Server Version#: 1.18.8.2527
Player Version#: 6.4.12.6214-0f6e34f3b Plex Media Server.log (732.0 KB)
For the past several weeks, the Plex Transcoder would very often crash and stop playback, at times multiple times per stream. It’d always happen when remote streaming to my girlfriend’s Roku TV. At first I thought it was Plex, so I did a clean install of Plex, then I thought it was Windows, but I also did a clean install of Windows earlier this week but the issue persists. I watched the Dashboard’s charts as a stream went on, but resources never seemed unusual when the crash would happen.
I’m not really sure what to do by this point. We were watching Moulin Rouge today and the stream crash because of the transcoder in seemingly regular intervals. I attached a log that I hope helps, but I can provide the rest if they’d be more helpful; I wasn’t too sure which one would be best to post.
You say a remote streaming to your girlfriends Roku Tv? Have you tried watching on another device, the computer it is hosted on, or a phone or a different tv? This log shows that the roku is in the bedroom.
The movie itself, could be corrupted. Did you rip the movie yourself or was it something that was downloaded?
Just quickly going through the log you attached, I am using Notepad++. On line 5190 again or 5325 is the following
I’m by far no expert on Plex or Roku, but whenever I hear or see “Connectivity” I automatically wonder if you are hardwired to the tv or player by ethernet or are you connecting wirelessly?
What could be happening is that you are getting intermittent connectivity because of overheating of a device. I would think that it could be a heat issue with the following devices, the router, the tv, or the computer, assuming that the file itself isn’t corrupted, ie plays on other devices. One of them is overheating, and loosing connectivity. My best advice, again assuming that the movie plays fine elsewhere, is to take a can of air, blow out the dust bunnies from the computer, blow off the router and make sure there is plenty of air flow around it (you may end up needing to replace it depending on it’s age too), and blow out the tv as well, again making sure that there is plenty of air flow around it.
From the log, I’m guessing that you’re streaming on your local network and not over the internt.
Yes, it happens on my girlfriend’s Roku TV when remote streaming (away from local network). I haven’t tried watching it on a phone or that specific media on the host PC (though I have seen films recently off it directly with no errors), but a friend who also uses a Roku TV had let me know he’s experienced similar crashes. The media was downloaded.
I don’t believe the error could be caused due to overheating since, when monitoring thermals, no components seem to be heating up much more than at idle.
If the specs help, the PC in question is fitted with an AMD Ryzen 5 3600, 16 GB of DDR4 RAM, an EVGA GTX 970 4GB GPU, and the PSU is 650W rated. Still, I did blow some dust out and scrubbed down what I could.
I believe it might be something to do with the media codec. I believe the file in question is saved an .mkv file. Recently she watched a movie I ripped in .mp4 file format and she said there were no crashes at all during the stream, but then when she tried playing files in .mkv format, there were constant crashes of the transcoder process.
I’m not too sure what logs would’ve been helpful, there are so many saved when I download them, but if you would like any specific ones or even all of them to look at, let me know and I can provide them.
Ok, so I’m getting that this is at her house, not yours where the hosting computer is, so she is connecting to your Plex as a guest without issues other than this particular one is. The computer with the Plex server appears to be tough enough to stream it to connected devices even over WAN. She isn’t loosing connection to your plexmediaserver or her internet, everything seems to play fine on your end, obviously you haven’t tried this movie at your house, but you have tried others. Your friend has similar issues with his Roku TV, I’m going to assume connected to your plexserver.
That really sounds like a bad video file, it really just takes a few bits out of place to screw up a download. I would first try it from a different device like a phone, tablet, or pc. If it doesn’t work on any of them re-encoding the file might fix it or downloading from a different source. Another option is to just change the .mkv to a .mp4. I’ve read that these two extensions are interchangeable. I would make a copy of the file and rename the copy using the .mp4 just in case.
You might want to download something like Handbrake and re-encode the file. Just google Handbrake it is the first one that pops up from “Handbrake.fr”. Handbrake has built in Roku file encoding formats, there are tons of instructions of how to use hadbrake all over the internet. Your server computer could encode it farely quickly given the specs you showed.
If none of those options work, then as a last resort, I would suggest resetting the RokuTV/device.
Yes RESETTING the RokuTV/device to FACTORY Settings.
Do not just remove the Plex app and re-installing it. It will not fix the issue.
Resetting the Roku TV/device will allow a clean install of the latest version of plex app, without any residual crap from previous installs.
This I know from experience. Do not fix a broken tool, throw it out and get a new one, particularly when they are free.
This will also give you/her the opportunity to get rid of the apps you/she don’t like/use and put items you/she does use in a more usable order.
