I’ve been having issues with my plex install for a while but it’s not become so unstable that I cannot seem to get my server to stay accessible for more than 2 hours at a time.
It started off where after ever reboot from windows or other software updates I would need to do a repair install to be able to access plex. the plex.exe was always running but trying to connect to it from anything just sat and spun never connecting.
This weekend I had a data drive fail on me. Poof, it was dead. Thanks to RAID I have the drive restored without any data loss but now the plex server just simply won’t stay accessible. like before the plex.exe process is still showing up in task manager but I cannot reach it. I’m also unable to kill the process in task manager leaving me no choice but to reboot to get things running again.
I have tried repair installs, uninstalling and reinstalling keeping the plex data and when those didn’t work, uninstalling and reinstalling having removed the old plex data forcing a re-sign in and re-create my libraries. This last clean reinstall seemed to work great but crashed again sometime after I went to bed last night.
Two sets of traces are attached. the “old” traces are from a reinstall where I kept the original plex data as well as anything else from before that that hasn’t been over-written. The last known crash in these traces was between 9 and 930pm local time. the regular log zip contains traces from after my clean reinstall last night.
My OS is Windows Server 2012 Essentials if it helps. I’m grasping at straws here. I want to cut the cord but my fiance isn’t willing to do that if we cannot get this up and running smoothly again.
I should also add quick that I did see that post/FAQ about known DLLs that cause issues and did not see any on my server. I should also add that in debugging this, I have removed my anti-virus (clamwin) and only have the free version of malware bytes installed.
Are you running a vanilla MSE2012R2 install, or have you done any kind of customizing of it? I’ve been running it for a couple of years and haven’t run into this type of problem before with Plex not being stable.
Last night when Plex crashed, exactly what happened - did the app shut down unexpectedly, did the server crash? Plex has crash logs, have you examined them?
https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/201455336-Crash-Logs-Plex-Media-Server
Are you fully patched? Have you checked your system files for corruption recently?
What other software is running on your server?
Also, turn off verbose logging unless a ninja/dev requests it.
It’s not R2, just the original 2012 Essentials. No customizing has been done at all to the OS.
When I say it’s crashing, it’s just becoming unavailable. Everything else on the server is running fine and is still fully functional. I cannot navigate to it even on the local box with localhost, 127.0.0.1 or ::1 port 32400 specified on all of them. If I don’t specify the /web at the end of the URL it should (in theory assuming the post I saw wasn’t out of date) dump an xml string if I recall correctly but even that fails to return anything.
The OS is fully patched and I have done a file corruption check multiple times since I started needing to do the repair install and it always comes back clean. On that same note Plex is fully patched as well.
Outside of Plex and the stuff installed with the server’s OS all I’m running on this box are my RAID management software (FlexRAID) and Sonarr to help import and rename my media. I also have a mumble voip server that I occasionally run but I haven’t been running it these last few days. Everything else is running on different boxes.
It crashed again between when I posted this and when I got to work. I had verbose logging on for previous issues. Once I get home and get it running again I"ll turn it back off.
If you RDP into the server, is the Plex Server app still in the task bar?
Yes it is.
I also neglected to answer part of your original post. No crash log files are created. Folders exist but I did not see any files.
Ah, then Plex is definitely not crashing then.
Crashing in the true sense of the word, no but when it stops responding and requires a reboot to get back up and running (temporarily) something happening.
what disturbs me too is that I cannot kill the processes after what I’m just going to continue calling a crash since I can’t think of a better word to describe it suddenly failing to respond.
If I right click the icon and exit plex, there is still a plex.exe out there that I get a permission denied error trying to kill. It was launched with my user account so I don’t see why I cannot kill it. It also seems to persist across log offs as well. And while it’s still floating out there I cannot restart the server so my only choice is to reboot my machine.
Failing to respond is more accurate. When you say crash, we think the app has stopped, which isn’t the case.
Have you had problems with Plex since you originally installed it?
Fair enough, all a matter of perspective 
No, it wasn’t until roughly when the automatic installs (where I don’t have to remote in to respond to prompts) feature was added that I started noticing weird behavior with plex not starting or eventually failing to respond. In terms of the issues happening very frequently after replacing the hard drive earlier this week, part of me thinks that will end up just being poor timing. Unless there’s something I’m not aware of in the settings, everything in Plex was installed and cached to my C drive. The Drive that failed was media-only in my D drive.
Do you have PMS running as a service?
I’m assuming you’re talking about the manual process described here:
https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/93994/pms-as-a-service/p1?
If so, then no. plain old vanilla install set to launch at log in. I don’t even have any plug-ins installed.
Yep, that’s what I was talking about.
Try this to see if your Windows profile is the problem. Uninstall Plex Server (back up all the Plex data folders prior to doing that), create a new admin user, then install Plex Server under that user. The new user will probably not have the previous library data, so you’ll have to create libaries again and add your media back. I would just do a fraction of your media - no sense in doing everything if Plex crashes again.
I’m pretty sure that if you uninstall Plex from the new user and switch back to the original admin user and reinstall, all of your original settings will be there.
Will give that a shot and see what happens.
Do you have remote access enabled and secure connections enabled, and do you have DLNA enabled? You have a ton of these types of errors in your logs:
NetworkServiceBrowser: SSDP departed after not being seen
You also have slow queries in your log. Perform a database optimization to see if that helps (you shouldn’t have this on the new user, since it creates a new database).
Off the top of my head, I think I have secured connections preferred but not required. I"m fairly confident DLNA is enabled as well.
I"m in middle of a reboot to uninstall plex to do the install on the new user. Should I reinstall with the original user first or continue with the new account to try that?
Let’s try staying with the original user first. Install, then turn off DLNA (especially if you never use it, no reason to enable it), turn off remote access, and optimize the database.
10-4. Once I can get back remoted in (assuming I did -r and not -s in the shutdown command) I’ll do that and report back.
