Hello,
I recently updated to to Plex Server Version#: 1.18.6.2368 and now when I add a new video the thumbnail generation task takes such a long time that I wind up having to force quit Plex.
For 1:30 length movie it takes about 6 hours to generate the thumbnails and stresses out the server too much.
This issue started after this update, is there anyway to revert back to an earlier version?
thank you,
rise4peace
I’m on server 1.18.6.2368 as well, running on a headless Linux server, and I’ve also just recently installed metricbeat system monitoring, and am seeing it working non-stop, and I believe it is generating thumbnails. Is there any way to see the progress of the chapter generation? Like processing video XX of YY, or a ZZ% complete or something like that? It would be reassuring to have insight into how much more work it has to do.
To my knowledge there is no way to see the overall progress of thumb-gen.
You can change the rules for generation to ONLY occur during Scheduled Tasks, and/or When Media Is added - the latter being a good idea once all your thumbs are generated.
Since the update that changed the way thumbs are generated - which ever one that was - thumb gen is working at warp speed over here at my house. Just did a Movie in about 15 seconds.
If it’s taking a long time - something’s broke somewhere.
Do you have any thoughts on why it’s taking so long for @rise4peace , Otto?
I mean they’re done before I can look to see if they’re done.
It’s Linux, so I’m largely out.
Maybe verify that hardware transcoding is working at all. If it doesn’t work, alert @ChuckPa
Me too - and the buck definitely stops @ChuckPa
You know my involvement with windows is either to wash them or to break them, right? 
I see the link to the older thread.
I am generating BIF files now.
That notwithstanding, I created a new library section and told it to create everything as it was added.
PMS 1.18.7.2438-f342a5a43 generated the thumbnails faster than I could go find the entries in the log files.
I did scroll back. I see the single statement where it starts generation.
I don’t see where it prints out the., previously common, protracted progress reports.
I will profile this more now and see what I find. ( I will give it a hundred or so movies to do)
try this file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eDfAUBPt-K0KPypwzsD_DwjcUrpiugVb/view?usp=sharing
Plex cannot produce preview thumbs for it; sits for hours and hours and hours doing nothing.
I didn’t see one over any of my movies or TV Shows, but I didn’t click into each Season of each show. Would I need to do that to see this spinner? Because that would be a lot of clicking.
Oh, this looks more like what I was hoping for. I’ll give this thread a more thorough read tonight and try it out. Thanks!
You’ll only see the spinning circle while Plex is generating the thumbnalis. If you have the server set to create them when media is added, the activity icon should light up almost right away. If you have your server set to generate them during the scheduled tasks period, you would only see that activity during those times.
When you just go to a TV show or movie, the thumbnails have either been already generated, or they are waiting to be created, depending on your settings.
You could be right. I have my server set to do everything as soon as it gets the file. If I click analyze, new thumbnails are not generated, it just does whatever that does, but it doesn’t re-generate thumbnails (because they are already there)
I didn’t mean to imply your statement was wrong, I’m sorry you seem to have taken it that way.
But it doesn’t appear that thumbs are generated from the analyze option, at least on my system, if they are already there. We all have different settings, and probably see different results.
Only works on single items, though. (and that’s a good thing)
Wot? That must be a bug.
Imagine you have marked a whole library or something…
I can’t decide which one of these I’d rather not click more than the other one and it’s not Analyse - I don’t think:
Yea, pretty sure I’d not like to Refresh Metadata for an entire library more. <—if we’re tallying up things not to do for an entire library. <— by accident.
Not sure if I’m lazy or logical, but if I wanted the file “analyzed” and thumbs generated before the “Scheduled Tasks” kick in, I would have all the options set on the server to do that as soon as the file is added.
I try to automate as much as possible, and performing a task that can be done automatically seems like an unnecessary step.
Not doing so now that VPTs are generated so quickly - would be foolish. It’s over before you can check to see if it’s over and analyse (lite) is right behind it.
I’m on Windows 10 x64 and just noticed this problem because I just happened to have looked.
Testing different versions and the problem goes back v1.18.6.2348. Whatever was done to fix the below listed on the changelog for this version might have something to do with it.
(Library) The scheduled task to generate video preview thumbnails didn’t always work.
I’ve tried every 1.18.6x, 1.18.7x, and 1.18.8x version and they all generate thumbnails slower than before the generation was sped up a while back.
Reverting to 1.18.5.2309 fixes it so something is definitely borked.
