Server Version#: 1.19.1.2701
Player Version#: 1.8.2.1192-89432618
My Plex server is running on OMV5 in a Docker container using the Linuxserver docker image. I have HW transcoding enabled with a 1050ti. HW transcoding works flawlessly when streaming to Roku and Android (local) clients. Transcoding fails on the Plex Windows application and web player in any browser. This happens on both my desktop and laptop, one an AMD system and the other an Intel system. The Plex playback gives the Error Code -13 error. On the web browser the stream is just black. I’ve attached a txt file with debug logs. This has been happening for over a month, and with multiple server and player versions. Plex Debug log.txt (57.1 KB)
Player decision failed; the transcode server may be a slow or outdated
Would you be able to post debug level server logs associated with the problem happening, and another client log? (It will be helpful to see both client and server logs at the time of this issue happening.) An approximate date/time of the issue would be helpful to narrow down looking in the logs. Hopefully the server logs will shed more light.
Thanks for the reply! Here is a client log from Plex for Windows and logs from the server. The error occurred at approximately 2:10pm. The client gave a new error code this time (4294967283) instead of -13. This is running the latest version of PMS and Plex for Windows. Plex for Windows debug 5-7-2020 2-11pm.txt (60.0 KB) Plex Media Server Logs_2020-05-07_18-11-59.zip (3.2 MB)
It looks like it is having trouble finding your nvidia card - snippets from your server log are at the bottom in the collapsed section. Anything change in the timeframe of a month ago when it stopped working?
Just as a test would you try turning off the “Use hardware acceleration when available” option on your Plex server, and then try it again from the Win client? Your CPU is strong, and should be able to handle software transcoding for a test. If it works then we can pretty confidently say the problem is with hardware accelerated transcoding and focus on that. I not a Docker guy, but hopefully we can get some help.
If this test works, is there any chance that the Roku and Android are actually direct playing (or direct streaming) and therefore avoiding transcoding? (You can check in your Plex server dashboard “Now Playing” section. Make sure that show advanced is clicked to get more info.
Server Log Excerpts
May 07, 2020 18:09:48.432 [0x7f380d7fa700] DEBUG - Codecs: testing h264 (decoder) with hwdevice vaapi
May 07, 2020 18:09:48.432 [0x7f380d7fa700] DEBUG - Codecs: hardware transcoding: testing API vaapi
May 07, 2020 18:09:48.432 [0x7f380d7fa700] DEBUG - Codecs: hardware transcoding: opening hw device failed - probably not supported by this system, error: Input/output error
and then later:
May 07, 2020 18:10:06.755 [0x7f37c6ffd700] DEBUG - Starting a transcode session b40h2dhl45dw4m21li5qcdet at offset -1.0 (state=3)
May 07, 2020 18:10:06.755 [0x7f37c6ffd700] ERROR - IsFileWritable: failed to create file ‘“/transcode/abf50e73-487a-4120-8fe9-c1f3b2ebbab6”’
May 07, 2020 18:10:06.755 [0x7f37c6ffd700] WARN - IsDirWritable: directory ‘“/transcode”’ is not writable
May 07, 2020 18:10:06.755 [0x7f37c6ffd700] DEBUG - TPU: hardware transcoding: using hardware decode accelerator nvdec
May 07, 2020 18:10:06.755 [0x7f37c6ffd700] DEBUG - [Universal] Using local file path instead of URL: /plexmedia/Movies/Brick (2005)/Brick (2005).mkv
May 07, 2020 18:10:06.755 [0x7f37c6ffd700] DEBUG - TPU: hardware transcoding: zero-copy support present
May 07, 2020 18:10:06.755 [0x7f37c6ffd700] DEBUG - TPU: hardware transcoding: using zero-copy transcoding
May 07, 2020 18:10:06.755 [0x7f37c6ffd700] DEBUG - TPU: hardware transcoding: final decoder: nvdec, final encoder: nvenc
May 07, 2020 18:10:06.756 [0x7f37c6ffd700] ERROR - IsFileWritable: failed to create file ‘“/transcode/34b51809-185f-45b9-bf21-cc1dbb13431d”’
May 07, 2020 18:10:06.756 [0x7f37c6ffd700] WARN - IsDirWritable: directory ‘“/transcode”’ is not writable
Disabling HW transcoding does allow the Windows client to stream the transcode fine, it just crashes using HW transcoding. I can confirm the Android and Roku streams are using HW transcoding. The Plex dashboard shows the HW tag and I can see the process using the GPU memory using the nvidia-smi command.
Thank you for verifying! I was hoping I’d be able to help, but this does look like something specific with Docker and/or your Nvidia and I have neither.
@ChuckPa: Would you mind looking at this issue and logs, or directing us to the right resource? Its is a Docker container and is having issues with hardware transcoding, but hw transcoding works when used for some clients.
Hmmmmm.
I have my /transcode directory for the Plex container mapped to the system’s default /tmp directory, which is in RAM. I know it has permission to write to that directory because when I do a transcode stream to my Roku/Android devices, I can see the Transcode directory show up in /tmp. I also manually set the permissions wide open for /tmp and all it’s contents. So I’m not sure why streaming to Windows would have an effect.
I’ve done some experimenting. It seems like no matter where I map the transcode directory, or if I don’t map one at all and just let it default, I still can’t transcode to Windows. But Roku continues to work fine!
I can’t explain it; I don’t have any windows-based systems here.
I only reported what PMS is telling me;
When it tried to transcode, it failed due to permission error.
User plex (or the UID the container runs as) does not have permission to write in the designated spot.
