The server process would simply crash and die when playing/attempting to play video/movies. It started happening recently, but it’s far more frequent with 1.18.5.2309 and it’s basically unusable. It seems to be crashing more often when a remote user tries to play content from the server (my speculation). Please see attached logs and the crash report dumps.Plex Media Server Logs_2020-01-31_15-28-27.zip (833.3 KB) crashdumps.zip (91.1 KB) Plex Media Server Logs_2020-01-31_15-28-27.zip (833.3 KB)
I am having the same issue. Rock solid until this last update.
For me, it happens specifically only when streaming to my iPhone. AppleTV and web clients have no issues, but within an hour if streaming on my iPhone the media just stops playing and the service needs to be restarted.
I’m having the exact same issue. I don’t know what they did, but this update seems to be unstable.
To give a-little added nuance - for me the issue appears when I’m “admining” marking things as played, or unplayed. I do this a lot because I’m always checking the quality of my video files. I notice it’s going o crash if the client (most likely an iOS client in my case) is taking too long to load all the “details” of a said movie or show. It may still play the file, but then quickly if I stop the play back and maybe try to play something else the UI slows down to a crawl, and nothing will play. On the server (running on a 8th Gen Intel NUC/Windows 10 Pro) sometimes plex will load in the browse, however still be pretty unresponsive. Most of the time nothing loads. Closing Plex, and relaunching it resolves the problem. Like @bbbig wrote in his post it’s getting worse, with x.x.x.2309 being the most unstable.
Troubleshooting steps:
Restarting Plex on the server
Rebooting the server
Rebooting the router
Rebuilding the database
I’m going to attempt to follow some steps on found online to roll back.
I added a few pictures, this is right after I restarted Plex on the server.
I played Big (which is a direct play on my iPhone. Moved to the middle of the movie. Then marked as played, and unplayed. Do this completely crashed the server. Plex Media Server Logs_2020-02-02_09-36-54.zip (1.6 MB) Plex Media Server Databases_2020-02-02_09-36-45.zip (7.0 MB)
I also notice it a bit more on my iPhones/iPads as well. I was just testing this, after Plex becomes unresponsive on my “iOS” devices, Android, and the desktop clients still work, but eventually they will start becoming unresponsive too.
That’s interesting. I my specific case, I have been marking something watched or un-watched before I start playing because normally I fall asleep during one of the episodes. That is good to know. I’ll see what happens if I don’t use that feature.
Thanks for the added detail. It would have never occurred to me.
True, but I think the Plex services will crash eventually, regardless of if you’re “admining” or not. Something is very much wrong with this version, maybe even in the last few recent versions. In all the time I have been using Plex I have never had these issues. I could mark something played, unplayed over and over. delete, move files, and even make changes at will to my movie collections. All examples of extreme administrative activities.
I’m about to start trying the roll back process, been distracted with super-bowl planning.
I keep trying to reply but the form isn’t posting it right
Thank you! I was just about to roll back the server version. This would make sense, so using the iOS version of plex is crashing the server.
I guess I will switch to only using my Android devices until they release an update. So this is not affecting iOS Plex on Apple TV?
There is a fix for it at the bottom, log out of your user account on your iOS app - Log into a temp account, then log out, log back in with your primary…
I learned all this the hard way. I actually completely reloaded my server from scratch (Windows, Plex, and well a lot more :P). Hopefully others don’t need to go through the same thing…
I think we maybe similar! I was about to get hardcore in my troubleshooting. You just saved me, I was about to be in the same boot as you…
Thank you again!
Same issue here. Never crashed once in 5 yrs until now, and now constantly crashing, and its happening on the server itself, starts on Roku, then PC, I dont use IOS (I HATE APPLE’s Proprietary platform and refuse to buy the cool-aid)
I disagree that the server process crash is being caused by clients, iOS or otherwise. I am experiencing the server process dying with web clients as well as Windows Plex players. In general, the server process should gracefully handle any uncaught exceptions, if client attempts to make bad/unsupported calls. I am hoping that the Plex development team can review the debug and crash logs and chime in soon.
I don’t know about Apple hate and the Kool-aid. I honestly never understood why apple gets so much hate from some people. It’s an American company they make things you buy the things they make or your don’t. It’s that simple. I have Plex on iOS devices, Android devices, and Samsung TV’s. They all have pluses and minuses, however Plex normally preforms best on the Apple TV 4K. It’s not perfect, my 4K copy of gemini man for some reason wouldn’t run on any Apple TV, but ran like a champ on my Nvidia Shield.
Happening about once a day to me on linux mint. Only clients are two rokus and occasional web player on LAN. So far, service plexmediaserver restart has been enough to correct it, though there’s sometimes a lag in stopping it.
Also seeing this (PMS process crashes and needs to be started again). Happens consistently and repeatedly. I have iOS, Windows and MacOS clients. I’ve only seen the issue when using iOS, and it happens most commonly when trying to start playing videos.
