Plex leaving ghost sessions & leaving media unplayable without re-launching

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
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Server Version#: 1.22.3.4392 (likely all platforms as this seems like a core issue)
Player Version#: All browsers? Maybe even devices such as Shield, Roku, etc?

So i am not sure when it started but Plex takes the liberty of removing the session id from paused media after a certain amount of time. The problem is, Plex also leaves the session active in the sessions endpoint and in the dashboard.

So a user pauses it, comes back and it appears to still be paused so they hit play. Once the buffered amount runs out it just freezes with an indefinite loading icon. You have to close it out and re-launch it. When the user hits play the Player.state does update from paused to playing as it should but it is not re-assigned a Session.id and thus doesn’t work.

Some thoughts…

  1. Tell me where the setting is to stop removing paused sessions (or half way removing them really and leaving them in a broken state)

  2. Stop removing the Session.id for paused media or give us the option if it isn’t available already

  3. Properly handle the session when it is played again beyond updating just the Player.state

  4. Remove the session completely when you take the initiative to remove the Session.id so it does not exist in the session list or the dashboard and give the end user a message that it was killed due to a few minutes of inactivity and the server admin has no choice in the matter.

This is reproduceable easily with Chrome, Firefox & IE that i have tried it on. Pause media, wait a few minutes and hit the sessions endpoint. You’ll see the session in a paused state with no Session.id

EDIT: A side note, if the user hits pause when that buffer runs out and hits play again, it still does not work of course but it does trigger a media.play as well. So it seems the idea was to make it start working again since it does that and also updates the Player.state however it simply doesn’t work. Leaving the ghost session is also an issue as you cant terminate a session with no id…

3 Likes
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I’ve reproduced this issue in safari and chrome on macOS as well. Everything described above is accurate.

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I have had the same problem with the Android app for a long time. It only happens with transcodes and after a small pause (5-10min).

app log gets spammed with:

05-14 18:15:34.197  i: [FFmpeg] [INFO] [hls @ 0x7a45c1ee00] Opening 'https://SERVERIP.plex.direct:32411/video/:/transcode/universal/session/4a52b2d0dc40c630-com-plexapp-android/base/00536.ts' for reading

05-14 18:15:34.469  i: [FFmpeg] [WARN] [https @ 0x7a275e0e80] HTTP error 404 Not Found

05-14 18:15:34.497  i: [FFmpeg] [WARN] [hls @ 0x7a45c1ee00] Failed to open segment 536 of playlist 0

Server log prints:
[Transcode] Got a transcode session ping without a session GUID (or with an invalid one).

This problem has been present for a long time.

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I have the same problem as stated above, and it has been persisting for a long time.
It happens when I pause a stream for (5-10min).

Server Version#: 1.23.3.4707 (Had this problem for a while though)
Player Version#: All browsers

Just like mentioned above my Server log also prints:
[Transcode] Got a transcode session ping without a valid session GUID.

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