Plex DVR recordings fail after a minute or so

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
1

Hi everyone, wanted to see if anyone else is having a similar issue.

I’ve scheduled recordings on my plex server with HD Home Run OTA and when I go back to watch the recording, it only captured the first minute or so. This probelm seems to be random. It has been failing to record epsiodes of A.P. Bio altogeather (a 30 min show) but has been recording the Goldbergs (a 30 min show) without any problems.

It did record Wreck it Ralph in full 1080i with out any problems.

Commercial removal is turned on.

Tonight I cleared the entire recored que and set it record Jesus Chris Superstar from 8pm to 1030pm.
When I came back to watch the recording, it had only captured 1 min.

I dont think the computer’s specs are to blame becouse somtimes it captures great looking 1080i movies and TV shows from th OTA HD Home Run.

My server setup is as follows:

Plex server Version 1.12.1.4885

Late 2011 Macbook Pro MacOS High Sierra SSD and 16gb ram. 512mb deticated video. connected to a WD Mybook with USB 3.0 with Thunderbolt adapter.

HD Home Run OTA hardwired eithernet into the network and the computer is also hard wired via eithernet.

Any ideas? Thanks.

2

I am seeing this as well. None of my shows are recording to completion.

3

Me too. Worked yesterday, today, NO!

4

same problem

5

I am having the same issues. Doesn’t seem to be any consistency to the time it records. Sometimes 30 sec, sometimes a couple of minutes. When I looked at the HD Homerun logs I see:

20180418-03:00:08 Tuner: tuner0 tuning 69.1 KSWB (8vsb:503MHz-3)
20180418-03:00:08 Tuner: tuner1 tuning 8.2 KFMB CW (8vsb:183MHz-4)
20180418-03:00:08 Tuner: tuner0 streaming http to 192.168.0.22:33178
20180418-03:00:08 Tuner: tuner1 streaming http to 192.168.0.22:33179
20180418-03:00:38 Tuner: tuner0 http stream ended (remote closed)
20180418-03:05:32 Tuner: tuner1 http stream ended (remote closed)

So one goes for about 30 seconds and the other for about 5 minutes. When I look at the Plex Server logs I see:

Apr 17, 2018 20:00:08.076 [0x7f867ebff700] ERROR - [Transcoder] [mpeg2video @ 0x2bed260] Invalid frame dimensions 0x0.
Apr 17, 2018 20:00:08.078 [0x7f8683223700] ERROR - [Transcoder] [mpeg2video @ 0x2bed260] Invalid frame dimensions 0x0.
Apr 17, 2018 20:00:08.080 [0x7f867ebff700] ERROR - [Transcoder] [mpeg2video @ 0x2bed260] Invalid frame dimensions 0x0.
Apr 17, 2018 20:00:08.095 [0x7f8683223700] ERROR - [Transcoder] [mpeg2video @ 0x2bed260] Invalid frame dimensions 0x0.
Apr 17, 2018 20:00:08.097 [0x7f867ebff700] ERROR - [Transcoder] [mpeg2video @ 0x2bed260] Invalid frame dimensions 0x0.
Apr 17, 2018 20:00:08.099 [0x7f8683223700] ERROR - [Transcoder] [mpeg2video @ 0x2bed260] Invalid frame dimensions 0x0.
Apr 17, 2018 20:00:08.115 [0x7f867ebff700] ERROR - [Transcoder] [mpeg2video @ 0x2bed260] Invalid frame dimensions 0x0.
Apr 17, 2018 20:00:08.117 [0x7f8683223700] ERROR - [Transcoder] [mpeg2video @ 0x2bed260] Invalid frame dimensions 0x0.
Apr 17, 2018 20:00:08.119 [0x7f867ebff700] ERROR - [Transcoder] [mpeg2video @ 0x2bed260] Invalid frame dimensions 0x0.
Apr 17, 2018 20:00:08.175 [0x7f8683223700] ERROR - [Transcoder] [mpeg2video @ 0x2bed260] Invalid frame dimensions 0x0.
Apr 17, 2018 20:00:08.364 [0x7f86843ff700] ERROR - Unable to find title for item of type 5
Apr 17, 2018 20:00:08.365 [0x7f86843ff700] ERROR - Unable to find title for item of type 5
Apr 17, 2018 20:00:37.225 [0x7f86878f3700] ERROR - DVR:Recorder: No part because session isn’t reporting one.
Apr 17, 2018 20:00:37.225 [0x7f86878f3700] ERROR - DVR:Recorder: Couldn’t obtain a part, something went wrong.
Apr 17, 2018 20:00:37.226 [0x7f86878f3700] ERROR - DVR:Recorder: Error 12 (There was a transcoder error) starting the record, shutting things down.
Apr 17, 2018 20:00:37.229 [0x7f86878f3700] ERROR - DVR:Grabber: Starting media grab failed.
Apr 17, 2018 20:05:32.139 [0x7f8682959700] WARN - NAT: PMP, got an error: Not Supported by gateway.
Apr 17, 2018 20:05:32.140 [0x7f8689911700] ERROR - EventSource: Retrying in 15 seconds.
Apr 17, 2018 20:05:33.175 [0x7f8681335700] INFO - Library section 6 (DVR) will be updated because of a change in /volume1/share/Media/DVR/The Flash (2014)/Season 04

Apr 17, 2018 20:05:32.139 [0x7f8682959700] WARN - NAT: PMP, got an error: Not Supported by gateway.
Apr 17, 2018 20:05:32.140 [0x7f8689911700] ERROR - EventSource: Retrying in 15 seconds.
Apr 17, 2018 20:05:33.175 [0x7f8681335700] INFO - Library section 6 (DVR) will be updated because of a change in /volume1/share/Media/DVR/The Flash (2014)/Season 04
Apr 17, 2018 20:05:38.375 [0x7f8687be1700] WARN - SLOW QUERY: It took 270.000000 ms to retrieve 39 items.
Apr 17, 2018 20:05:38.428 [0x7f86787ff700] WARN - SLOW QUERY: It took 590.000000 ms to retrieve 50 items.
Apr 17, 2018 20:05:39.799 [0x7f8683223700] WARN - SLOW QUERY: It took 320.000000 ms to retrieve 39 items.
Apr 17, 2018 20:05:39.922 [0x7f868266b700] WARN - SLOW QUERY: It took 730.000000 ms to retrieve 50 items.
Apr 17, 2018 20:05:40.118 [0x7f8681911700] ERROR - downloadContainer: expected MediaContainer element, found html
Apr 17, 2018 20:05:40.118 [0x7f8681911700] WARN - DVR:Subscription: No container available for /tv.plex.providers.epg.onconnect:2/metadata/com%2Egracenote%2Eonconnect%3A%2F%2Fshow%2F14159764
Apr 17, 2018 20:05:40.545 [0x7f8681911700] ERROR - downloadContainer: expected MediaContainer element, found html
Apr 17, 2018 20:05:40.545 [0x7f8681911700] WARN - DVR:Subscription: No container available for /tv.plex.providers.epg.onconnect:2/metadata/com%2Egracenote%2Eonconnect%3A%2F%2Fshow%2F14154476
Apr 17, 2018 20:05:40.744 [0x7f8681911700] ERROR - downloadContainer: expected MediaContainer element, found html
Apr 17, 2018 20:05:40.744 [0x7f8681911700] WARN - DVR:Subscription: No container available for /tv.plex.providers.epg.onconnect:2/metadata/com%2Egracenote%2Eonconnect%3A%2F%2Fshow%2F11782984
Apr 17, 2018 20:05:41.529 [0x7f8681911700] WARN - DVR:Schedule: Couldn’t schedule recording (tuned channel: 1)
Apr 17, 2018 20:05:44.360 [0x7f868c368700] ERROR - downloadContainer: expected MediaContainer element, found html
Apr 17, 2018 20:05:44.360 [0x7f868c368700] WARN - DVR:Subscription: No container available for /tv.plex.providers.epg.onconnect:2/metadata/com%2Egracenote%2Eonconnect%3A%2F%2Fshow%2F14159764
Apr 17, 2018 20:05:44.778 [0x7f868c368700] ERROR - downloadContainer: expected MediaContainer element, found html
Apr 17, 2018 20:05:44.778 [0x7f868c368700] WARN - DVR:Subscription: No container available for /tv.plex.providers.epg.onconnect:2/metadata/com%2Egracenote%2Eonconnect%3A%2F%2Fshow%2F14154476
Apr 17, 2018 20:05:44.978 [0x7f868c368700] ERROR - downloadContainer: expected MediaContainer element, found html
Apr 17, 2018 20:05:44.978 [0x7f868c368700] WARN - DVR:Subscription: No container available for /tv.plex.providers.epg.onconnect:2/metadata/com%2Egracenote%2Eonconnect%3A%2F%2Fshow%2F11782984
Apr 17, 2018 20:05:45.786 [0x7f868c368700] WARN - DVR:Schedule: Couldn’t schedule recording (tuned channel: 1)

For some reason Plex aborts the recordings even though I can see the signal is coming through fine on the HD Homerun. Any ideas @ChuckPA ? I had another thread I started on this but no responses. This has been happening very consistently over the past week or two. Tried rebooting my Synology/Plex servers but that doesn’t seem to help. Also tried unplugging the HD Homerun but still doesn’t seem to make much of a difference.

6

I have been having a similar issue. The only thing I have seemed similar to the shows that will not record is, I have a conflict (using a HDHomerun 2 Tuner) when trying to record 3 shows. I have a priority set up but that doesn’t seem to help. I am trying to just remove the conflict and see if that fixes the issue, but it’ll be tomorrow before I can see if my fix works. It was only about 2 weeks ago when I began having this issue.

I do NOT have an issue with recordings that have no conflict (recording 2 or less shows at that time).

Anyone who has a server aborting the recordings of all the videos in conflict?

7

I was also seeing this issue running Plex media server on my iMac. Some shows would record less than one minute (45 seconds, or 46 or 47 or 48, etc). I found an article online that mentioned sleep and power settings could be behind wi-fi dropouts. I went to System preferences -> energy saver and unchecked ‘put hard disks to sleep when possible’ and ‘enable power nap’. I also set ‘turn display off to never’. I have recorded over 8 shows successfully since making these changes.
I would be curious to know if anyone else makes changes to energy saver and if that helps them.

8

I have Nvidia Shield and I often I’m having problems recording two shows at once I do not have a solution any help out there

9

Plex DVR recordings were failing. – Found the Fix (maybe)

My Plex server had recorded flawlessly for about a year and then last Thursday I came home from coffee to find that it had only recorded the 1st few minutes of my news shows. The recordings all showed an alert that says ’ There was a transcoder error’ I couldn’t find a solution in the forums so I tried several things to fix the problem. Nothing seemed to work.

Finally I went into the Recording Options and changed the ‘Remove Commercials’ from Enabled to Disabled and now it appears to work flawlessly again - Hopefully this is the fix.

10

Have you had any other recordings fail after turning off commercial removal? I’m getting recording errors periodically and have commercial removal on. I’ve posted my logs but it doesn’t seem like Plex support cares to answer so I guess we can only depend on other users for support. Sad.

11

My problem came back with a vengeance. Couldn’t record anything off air and even the plex Live TV feature couldn’t see the HomeRun tuner even though the Windows Media Center and the HomeRun Software could.

I noticed that after a couple of days I could see the HomeRun tuner and again but it only recorded a few minutes before the recording failed. Also my Plex app was intermittent and my playbacks would go sometimes for only 15 or 20 minutes and then lock up. I could stop playback and restart it and it would usually play the rest of the show.

After a frustrating weekend, my computer expert friend returned and he informed my that when I was trying to repair my Plex Media Server, which I couldn’t locate without his help, was on my Server 2012R2 but was running on a Virtual Windows 10 machine.

Apparently when you ‘Reboot’ your server, Plex keeps all of it’s settings (including glitches) and comes back online when you server comes back up. I wasn’t able to locate the actual Plex Media Server program until he had put me on the right track.

Once I got the PMS located, I went into the Windows 10 Control Panel and under Programs and Features I located the PMS program and did a ‘Repair’ and then a restart.

That seems to have fixed all of my glitches, so once again Plex is working great.

Hope this puts you on the right track.