Good morning,
This is my first attempt at trying to figure out what is going on. A few months ago I recently built a brand new server to migrate everything off my personal PC (i512600K, 16GB DDR4 3600, 1TB M2 980 Pro)., I have a handful of people who use my server, average 2 or 3, maybe 3 or 4 at a time max. Here are my symptoms.
Ever since this build, my server keeps crashing. I’ll go to log into plex using my smart tv (Samsung) and I will notice that it states the server is down. Or someone will text me saying they are seeing the same thing. I remote into the server to find that the Plex Icon is missing in the system tray. Trying to open Plex back up fails and I never see the system tray icon. The only way I have figured out to get it back up is a full restart of the computer.
Recently I’ve started noticing poster art disappearing/showing blank. This morning is a prime example. Last night before bed, all poster art is showing as expected when we were watching something on it. Wake up this morning and some of them are blank but show the title as expected. I rename all my files to in the following format when I place them in the directories: Top Gun Maverick (2022), Vengeance (2022) etc. I’ve done this from the very beginning and I never have issues matching meta data.
I have not restarted the PC yet as it is still currently able to play files and is showing the in system tray. However as we speak, if I go to the dashboard and go to activity, I see the file that my daughter is watching and the poster art is blank.
I have a have a Plex Pass and Hardware Transcoding is enabled.
Sometimes the issues described won’t occur for a few days. But recently this happens a few times a day now and I’m tired of restarting the PC.
Thoughts? I exported my logs this morning and have attached them. I’m not sure what I need to keep an eye out for within the logs themself. Thoughts? Please help!!!
You are running Plex as a Service on Windows which disables Hardware Support, best to turn off those features and disable HDR tone mapping.
Posters and Metadata:
Naming - Forget what you have been doing in the past, due to new agents and scanners plus adding editions it is best to separate movies into individual directories: Naming and organizing your Movie files | Plex Support
Isn’t this one of the main perks of having a Plex Pass? Especially since I don’t have a dedicated GPU and am using the i512600k integrated UHD 770 graphics. How do I set up to enable Hardware Support?
I installed the Plex Media Server for Windows at the standard Downloads page at Plex.tv.
Plex is started when windows starts up. The icon can be seen in the system tray about 5 seconds after start up. Don’t know if it impacts anything but fast boot has been disabled too.
Ah okay. I created a scheduled task the other day to try to get it to start back up in the event that the server crashed. Could that be what you’re speaking of? Besides that I have not done anything besides use the installer on the download page.
Did you let this scheduled task run under a different Windows user account?
Because your logs show the typical failure to communicate with the default Plex Icon task tray, which is typical when running as a system service or under a different user account.
No. I created the task when logged into the computer. It asked for my admin credentials when I enabled it due to selecting “Run whether user is logged in or not”. I went ahead and deleted the task. But I was still having this issue even before creating that.
It literally just crashed again. I was trying to export logs and it said the server was down. However it was still in the system tray so i was able to exit and relaunch it. I was trying to export logs because the select user screen was taking forever to load and I thought the log might point to something. So frustrating. Nothing was even being played.
Use the task manager to verify that the server is running under the same user acount under which it was originally set up.
It you have mixed-up user accounts, some files and subfolders in your your Plex data folder can have messed-up permissions and owner information. Which can lead to Plex being unable to read or change them.
Do you have particularly large music albums, or tv shows with dozens or even over hundred episodes within one season?
If you do, you might have to switch to the 64 bit server preview build.
But I’d first check how much free space there is on the system drive.
If the Plex data folder location has been changed, check there as well.
If you moved the Transcoder temporary folder, check this location too.
I’ll revert back and remove the transcoder temp directory. Do I still need to uncheck the below? I thought hardware acceleration was preferred especially since I’m not using a gpu and using the i512600k integrated UHD 770 graphics.
