# PMS Transcoder Error
**URL:** https://forums.plex.tv/t/pms-transcoder-error/825403
**Category:** Plex Media Server
**Tags:** server-windows
**Created:** [January 3, 2023, 7:52pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/pms-transcoder-error/825403 "2023-01-03T19:52:47Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@AdamShook](https://forums.plex.tv/u/AdamShook)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2023, 7:52pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/pms-transcoder-error/825403/1 "2023-01-03T19:52:48Z")
Server Version#: 1.30.0.6486
Player Version#: 1.60.1.3413
[Plex Media Server Logs\_2023-01-03\_13-53-41.zip](https://forums.plex.tv/uploads/short-url/1gArlUubKfycR229pX2TUU4ICJU.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:
> [@Transcodes failing consistently. Failed find decoder 'h264' and other errors](https://forums.plex.tv/t/transcodes-failing-consistently-failed-find-decoder-h264-and-other-errors/645622):
>
> Server Version#: 1.20.3.3437 Player Version#: 4.45.0 Hey all - seeing this out of the blue on my Plex Media Server docker install… been working fine for a few months, and suddenly transcoding fails every time a remote or local user attempts to watch something, whether it’s the Xbox player, Chrome, or Roku (only ones tested so far). Disabling transcoding entirely also doesn’t seem to help the issue, and i’m at a loss right now. uploading the logs after going through steps to repro and saving t…
and here
[https://forums.plex.tv/t/transcoder-crashing-unknown-decoder-h264/205798](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](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](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](http://127.0.0.1:32400/video/:/transcode/session/E6127B81-2C7F-4ACF-97DC-A2D8A15FAF00/8b3ca3e7-ffc5-4531-997e-848ba7257b01/progress)
Please let me know what else I can provide for information or try out to debug this. Thank you all.
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### Author:  [@anon18523487](https://forums.plex.tv/u/anon18523487)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2023, 7:31pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/pms-transcoder-error/825403/2 "2023-01-05T19:31:43Z")
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.
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### Author:  [@AdamShook](https://forums.plex.tv/u/AdamShook)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2023, 7:58pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/pms-transcoder-error/825403/3 "2023-01-05T19:58:31Z")
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.
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### Author:  [@anon18523487](https://forums.plex.tv/u/anon18523487)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2023, 8:02pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/pms-transcoder-error/825403/4 "2023-01-05T20:02:56Z")
Can you provide me a sample (~100MB) of one of these files?
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### Author:  [@AdamShook](https://forums.plex.tv/u/AdamShook)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2023, 11:25pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/pms-transcoder-error/825403/5 "2023-01-05T23:25:10Z")
Well here is a link to a sample video
[SampleVideo](https://www.dropbox.com/s/9an129qttfznr7b/Bridge%20of%20Spies%20%282015%29.mp4?dl=0)
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](https://support.plex.tv/articles/201035968-generating-sample-files-from-media/) 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](https://support.plex.tv/articles/201035968-generating-sample-files-from-media/). 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](https://support.plex.tv/articles/201035968-generating-sample-files-from-media/) 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
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### Author:  [@anon18523487](https://forums.plex.tv/u/anon18523487)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2023, 7:47pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/pms-transcoder-error/825403/6 "2023-01-06T19:47:20Z")
Thanks for the info.
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### Author:  [@system](https://forums.plex.tv/u/system)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2023, 7:47pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/pms-transcoder-error/825403/7 "2023-04-06T19:47:31Z")
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