OHHHHHHHH S(*T!!! Finally, someone else getting one of my issues. Yes, I am having the same issue (Plex Webapp can’t manually select a quality). For Android, PMS just fails to find the hw trancoders altogether.
Have you checked (in task manager) what happens to the HW ENC/DEC when you play a video in the WebApp? Specifically, start a file, let it run at “convert automatically”, then try to select a quality level? What I end up seeing is that, when converting automatically, the ENC/DEC and GPU memory are in use but, after switching to a quality level manually, the ENC/DEC and memory plummet to 0% use.
Also, does the webapp playing ever catch up and need to buffer? Mine would play for maybe 20 seconds then keep having to buffer to play a few more seconds.
Lastly, for me, when trying to play on Android, either the “transcoding” doesn’t seem to actually start (ie: it continues to direct stream, except for audio, as noted by the Plex dashboard) or it fails to find hw transcoders (in the PMS logs) and just reverts to CPU (again, as per the dashboard, but I’m not sure I even trust that info)
Ok, let’s play the “let’s gather data!” game, as I want to see if our issues line up:
- What is the resolution and encoder of the file you are trying to play? Is it 4K HDR encoded with HEVC/H.265?
- Is PMS running on Windows or a different OS?
- Is the OS on bare metal or in some sort of virtualization environment? If it’s a VM, what is your host/hypervisor?
- This is a multi-parter, as I’m not sure how familiar you are with Plex and troubleshooting this so I’m just detailing everything:
- Turn off PMS, then restart it.
- Make sure that verbose logging is NOT enabled but debug logging is (from the Plex Web App, go to Settings > General, click “Show advanced”, select “Enable Plex Media Server debug logging” and deselect “Enable Plex Media Server verbose logging”
- Open up Windows Task Manager in the OS PMS is running in (if PMS is running in Windows), go to the “Performance” tab, and click on your GPU. Leave this open.
- Return to your PC/wherever you are using the Plex WebApp. In the WebApp, go directly to your test file and play it. Let it start playing however it opens (presumably “convert automatically” but correct me if that’s wrong).
- Once the playback has started, record of the utilization level of your GPUs Encoder, Decoder, and GPU memory usage of the PMS machine.
- Once it’s played for a bit (10 seconds), try selecting any other manual quality setting. Record, again, the GPUs encoder, decoder, and memory usage/utilization levels from the PMS machine.
- Once the stream fails to play for about 20 seconds, stop the playback. Immediately, from the Web Player, go to Settings > Troubleshooting and click Download Logs.
- Extract the unnumbered (latest) “Plex Media Server.log” file and post it here along with the two sets of GPU data.
- Do #4 again, but try and play the same file from an Android device, preferably a cellphone using the Android App to keep it consistent with me. Note any errors or playback issues (such as stuttering) that you notice.
- Not sick of this yet? Repeat #4 but playback using the Plex Media Player Windows application. Note any errors or playback issues (such as stuttering) that you notice.
While I have not yet solved these problems for myself, at least I can see if we have the same problem and work towards a solution.
I shall wait with bated breath.
