Plex is so slow and files not playable

Plex Media Server NAS & Devices
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Why is Plex so slow? It is constantly buffering and it is impossible to watch anything from my Synology NAS. I tried setting the bitrate to original quality for all local files. My network is a wired LAN so there should be no bottleneck. I can watch files with VLC using the samba with zero issues. This plays the original files at original quality. So why does Plex have to constantly pause and buffer every couple of minutes? Can’t plex just play the original files like VLC does?

I have a one year plex pass so why can’t I get tech support?

Server Version#:
Player Version#:
<If providing server logs please do NOT turn on verbose logging, only debug logging should be enabled>

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Unknown why you thought you don’t have support but we’ve always been here.
I see you just joined the forum a few hours ago.

Plex’s support is here in the forum.

Seeing your Server DEBUG logs ZIP file (Settings - Troubleshooting - Download Logs and attaching the ZIP file it gives you) after you’ve captured a failure would be extremely helpful.

I could start guessing but prefer to give you a more focused answer

1 Like
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I don’t understand, how would the debug log show why the files keep buffering?
Plex Media Server Logs_2023-11-30_23-16-18.zip (3.2 MB)

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I can see exactly what the server is doing.

  1. You have an ARMv8-based DS118 Synology

  2. To play the episode “American Dad - S02E02”, which is HEVC, it must be transcoded to H.264 because FireFox does not play HEVC content. – must convert video.

  3. The audio is 5.1 EAC3. FireFox supports 2 channel stereo – must convert audio

Nov 30, 2023 18:38:09.891 [547740803296] DEBUG - [Req#c6/Transcode] MDE: Selected protocol dash; container: mp4
Nov 30, 2023 18:38:09.891 [547740803296] DEBUG - [Req#c6/Transcode] MDE: analyzing media item 6484
Nov 30, 2023 18:38:09.891 [547740803296] DEBUG - [Req#c6/Transcode] MDE: American.Dad.S02E02.A.Smith.in.the.Hand.1080p.DSNP.WEBRip.DDP.5.1.H.265.-EDGE2020 (2023): Direct Play is disabled
Nov 30, 2023 18:38:09.891 [547740803296] DEBUG - [Req#c6/Transcode] MDE: American.Dad.S02E02.A.Smith.in.the.Hand.1080p.DSNP.WEBRip.DDP.5.1.H.265.-EDGE2020 (2023): media must be transcoded in order to use the dash protocol
Nov 30, 2023 18:38:09.891 [547740803296] DEBUG - [Req#c6/Transcode] MDE: American.Dad.S02E02.A.Smith.in.the.Hand.1080p.DSNP.WEBRip.DDP.5.1.H.265.-EDGE2020 (2023): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/hevc
Nov 30, 2023 18:38:09.891 [547740803296] DEBUG - [Req#c6/Transcode] MDE: American.Dad.S02E02.A.Smith.in.the.Hand.1080p.DSNP.WEBRip.DDP.5.1.H.265.-EDGE2020 (2023): no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/hevc/eac3
Nov 30, 2023 18:38:09.891 [547740803296] DEBUG - [Req#c6/Transcode] American.Dad.S02E02.A.Smith.in.the.Hand.1080p.DSNP.WEBRip.DDP.5.1.H.265.-EDGE2020 - video.bitDepth limitation applies: 10 > 8
Nov 30, 2023 18:38:09.891 [547740803296] DEBUG - [Req#c6/Transcode] American.Dad.S02E02.A.Smith.in.the.Hand.1080p.DSNP.WEBRip.DDP.5.1.H.265.-EDGE2020 - audio.channels limitation applies: 6 > 2
Nov 30, 2023 18:38:09.891 [547740803296] DEBUG - [Req#c6/Transcode] MDE: American.Dad.S02E02.A.Smith.in.the.Hand.1080p.DSNP.WEBRip.DDP.5.1.H.265.-EDGE2020 (2023): no remuxable profile found, so video stream will be transcoded
Nov 30, 2023 18:38:09.891 [547740803296] DEBUG - [Req#c6/Transcode] MDE: Cannot direct stream video stream due to profile or setting limitations
Nov 30, 2023 18:38:09.892 [547740803296] DEBUG - [Req#c6/Transcode] American.Dad.S02E02.A.Smith.in.the.Hand.1080p.DSNP.WEBRip.DDP.5.1.H.265.-EDGE2020 - audio.channels limitation applies: 6 > 2
Nov 30, 2023 18:38:09.892 [547740803296] DEBUG - [Req#c6/Transcode] MDE: Cannot direct stream audio stream due to profile or setting limitations
Nov 30, 2023 18:38:09.892 [547740803296] DEBUG - [Req#c6/Transcode] MDE: American.Dad.S02E02.A.Smith.in.the.Hand.1080p.DSNP.WEBRip.DDP.5.1.H.265.-EDGE2020 (2023): selected media 0 / 6484
Nov 30, 2023 18:38:09.894 [547740803296] DEBUG - [Req#c6/Transcode] Streaming Resource: Adding session 0x7f886bafe8:td575b10bzrp9ysxgd6hq9by which is using transcoder slot.  Used slots is now 1
Nov 30, 2023 18:38:09.894 [547740803296] DEBUG - [Req#c6/Transcode] Streaming Resource: Added session 0x7f886bafe8:td575b10bzrp9ysxgd6hq9by
Nov 30, 2023 18:38:09.895 [547740803296] DEBUG - [Req#c6/Transcode] Streaming Resource: Reached Decision id=3923 codes=(General=1001,Direct play not available; Conversion OK. Direct Play=3000,App cannot direct play this item. Direct play is disabled. Transcode=1001,Direct play not available; Conversion OK.) media=(id=6484 part=(id=6484 decision=transcode container=mp4 protocol=dash streams=(Video=(id=12248 decision=transcode bitrate=2147483647 encoder=libx264 width=1920 height=1080) Audio=(id=12249 decision=transcode bitrate=256 encoder=aac channels=2 rate=48000))))
Nov 30, 2023 18:38:09.897 [547790422240] DEBUG - Completed: [192.168.10.190:52501] 200 GET /video/:/transcode/universal/decision?hasMDE=1&path=%2Flibrary%2Fmetadata%2F3923&mediaIndex=0&partIndex=0&protocol=dash&fastSeek=1&directPlay=0&directStream=1&subtitleSize=100&audioBoost=100&location=lan&addDebugOverlay=0&autoAdjustQuality=1&directStreamAudio=1&mediaBufferSize=102400&session=bz7aynh4fes5date3w6o6v21&subtitles=burn&Accept-Language=en (11 live) #c6 TLS GZIP 89ms 1546 bytes (pipelined: 4)
  1. There is no HW transcoding support on ARMv8 CPUs. It must be done in software.
American.Dad.S02E02.A.Smith.in.the.Hand.1080p.DSNP.WEBRip.DDP.5.1.H.265.-EDGE2020.mkv
Nov 30, 2023 18:38:10.059 [547742912736] DEBUG - [Req#d1/Transcode] TPU: hardware transcoding: final decoder: , final encoder: 
Nov 30, 2023 18:38:10.061 [547742912736] DEBUG - [Req#d1/Transcode/JobRunner] Job running: EAE_ROOT=/var/packages/PlexMediaServer/shares/PlexMediaServer/AppData/tmp/pms-7ef48105-4ce4-467c-a435-244b1c9fda95/EasyAudioEncoder FFMPEG_EXTERNAL_LIBS='/var/packages/PlexMediaServer/shares/PlexMediaServer/AppData/Plex\ Media\ Server/Codecs/a31c019-4614-linux-aarch64/' X_PLEX_TOKEN=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx "/volume1/@appstore/PlexMediaServer/Plex Transcoder" -codec:0 hevc -codec:1 eac3_eae -eae_prefix:1 bz7aynh4fes5date3w6o6v21_ -analyzeduration 20000000 -probesize 20000000 -i "/volume1/Share/Cartoons/American Dad/American.Dad.S02.1080p.DSNP.WEBRip.DD.5.1.x265-EDGE2020/American.Dad.S02E02.A.Smith.in.the.Hand.1080p.DSNP.WEBRip.DDP.5.1.H.265.-EDGE2020.mkv" -filter_complex "[0:0]scale=w=1920:h=1080:force_divisible_by=4[0];[0]format=pix_fmts=yuv420p|nv12[1]" -map "[1]" -codec:0 libx264 -crf:0 16 -r:0 23.809999999999999 -preset:0 veryfast -x264opts:0 subme=0:me_range=4:rc_lookahead=10:me=dia:no_chroma_me:8x8dct=0:partitions=none -force_key_frames:0 "expr:gte(t,n_forced*3)" -filter_complex "[0:1] aresample=async=1:ochl='stereo':rematrix_maxval=0.000000dB:osr=48000[2]" -map "[2]" -metadata:s:1 language=eng -codec:1 aac -b:1 256k -f dash -seg_duration 3 -dash_segment_type mp4 -init_seg_name 'init-stream$RepresentationID$.m4s' -media_seg_name 'chunk-stream$RepresentationID$-$Number%05d$.m4s' -window_size 5 -delete_removed false -skip_to_segment 1 -time_delta 0.0625 -manifest_name "http://127.0.0.1:32400/video/:/transcode/session/bz7aynh4fes5date3w6o6v21/f2979136-628d-43a6-b226-85526dd4c19a/manifest?X-Plex-Http-Pipeline=infinite" -avoid_negative_ts disabled -map_metadata -1 -map_chapters -1 dash -start_at_zero -copyts -vsync cfr -y -nostats -loglevel quiet -loglevel_plex error -progressurl http://127.0.0.1:32400/video/:/transcode/session/bz7aynh4fes5date3w6o6v21/f2979136-628d-43a6-b226-85526dd4c19a/progress
Nov 30, 2023 18:38:10.061 [547742912736] DEBUG - [Req#d1/Transcode/JobRunner] In directory: "/var/packages/PlexMediaServer/shares/PlexMediaServer/AppData/Plex Media Server/Cache/Transcode/Sessions/plex-transcode-bz7aynh4fes5date3w6o6v21-f2979136-628d-43a6-b226-85526dd4c19a"
  1. The ARMv8 CPU can handle software transcoding of up to about 20 Mbps of H.264 but it cannot handle transcoding of HEVC – AND – Audio conversion.

It’s stuttering / being slow because you don’t have enough CPU power to do the job.

If you had H.264 (AVC) codec, this would be a much different situation.

1 Like
5

Ok, so trying to play on firefox was the issue…(missing codecs)
So I installed the windows app and the same file plays great.
I will look into upgrading the NAS as well.
Thanks for helping me figure that out!

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