Plex Media Player - Playback Error - Windows 7

Plex Players Desktop Players
1

Server Version#: 1.14.1.5488
Player Version#: 2.24.0.924-63fcaa8e

Player has never played video or audio (music) since I started using Plex in August. I had the server on my main PC and player did not work. Moved server to Synology NAS and player still does not work. Web client works fine on my computer, but Player does not.

When I stream a movie or song, I get a popup titled “Playback Error” with the text of "An error occurred trying to play “<whatever I’m playing>”.

plex%20player%20error%20screenshot%2020181222
plex%20player%20error%20screenshot%2020181222917×546 24.6 KB

I see this in the log file for the player:

2018-12-22 16:00:23 [ INFO ] JS: %c[Player] A critical PMP media error occurred: unrecognized file format; the player cannot recover

Anyone else see this?

2

A single line from the log is not much to go on.
Is this a 32 bit system?
Is this a special version of Windows 7 without Windows Media Player?

3

Sure…64-bit Windows 7, not a special version.

I have the log. What is the best way to post? Just embed?

4

just drag the zip into the msg window here

5

Here is the log. I made a clean log. Here are the steps I performed:

  1. Start Plex Media Player.
  2. Select user and enter pin
  3. Select TV Shows
  4. Select Rick and Morty, then season 3, Pickle Rick episode
  5. Click “play”
  6. Error occurs: "An error occurred trying to play “Pickle Rick”.
  7. Click “X” on error window to close.
  8. Click “x” from Windows title bar to close Plex Media Player

A couple of interesting things:

  1. Live TV, TV Shows, Movies, Music all cause the same error.
  2. Podcasts DO play (I assume these don’t come directly from the Plex Server?)
  3. I disabled my anti-virus to see if that was causing some connection problems, but that did not work.

PlexMediaPlayer.zip (26.0 KB)

6

Could you try and installing it into the default location on drive C: and not on drive J: ?

Make sure to install the latest device driver software for your nVidia GPU.

Remove any ‘codec packs’ and go only with a clean installation of LAVfilters https://github.com/Nevcairiel/LAVFilters/releases

Try resetting all your PMP preferences by cleaning out the PMP datafolder C:/Users/Todd/AppData/Local/PlexMediaPlayer/

After a restart, enter the TV mode
go to Settings - Main
and experiment with ‘Native OpenGL’
as well as
Video - ‘Hardware Decoding’

7

Does Plex Media Player use LAV? I thought it was mpv?

8

It might use codecs which are already present on the system, in some cases.

9

That’s very interesting. I wonder if I might use this info to solve my issues. Which codecs which it would use, and in which set of circumstances?

10

Sorry, I can’t tell you that.
You’ll have to try different files and afterwards inspect the PMP log to find out which it used.

11

Okay thanks, what am I looking for in the log?

12

something like this:

2018-12-23 10:09:26 [ INFO  ] PlayerComponent.cpp @ 615 - checking codecs 
2018-12-23 10:09:26 [ INFO  ] CodecsComponent.cpp @ 1260 - Using system audio decoders: true 
2018-12-23 10:09:26 [ INFO  ] CodecsComponent.cpp @ 1261 - Using system video decoders: true
13

Any way of knowing which audio / video system decoders it is using if true?

I don’t have any of that info in my logs, do I need to enable a more verbose logging option?

14

You need to actually play something, don’t just start PMP.
And this is from the PMP log, not the PMS log.
https://support.plex.tv/articles/207338748-plex-media-player-logs/

15

Okay, progress, I have this:

2018-12-23 21:16:56 [ INFO ] PlayerComponent.cpp @ 609 - checking codecs
2018-12-23 21:16:56 [ INFO ] CodecsComponent.cpp @ 1260 - Using system audio decoders: true
2018-12-23 21:16:56 [ INFO ] CodecsComponent.cpp @ 1261 - Using system video decoders: false

How do I know which system audio decoder it is using? If it isn’t using the system video decoder, which decoder is it using?

16

I can’t tell you, sorry.

Its own, which get downloaded on first use from plex.tv.

17

Okay. Is there any further information / guide / manual / wiki about this?

For example, would an uninstall and re-install of PMP force it to re-download it’s own codecs and use them instead of the system ones? What would then force it to switch to using the system one from it’s own one?

18

There is not, otherwise I would’ve pointed you already towards it.

I can’t answer that.

19

How would I go about finding someone who could answer that please?

20

What are you trying to deduce in the end?