PMS Transcoder Error

Plex Media Server
1

Server Version#: 1.30.0.6486
Player Version#: 1.60.1.3413

Plex Media Server Logs_2023-01-03_13-53-41.zip (4.1 MB)

Hello, I’m a long time user of Plex Media Server, but this is my first post where I’ve needed some support.

I have a new PC build on Windows 11 and have done a fresh install of PMS. I’ve noticed PMS seems to fail to launch the transcoder. You can see in the attached Plex Media Server.1.log file line 64756 “The transcoder exited due to an error.” The line 64754 the ERROR is listed as "Invalid decoder type ‘h264’

I’ve tried setting the Transcoder Temp Directory along with Disabling and Enabling Hardware Acceleration, but the failure seems persistent.

I’ve also searched the support pages and have found similare erors reported by other users here:

and here
https://forums.plex.tv/t/transcoder-crashing-unknown-decoder-h264/205798

However, both of these threads make reference to noexec and exec settings which sounds like a linux option and not a Windows option so I’m not sure how it applies?

I’ve attached the logs and hoping to work with someone who can help me debug this.

Furthermore, I’ve coping the command string out of the log and pasted it into a terminal and get the following response.

set “FFMPEG_EXTERNAL_LIBS=\\?\C:\Users\AdamS\AppData\Local\Plex\ Media\ Server\Codecs\583b3e4-4434-windows-x86_64\”
set “X_PLEX_TOKEN=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx4bb9-846d-f0761ed8e774”
“C:\Program Files\Plex\Plex Media Server\Plex Transcoder.exe” -codec:0 h264 -ss 113 -noaccurate_seek -analyzeduration 20000000 -probesize 20000000 -i “\DiskStation\MultiMedia\Video\Movies\Ford v Ferrari (2019)\Ford v Ferrari (2019).mkv” -map 0:0 -codec:0 copy -map 0:1 -metadata:s:1 language=eng -codec:1 copy -segment_format mp4 -f ssegment -individual_header_trailer 0 -flags +global_header -segment_header_filename header -segment_time 10 -segment_start_number 11 -segment_copyts 1 -segment_time_delta 0.0625 -segment_list http://127.0.0.1:32400/video/:/transcode/session/E6127B81-2C7F-4ACF-97DC-A2D8A15FAF00/8b3ca3e7-ffc5-4531-997e-848ba7257b01/manifest?X-Plex-Http-Pipeline=infinite -segment_list_type csv -segment_list_size 5 -segment_list_separate_stream_times 1 -segment_list_unfinished 1 -segment_format_options movflags=frag_custom+dash+delay_moov+frag_discont:fragment_index=12:output_ts_offset=10 -max_delay 5000000 -avoid_negative_ts disabled -map_metadata -1 -map_chapters -1 media-%05d.ts -map 0:2 -codec:0 webvtt -strict_ts:0 0 -f segment -segment_format webvtt -segment_time 10 -avoid_negative_ts disabled -write_empty_segments 1 -segment_format_options flush_packets=1 -segment_copyts 1 -segment_start_number 11 -segment_list http://127.0.0.1:32400/video/:/transcode/session/E6127B81-2C7F-4ACF-97DC-A2D8A15FAF00/8b3ca3e7-ffc5-4531-997e-848ba7257b01/manifest?stream=subtitles&X-Plex-Http-Pipeline=infinite -segment_list_type csv -segment_list_size 5 -segment_list_unfinished 1 -fflags +flush_packets media-%05d.vtt -start_at_zero -copyts -y -nostats -loglevel quiet -loglevel_plex error -progressurl http://127.0.0.1:32400/video/:/transcode/session/E6127B81-2C7F-4ACF-97DC-A2D8A15FAF00/8b3ca3e7-ffc5-4531-997e-848ba7257b01/progress

PlexTranscoderError
PlexTranscoderError1527×666 86.4 KB

Please let me know what else I can provide for information or try out to debug this. Thank you all.

2

PMS is trying to do hardware transcoding with your NVidia card but failing. What version of the driver do you have installed? PMS needs at least 456.71.

3

I’m have a NIVDIA RTX 3070 GPU with Driver Version 527.56

I’ve done some more digging into this and it seems like the issue is isolated to 9 movies out of the 100 I tested. Each of these failed videos will Direct Play but will fail to launch with transcoding. The other 91 of 100 videos tested were able to launch with transcoding.

4

Can you provide me a sample (~100MB) of one of these files?

5

Well here is a link to a sample video
SampleVideo

However, in the process of preparing this I think I may have figured out the issue. After generating the sampel file I wanted to test it and make sure it showed the same issue. So, I renamed the original video file with a .bak extension and then dropped the sample file its place. Then I tried to playback the video and received the same transcoder error as before. However, I noticed that that time duration for the file didn’t change and should have been 10 min for the sample file. For completeness I refreshed the metadata but that didn’t update the time and then choose the Analyze option which update the duration. After this I tested once again and found that the video played fine with transcoding. I removed the sample file and put the original file back in its place and re-Analyzed and now the original video worked fine.

I went back to the other 8 movies I test and re-Analyzed them and now they all work fine. It seems like that was the issue. I all likelihood I’m guessing these offending videos were added to the library and then I replaced the file with one that had slower encoder settings for a smaller file size. And this messed up the stored information.

At this point I have the solution and can re-Analyze the entire library to clean any that I missed in manual testing. Having said that I might make the recommendation that PMS detect changes to the file (e.g time stamp, would have to think about the best way to do that) and automatically re-Analyze during a regular library scan or in addition re-Analyze if the transcoder fails and try again. That might be logged

6

Thanks for the info.