Server Version#: Latest public
Player Version#:
This is a long standing bug. With the work being done on the transcoder in the last release, I thought there might be a chance this would be fixed. But no. When thumbnail generation is turned on, the server will crash at night when running the maintenance tasks. This need fixing as it renders playback skipping less useful.
Is this perhaps the same issue I am running into that I reported in this thread: Plex Media Server on mac stops running during maintenance? Might I be able to âsolveâ the issue by disabling thumbnail generation? If so, where might I find that setting?
It sounds like it. The generate thumbnails option is on the advanced servers settings, maybe in the maintenance section, but donât have it in front of me. Turning it off will fix the crashes, but this is NOT a solution, but rather a reduction of functionality.
100% +1 agreed. But if it prevents me from missing recordings, itâs still (somewhat) better than crashing.
Really, though, it needs to be fixed.
Sure enough, after disabling thumbnail generation, the server remained running.
This is a rather serious issue that needs to get fixed - I shouldnât have to choose between thumbnail generation and having a functioning server!
My server was constantly crashing (Server consistently crashes - #2 by Michael4824), after some digging I found this topic. Turning off video thumbnail generation âfixedâ the crashes, but I agree turning off a feature is not a fix. Curious if this is a Mac only issue as all three of us are on Macs.
Iâve had a Plex server running for years on my MBP without any issue and last week it started crashing every night during the maintenance window. I tried all the usuals but nothing seemed to helped. After searching I came across this thread and tried disabling the thumbnail creation which worked in preventing crashing of the server.
The Plex team needs to get on top of this. Having to disable functionality to ensure stability is bonkers.
Another approach that I plan to work on is creating a cronjob that calls a script to check to see if Plex server is running and if it isnât then to automatically start it back up.
Exactly. Which begs the question how do we let them know that? The only options I find under âsupportâ are this forum, which appears to not have the desired effect (community support is great, but canât fix bugs in the codeâŠ), or a contact for billing issues, which is obviously not appropriate. How can I contact Plex support?
If we can find a Plex employee to DM, then maybe we can get some traction. AFAIK, there is no direct way to get support as a paid/paying user.
Incidentally, I tried the latest beta to see if that would solve the issue and it did not.
Just saw this thread and the other one mentioned above. To be clear, which thumbnails setting is causing this issue for your guys? The preview thumbnails or the chapter thumbnails or both?
If you guys cab provide server logs when the crash occurs, I can take a look. To be clear, I have a Mac mini with PMS running with both of those settings enabled and I havenât seen a crash. My initial gut reaction says itâs likely the thumbnail generation getting stuck not being able to read a specific file. Maybe the frame itâs trying to grab is corrupted or has too large a bitrate to generate the image.
âgenerate video previews thumbnailsâ is the setting on the Library section of the server settings. Turning this on crashes server during maintenance tasks at night. This started about 5 or 6 versions ago. I donât have a log at the moment but will let it generate one tonight.
Here you go:
The specific setting for me that is causing the crashing is âGenerate video preview thumbnailsâ. I initially also disabled âGenerate chapter thumbnailsâ but reenabled it and itâs not causing any issues. As noted above, Iâve had years of stability and only very recently have had the crashing occur on a nightly basis.
Iâve attached my log files
Plex Media Server Logs_2021-12-03_09-09-35.zip (6.1 MB)
I created a script that will automatically check the status of the plexserver and will restart it if itâs down. I have this running in a terminal window on my MBP.
#/bin/bash
PLEXDIR="/Applications/Plex Media Server.app"
PMS="${PLEXDIR}/Contents/MacOS/Plex Media Server"
PLEXPID=$( ps aux | grep "$PMS" | grep -v grep )
while true
do
if [ -z "$PLEXPID" ]
then
echo $(date) "Plex Server is down; restarting."
open "$PLEXDIR"
else
echo $(date) "Plex Server is up; doing nothing."
fi
sleep 300
done
@ibrewster It crashing on this file. Move it out of the way for now and see if it still crashes. Ir properly generated the previews for a few other episodes before this one.
Cook'\''s Country From America'\''s Test Kitchen (2008) - S09E13 - Big Flavors From Little Italy.ts
@vlord3 Yourâs stopped at this.
The Flintstones (1960) - S02E24 - Fred Strikes Out (copy 4).ts
Same advice, more the file. You have multiple copies of this file?
Looks like I have 24 invalid copies/recordings of the file for some strange reason. FWIW - The source is OTA DVR via hdhomerun. They are all dated from March of this year, so itâs strange that they would fail some 8 months later. I deleted all of them. What log file did you see that in?
Itâs at the end of the server log just before the crash.
Ok, I removed that file, and indeed it did appear to be a bad recording in some manner - that episode was listed as â1 dayâ in length, and had numerous visual and audio glitches when trying to play.
So weâll see if it still crashes without that file - my suspicion is that it will simply find another file to crash on, though eventually I should be able to weed out all the âbadâ ones.
Regardless, this remains a bug that needs to be fixed, especially since it wasnât crashing on that file before (it was recorded back in 2018, so itâs been a âbrokenâ file for years without issue)
Or the file got damaged recently.
Iâll grant you itâs theoretically possible, however I REALLY donât think it likely. The issues with playback I saw when testing were pretty typical of various recordings I made at the time (bad antenna, it was hit-or-miss if a recording would work). Plus, nothing has been done to or with that particular file recently, unless Plex itself did it for some reason (perhaps with the recent library upgrade?), so what would have damaged it recently? Why that one file, and not the 12 others from the same show/timeframe?
Not to mention, why would SEVERAL people have suddenly wound up with damaged files that had been good for months/years, all at the same time?
No, thinking that that one file somehow got singled out to be damaged recently is beyond my ability to believe at least, though like I said I canât 100% rule it out.
