also seeing the same error. There are times I can play the same MKV and get the issue (not in the same spot) other times it works fine for over an hour. I’ve seen this error when playing music, and video. I’ve had this popup on multiple items some of which I know I have watched/listened to before without issue.

I’ve looked over the forums in regards to this error, but most of the posts were not recent to these builds. I’ve adjusted the “Library scan interval” from hourly to daily since someone said that fixed this for them. I ensure that none of the hardware acceleration was enabled to see if that would make a difference but it didn’t.

When I have seen this issue I’m local on the same network as the PMS and am the only one streaming to a PC Plex Web Player.

I’ve tried the following players

  • Local Web Player
  • App.Plex.tv Web Player
  • Plex PC Client

The Attached Log is from Plex running on TrueNas
Plex Media Server Logs_2021-02-19_21-17-58.zip (2.9 MB)

2

I’ve downgraded the Windows Server 2019 to server version 1.20.1.3252 player version 4.34.4 and haven’t seen the playback error yet. I need to run at least a couple more hours through to be sure. If I don’t see the Playback error I’ll then look at upgrading to the next version to see if I can track down when this issue started showing.

The reason I went back to 1.20.1.x was I’m fairly certain my TrueNas was on a 1.2X.1.x version and I didn’t have any issues.

3

I’ve done additional testing and it appeared that this issue starts to show in PMS version 1.21.3.4014.

The versions I have tested are the following.
Version: 1.20.1.3252
Version: 1.21.1.3766
Version: 1.21.3.4014

I have no way to revert and test TrueNas as there are no options for doing such for plugins.

Please note I indicated that my setup was initially TrueNas. I only went to the Windows build to try to see if the issue was specific to TrueNas or also applied to the Windows build, which it does.

This needs to be looked at both on the TrueNas build and the Windows build. I assume the issue is in the base/core code at this point.

4

Where is the best forum to post problems with the Apple TV (64-bit, Gen4) Plex app?

5

That would be here. And then you need to tag your post as Apple TV. There is no specific place for each model of streaming device.