TLDR, LTSC 2021 is missing Dolby DLL’s needed for EAC playback on LTSC.
Server Version#: 1.27.0.5897 TrueNAS Core Jail.
Player Version#: 1.20.2.3110-6f190192 HTPC Windows 10 LTSC.
Having a slightly annoying issue with HTPC on my main PC, seems to only be my main PC, the PC connected to the TV via HDMI is fine.
The issue I’m having is files with EAC3 audio don’t play the audio via direct play on HTPC but the transcode using EAC3 plays fine. The very strange thing is those same files direct play on PMP (version 2.58.0.1076-38e019da) work with no issue. PC is on the same network as the Plex server so I have no reason to transcode.
I’ve played with all the audio settings, normalize audio, exclusive audio etc. EAC3 audio still wont play in HTPC.
System is Windows 10 LTSC 21H2 19044.1766. Audio device is a JDS Labs Element USB Headphone amp.
Below is the logs of both HTPC & PMP playing the first few seconds of the same file with direct play audio.
Your logs indicate that you have an eac3 Media Foundation codec installed in your system. Perhaps this is the cause of your problems.
The log for HTPC did NOT include a playback. Additionally it needs to play for at least 10 seconds because useful debug information is logged every 10 seconds including which codec it is using.
You have two issues. First is the media foundation codec doesn’t work (which isn’t terrible because it does a fallback). The second is you have a locked directory or something which doesn’t allow the eac3 codec used by Plex to work:
Jul 06, 2022 09:35:48.390 [15056] DEBUG - [MPVEngine/mpv] ad: Codec list:
Jul 06, 2022 09:35:48.390 [15056] DEBUG - [MPVEngine/mpv] ad: eac3_mf (eac3) - EAC3 via MediaFoundation
Jul 06, 2022 09:35:48.390 [15056] DEBUG - [MPVEngine/mpv] ad: eac3_eae (eac3) - EAE EAC3
Jul 06, 2022 09:35:48.390 [15056] DEBUG - [MPVEngine/mpv] ad: Opening decoder eac3_mf
Jul 06, 2022 09:35:48.391 [15056] DEBUG - [MPVEngine/mpv] ad: Requesting 1 threads for decoding.
Jul 06, 2022 09:35:48.394 [15056] ERROR - [MPVEngine/mpv] ffmpeg/audio: eac3_mf: could not find any MFT for the given media type
Jul 06, 2022 09:35:48.394 [15056] ERROR - [MPVEngine/mpv] ffmpeg/audio: eac3_mf: could not create MFT
Jul 06, 2022 09:35:48.394 [15056] ERROR - [MPVEngine/mpv] ad: Could not open codec.
Jul 06, 2022 09:35:48.394 [15056] WARN - [MPVEngine/mpv] ad: Decoder init failed for eac3_mf
Jul 06, 2022 09:35:48.394 [15056] DEBUG - [MPVEngine/mpv] ad: Opening decoder eac3_eae
Jul 06, 2022 09:35:48.394 [15056] DEBUG - [MPVEngine/mpv] ad: Requesting 1 threads for decoding.
Jul 06, 2022 09:35:48.394 [15056] ERROR - [MPVEngine/mpv] ffmpeg/audio: eac3_eae: EAE watchfolder is not writable: \\?\C:\Users\sxcnt\AppData\Local\Plex HTPC\Plex Media Server\Cache\Transcode\Sessions\EasyAudioEncoder\Convert to WAV (to 8ch or less)\frame-1104-0-test.tmp
Jul 06, 2022 09:35:48.394 [15056] ERROR - [MPVEngine/mpv] ad: Could not open codec.
Jul 06, 2022 09:35:48.394 [15056] WARN - [MPVEngine/mpv] ad: Decoder init failed for eac3_eae
Jul 06, 2022 09:35:48.394 [15056] ERROR - [MPVEngine/mpv] ad: Failed to initialize a decoder for codec 'eac3'.
I have no clue if the media foundation codecs are installed or not, checked the whole system and can’t seem to find them. LTSC versions of Windows don’t come with much and I’ve removed Media Player seeing I have no use for it.
The locked directory is very strange considering this is a fresh install of HTPC. I did reinstall it before making this post just to be sure it wasn’t a wonky install but I manually deleted all folders that were left over before reinstalling.
That particular directory it’s complaining about is Read-Only. I checked the other PC that HTPC is working on and it’s the same. There’s no EasyAudioEncoder or Convert to WAV (to 8ch or less) directories in that Sessions directory.
Just as a comparison here’s the log from the PC with EAC3 working fine playing the same file I’ve been trying to play on my PC.
I also encountered this problem,But I downloaded the latest MPV from SourceForge and played it normally after replacement，But after the replacement, I can’t play my friend’s media library, and will prompt error code: 4294967283，What I can confirm is that there must be a problem with the MPV built in the program，I hope the official will fix it in the next version. At present, I am very distressed about this problem
This appears to be “normal” for some reason (why does Windows pull crap like this?).
The directories inside only exist when the EAC3 decoder is actually in use. It creates them when needed but that appears to be failing on this machine.
This one is using passthrough so it is not trying to decode EAC3 and thus not testing the same things.
Noticed that, it seems to be anything in Appdata is Read-only but that doesn’t seem to stop any other programs from creating directories and files. Quite a lot of games save to Appdata with no issue.
I’ve spent the last few days trying to force the Cache directory and anything below it from Read-only but nothing worked.
Found that out when I was playing around. Thought I’d try creating them and see what HTPC would do, needless to say it wasn’t happy . No video or audio and maxed out 4 threads on my 5900X.
I’m wondering if this is strictly related to LTSC versions of Windows seeing they don’t get feature updates, only security ones. Or if it’s something else on my system causing it to be stupid.
Did a clean install of the latest version 1.21.1.3131-2a5b8107. Uninstalled, removed Appdata folder, registry traces etc.
EAC still not working. Had a quick look through the logs and it looks like it’s that same folder problem. I’ll do some more testing once I have a spare system set up, want to see if it really is just an LTSC issue or if other Windows versions have the same problem as well.
What is a LTSC version of windows?
I thought Windows 10 is not yet in the extended support phase, so what is the difference to a regular Windows version?
Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC. It’s Windows but without all the bloatware like the store, cortana etc. It also doesn’t get feature updates, only security ones.
It’s making me wonder if the LTSC version is missing some feature or is doing something slightly differently to not let EAC work properly with HTPC. I’ve had problems in the past with LTSC and Nvidia GPU’s, the drivers refused to install because the LTSC version was missing some new feature that normal Home and Pro versions had.
Thanks, that actually worked for me. So Plex wasn’t the problem it was Microsoft removing codecs from LTSC .
Plex moderators, would be handy if that reply from Magnitate in the other thread was pinned somewhere, it’d make life easier for anyone else with LTSC versions having issues.
I also seen you can pull those codecs from a Home or Pro install of Windows 10 apparently as well, just in case you cant find them online.
. No video or audio and maxed out 4 threads on my 5900X.
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