Plex Transcode H265 - Endless Swirl, No Playback

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
1

Server Version#: Version 1.21.1.3876
Player Version#: Version 4.49.2

Ubuntu 20.04 Server, NVidia 1050Ti Driver Version: 455.45

I can reproduce this issue with any HDR H265 content, but I’m also seeing this with some H264 stuff, too.

Basically, playback never beings. I can watch Tautulli, and it shows the media file appear, Transcode speed remains at (Speed:) and I can watch the seconds being counting, often going back to zero and beginning again. The client (ROKU, and Web Player) just show the swirl.

At the same time, someone can be watching a H264 media file that will be HW transcoding without error.

To put a couple of things in the logs, I tried to play The Fifth Element, Chemical Hearts (Both H265) and A Cinderella Story Once Upon A Song (H264 WEB-DL) , all of which are displaying this behavior. H264 Cliffhanger and American Dad are also currently playing with HW transcoding without issue during my testing.

Logs attached:
(File removed)

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 455.45.01    Driver Version: 455.45.01    CUDA Version: 11.1     |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name        Persistence-M| Bus-Id        Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp  Perf  Pwr:Usage/Cap|         Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|                               |                      |               MIG M. |
|===============================+======================+======================|
|   0  GeForce GTX 105...  Off  | 00000000:03:00.0  On |                  N/A |
|  0%   52C    P0    N/A /  90W |    459MiB /  4038MiB |      0%      Default |
|                               |                      |                  N/A |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
                                                                               
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                                  |
|  GPU   GI   CI        PID   Type   Process name                  GPU Memory |
|        ID   ID                                                   Usage      |
|=============================================================================|
|    0   N/A  N/A      1559      G   /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg                 17MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A      5085      C   ...diaserver/Plex Transcoder      365MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A     10572      C   ...diaserver/Plex Transcoder       66MiB |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
2

DEBUG log files ZIP is needed which captures this.

3

Enable Plex Media Server debug logging is checked under General in the Server Settings.

I again tried to play those same three videos and then downloaded the logs.

4

@DGCupit

I found what looks like the case of running out of inotify watches -or- possibly mounted across the net without file locking (which seems unlikely)

Jan 06, 2021 11:58:21.936 [0x7fa5f97fa700] DEBUG - [Now] Updated play state for /library/metadata/148166.
Jan 06, 2021 11:58:21.937 [0x7fa5f97fa700] DEBUG - Statistics: (228c62cc79511b17d1aaca73a9e7f03d) Reporting active playback in state 0 of type 1 (scrobble: 0) for account 23951262
Jan 06, 2021 11:58:21.941 [0x7fa66f7fe700] DEBUG - Completed: [71.87.244.130:50091] 200 GET /:/timeline?playbackTime=4009521&time=4010000&state=playing&ratingKey=148166&key=%2Flibrary%2Fmetadata%2F148166&col=1&row=4&context=source%3Ahub.movie.by.actor.or.director&duration=5885588&playQueueItemID=598541 (22 live) TLS GZIP 8ms 810 bytes (pipelined: 383)
Jan 06, 2021 11:58:21.990 [0x7fa66e7fc700] DEBUG - [Transcode] Codecs: Testing with profile 'High'
Jan 06, 2021 11:58:22.002 [0x7fa591ffb700] ERROR - [Transcoder] [eac3_eae @ 0xd71a40] EAE timeout! EAE not running, or wrong folder? Could not read '/tmp/pms-92aec3c1-faac-4adb-8f0e-8bee45f90e72/EasyAudioEncoder/Convert to WAV (to 8ch or less)/7e007186-dba7-4ea3-a860-572f9935a9dd_74191-0-1167.wav'
Jan 06, 2021 11:58:22.002 [0x7fa555ffb700] ERROR - [Transcoder] [eac3_eae @ 0xd71a40] error reading output
Jan 06, 2021 11:58:22.002 [0x7fa599fff700] ERROR - [Transcoder] Error while decoding stream #0:1: Input/output error
Jan 06, 2021 11:58:22.003 [0x7fa593fff700] ERROR - [Transcoder] [eac3_eae @ 0x2721800] EAE timeout! EAE not running, or wrong folder? Could not read '/tmp/pms-92aec3c1-faac-4adb-8f0e-8bee45f90e72/EasyAudioEncoder/Convert to WAV (to 8ch or less)/d365b055-c029-402e-b824-1ea23561d15a_74972-0-735.wav'
Jan 06, 2021 11:58:22.003 [0x7fa6417fa700] ERROR - [Transcoder] [eac3_eae @ 0x2721800] error reading output
Jan 06, 2021 11:58:22.003 [0x7fa598ffd700] ERROR - [Transcoder] Error while decoding stream #0:1: Input/output error
Jan 06, 2021 11:58:22.023 [0x7fa66e7fc700] DEBUG - [Transcode] Scaled up video bitrate to 20115Kbps based on 1.500000x fudge factor.
Jan 06, 2021 11:58:22.024 [0x7fa66e7fc700] DEBUG - [Transcode] MDE: Selected protocol dash; container: mp4
Jan 06, 2021 11:58:22.024 [0x7fa66e7fc700] DEBUG - [Transcode] MDE: analyzing media item 203539

Because of all the streaming and media addition activities, your most recent startup has scrolled off the edge of the buffer

Do you know how many directories (in total) are being monitored?
If more than 8192, have you tweaked Linux to accommodate them
?

5

Hmm. It’s very possible, I suppose.

Yes, I Checked and it has exceeded that number.

I found your article here:

I performed the changes, restarted Plex, and will let you know after some testing.

6

I believe things are working well, now. So it appears that this issue, for whatever reason, was stopping Plex from being able to play back certain files.

7

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