PMS Transcoding all of a sudden

Plex Media Server
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Environment specs first:
Hardware
NUC6i7KYK (Skull Canyon NUC)
CPU: i7-1185G7
RAM: 32GB
Local Disk: SSDs
Network Storage: NFS to NAS over 1GB Eth
Hypervisor: ESXi-7.0U3p (latest)

Virtual Machine
VM: 4vCPU, 24GB RAM, 85GB Disk
OS: Ubuntu 22.04.4 LTS
Docker version 26.1.0, build 9714adc
Plex Version 1.40.2.8395 in a container

TV / Plex Player
Sony A80j connected via 1GB Eth (USB Adaptor)
Plex App Version 10.13.0.466 (cf77d59a)

The TV, NUC and NAS are all directly connected to the same 1GB switch.

Everything was working fine for years… all types of content could be watched on the TV, laptops, phones etc and the Chromecast could only watch 1080p.

The problem
A few months ago my Plex server started transcoding all 4K and some other content like x265 - without me changing any PMS settings.

Since then, I’ve been trying different Plex server settings trying to get things working again. I’ve tried resetting defaults entirely on PMS, re pulled the container. Rolled back from ESXi 8 to ESXi 7.

My only guess is that this may have been triggered by an Ubuntu OS update, dist-upgrade, package update or something along those lines.

My next step is to build a new VM with Ubuntu again or RHEL/CentOS and start fresh to see if that resolves things. Or buy a whole new NUC…

I’ve attached logs from testing today, you’ll see a whole bunch of errors like:
Errors: TV or Phone says “Error: Unable to play media”
Plex via web gui on laptop: “Playback Error” Not enough CPU for conversion of this item

I turned on Debugging tonight and tried watching 4K content on the TV (Sony A80j), Phone (Pixel 7 Pro), and Laptop (XPS 13).

With Debugging on I tried:
With Disable video stream transcoding on
Then, Disable video stream transcoding off

Then turned on
Use hardware acceleration when available
Use hardware-accelerated video encoding

Then
Enable HDR tone mapping

Plex Media Server.log (5.0 MB)

Any advice welcome before I rebuild.

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With Disable video stream transcoding on

That should force into direct stream or directplay or crash…? Should solve.

Linux version/kernel can effect igpu drivers for hw accelerated transcode, but I think you want your players to direct play. This is usually a decision made on the client.
Should spend more time on client settings rather than server.

What bandwidth limitdid you set on server? None I hope for internal use.

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Yes that was the plan force it to use direct stream as it used to, so show errors why it isn’t.
Correct direct play is what I’m after.

No bandwidth limits set, I looked where is this configured?

On the client side I did switch wifi only to 1GB Eth on the TV to improve streaming, but it’s across all clients - TV, Mobile, Web

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Realised I just uploaded the one log - added extra logs hoping they can help with ideas.

Plex Media Server Logs_2024-04-29_20-54-58.zip (639.0 KB)

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