PMS versions wont create posters for "Other Videos". Media Scanner Steals ALL RAM-forcing reboot

[Local-Federation]

Server Version#: 1.25.5.5492 and MANY others
Player Version#: All

Greetings;
For a long time, I’ve been a user who just takes the new plex server updates as they come. Worked well for a few years, and then - that strategy backfired badly.

At some point - adding new videos to any library that was configured as “Other Videos” no longer gets Posters created. Nothing I have tried makes any difference at all. The online help for this is… not helpful at all.

In the past, posters were always created. Now, no power in the universe seems to be able to restore that ability. I have spent a ridiculous amount of time, trying every single thing that even comes close to being applicable from the ‘support documents’ and the forums. Nothing made any difference at all. By now, I have performed every single procedure discussed in the support pages - for every single problem, just in case. NOTHING has any impact.

Finally, I found an OLD Plex server install file. I literally wiped out my entire server install, found, and removed the database in its entirety. There’s a command line tool called ‘byenow’ that reduced the amount of time this would take from about 18 hours using the Windows GUI, to about 6 hours using the command line prompt and the byenow program. (Yes I have a really big library).

After reinstalling the older version of Plex Server, this critical function of creating posters for ‘Other Videos’ was restored, and I could have a normal user experience again. I left it that way for some time. Then, I got stupid.

I said to myself - Self, the plex people will have realized this was AFU by now and fixed it. I wanted some of the new plex server fixes - and bet that Plex would have fixed the poster creation problem for ‘Other Video’ type libraries. You already know what I’m going to say next - I was WRONG. And now, I am back to having only one way forward, and that is to go backward and install an obsolete version of the plex server to get this poster creation function back working correctly.

Also, in the past, if the media hadn’t yet been analyzed, the posters would be created pretty much as soon as I began watching the video. That also doesn’t work at all in recent server versions.

I have at least just located older plex server installers, so if that’s the ONLY way to fix this, I guess I could go through that multi-hour process again. Not that I like that solution. I want this thing to work CORRECTLY. The way it used to. I don’t want to have to create posters in paint, figure out a place to keep them, and then designate them manually. I have way too many files for that nonsense.

This all seemed to happen about the time Plex Server agents for ‘Other Video’ files were “improved”.

Can anyone provide any information as to how I can get this poster creation issue behind me without having to lock down my Plex server version from sometime around February of this year? (Assuming I can somehow find an installer that old).

I’m a plex pass holder, blah blah blah, and I’m serious about wanting this back and working. It’s a genuine letdown, and the people I share with get confused when the Posters are blank/show the video title.

In brief:
Can anyone help me make Posters work again for “Other Videos”

Any help will be appreciated…

Annoyed and Frustrated, but still smiling.

[sandrasi]

I don’t have a solution and it may be unrelated but I would like to add that the automatically generated collection posters have also stopped working even in libraries of type “Movies”. Deleting the collection and re-creating it doesn’t help. Going into Settings > Troubleshooting > Clean Bundles doesn’t help. Clicking the pencil button on the collection then selecting the Poster tab to try to edit the poster doesn’t help because there is nothing there (no poster is generated at all). Recently I have created 3 new collections in the movie library, none of them has the poster generated (which, normally, is the combination of the posters of the movies included in the collection).

As of today, I am on the latest server version (1.29.0.6219-b1b4d4871) on Ubuntu 22.04.

Hopefully somebody has a solution. The Plex engineers sure don’t - they don’t ever seem to read these forums (and there is no other way to report bugs) so this is just a place to vent. Regardless, I’ve attached the debug logs just in case as instructed on the Reporting issues with Plex Media Server page
Plex Media Server Logs_2022-09-17_05-58-57.zip (3.3 MB)
.

[Local-Federation]

Everything you cited as issues you have are exactly the same as mine, except my poster creation still works for TV shows and Movies.

I tried (on a test machine) installing older versions of PLEX Server - and this time it did NOT bring the poser creation function back. I guess I will continue to go back to older and older builds until I find one that gives me posters again. I’m not feeling enthusiastic, but the current situation is untenable.

Hey PLEX FOLKS - you do realize that with this as our only possible solution, we won’t be able to enjoy/spend money on all those wonderful new features you are so excited about. I wonder how the investors might feel about that. Will it even matter?

This is depressing. Plex has been my go-to service when I get to have a little downtime and enjoy interacting with my video collections. With no posters, I might as well be using a command line interface - there isn’t much use for the GUI for ‘Other Videos’ since they obviously won’t get metadata, and without the posters - well, it’s just a bunch of guessing what the video will be about.

I still have hopes that someone inside Plex will read these and take pity - and at least make suggestions. I’m happy to say I have somehow made an undetected configuration mistake, etc., but the number of hours I have spent on this issue before coming here to whine for help is… embarrassing to admit.

Still trying to smile…

[Local-Federation]

Due to the “lightning fast” response of the Plex folks, I have taken the hours needed to determine the following - for anyone else who can’t get posters made for libraries of the ‘Other Videos’ kind of library.

1. The last version that seems to make posters correctly, reliably, and robustly for ‘Other Video’ style libraries is plex-media-server-1-20-1-3252, which is immediately before they forced the new, non functional agents on us.

2. This completely and immediately resolves the NO POSTERS for OTHER VIDIO style libraries.

3. I recommend you follow the support article for totally and completely removing plex from your server machine before installing this. Failure to do all the steps apparently leaves something behind that prevents this fix from working.

I have a criticism of an idea, which according to community guidelines is acceptable
The IDEA of forcing us to use new agents that don’t make posters, and then ignoring us till we die is NOT a good idea. It’s a BAD idea.

I am now forever stuck on plex version plex-media-server-1-20-1-3252 because according to support articles, that’s the last version that had function agents for OTHER VIDEO style libraries.

I hope this information helps someone else who is stuck alone, in the weeds, absent any response at all from the Plex team, and without posters for their OTHER VIDEO libraries.

If anyone else has a better solution, please share it. There are newer improvement to Plex Server that I’d like to be able to enjoy - but NOT at the expense of having posters for those libraries.

Not so Smiley now - but at least I have posters again. Even if I’m forced to run a very old version of Plex Server to do it.

[tom80H]

Despite all the text and frustration you put into it… I’m not actually clear I understand what you mean by “creating posters” in an other-video type library?

• Other video type libraries won’t download any posters etc. from online repositories – for all I understand that’s why they’re not movie libraries in the first place.
• FWIW they seem to keep recognizing locally added poster files (local media assets).
• Are you talking about Plex assigning a thumb picture to an item if it doesn’t have a poster for that item?

[Local-Federation]

“Other Video” type libraries, chosen off the list of Libraries when creating it.

They don’t download meta data because they are for home movies, etc, that wont have a meta data source online.

Posters (Perhaps that’s what you mean when you say thumbnails?) used to be created for Other- video libraries when the contents were analyzed. Since no online source would exists for this style library, Plex Server used to create three poster jpg files based on the contents of the video itself, and would assign one of them to be the poster, which you then change to one of the other two if you wish). No manual poster creation was involved.

The Posters, along with the meta data works FINE for Movies, TV, etc. They just aren’t created any more for OTHER style libraries.

I recently determined that Plex Server 1.25.2.5929 was the first upgrade to have broken this. That was determined by installing a completely fresh version 1.20.1.3252, and upgrading sequentially through 26 versions, with poster creation tests after each upgrade. After installing 1.25.2.5929, no posters. Upgrading beyond 1.25.2.5929 does not re-enable Poster creation.

I am now working to see if a fresh install of anything beyond 1.25.2.5929 (after a complete wipe of all things Plex from the test machine) will re-enable poster creation for OTHER style video libraries. I will post back here when that’s been done.

Thanks for you input and questions. Hope this extra information helps.

[tom80H]

Understood. That’s what I meant with automatic thumbs (because it’s not an actual poster but a landscape frame from the video itself).

The automatic creation of such a frame seems to be working fine on my setup. So I’m not sure it’s a general issue with this version of the server (tested with PMS 1.29.1.6260-420892357).

[Local-Federation]

First of all - thank you for replying to this thread in the first place. Community is a wonderful thing - and I appreciate you being part of it.

I have more news to report.

A complete removal of Plex Server, and a fresh install of 1.25.3.5385 (The next version that I could get my hands on after the one identified above as the one that ‘broke’ Posters) failed to correct the poster issue.

With that also failed version still in place, I did an online update to the current offered release through the update channel. That also failed to produce posters after an analyze operation.

Then after another complete wipe of PMS (I’m getting real good at it…), I went to the download pages, and downloaded both the 32 and 64 bit versions. I tried the 64 bit version first.

Low and behold - I have posters again. Poster creation is working like its supposed to again. I’m pretty happy to be able to say that.

Now that I seem to have a way forward for my main PMS, I will be performing a complete wipe of the version currently installed there, and Installing freshly the currently available (1.29.1.6260-420892357-x86_64) version, and then start to re-create my libraries. I have high hopes that this will resolve this annoying poster issue for that install.

Shortly after that work has started, I intend to go back to my test platform, completely wipe PMS and reinstall the currently available 32 bit version (1.29.1.6260-420892357-x86), and see if it ALSO works to solve the poster creation issue. I will post an update here when that’s been done.

I’m not able to form any conclusions about why its working yet. I do think if its related to being a 64 bit platform somehow, that version 1.25.2.5319 (The one that broke posters) was about the time that bits of 64 bit native support started to be added to the installer. But that’s just an observation.

So - I will be posting results of the wipe/clean install of 1.29.1.6260-420892357-x86 (32 bit) on the same test platform that 1.29.1.6260-420892357-x86_64 (64 bit) fixed the poster issue on, and see if it ALSO produces posters.

I will also be posting the results of the main PMS server wipe/reinstall of 1.29.1.6260-420892357-x86_64, and hope to be able to report that it solves poster creation issues on that platform as well.

Thanks again for participating and confirming not everyone had this issue, even though I had it reliably on more than one platform.

Smiling a bit again -

[Local-Federation]

The changeover as described above is going reasonably well, and for the most part is working as it should.

There are some new issues that I haven’t ever experienced before.

When using the ANALYZE function, generally on a large library of OTHER style videos, and while using the default Agent, etc, The Plex Media Scanner gradually uses more and more memory, until gradually grinding the PMS machine to a virtual halt. It eventually goes all the way to 98% of memory, with that task being the big culprit.

In these cases, it has been while analyzing a library with a large number of files - the current failure I’m recovering from the library has just a bit over 1,800 items in it. That being said, a library with over 6,000 items did NOT experience this issue.

While the poster creation is not 100% successful as it used to be, There are typically only a handful of failures. In some rare cases, analyzing the single failure separately will be successful, but most often, no poster can be created. This does not seem related to Library size, it happens with OTHER style libraries of all sizes.

In some instances, the PMS program itself simply crashes (No on screen error is generated), and leaves the task tray/task list.

A restart of PMS generally allows the system to come back online, with no apparent harm done to the database, etc.

This has been very consistent since the 64 bit version (specified in the post above) was deployed.

I will continue to provide updates as the rebuilt continues in hopes it may provide help to others experiencing the same issue, or possibly attract the attention of a Plex team member who’d like to address the memory use surges, and silent application crashes.

[Local-Federation]

Disappointingly I just found and review some threads in the forum from someone with a large audio collection who was experiencing the same memory hog issues in the Media Scanner.

They were talking about it being related to Plex trying to do some sort of audio analysis for the tracks, and suddenly taking over all the available memory in a 2GB ram Linux based system.

The Plex team members response was … unhelpful, and revolved around ‘esoteric music formats’ contributing to the problem.

As the poster stated, plex recognizes and plays the ‘esoteric’ formats just fine, and there is no excuse for a runaway process like the Media Scanner going nuts and rapidly crashing the machine when it was analyzing a format that it support, and files it can play back without difficulty.

The system I’m running has 32GB of ram. I will repeat, there is no possible excuse for the Plex Media scanner to be coded in such a way that in very short amounts of time, it will occupy all that RAM, and then, eventually, lock the machine up as unresponsive.

To make matter worse, the thread I’m referencing was from 2016! In 6 years, Plex has left a routine in PMS that will, without notice, suck away all available RAM, and leave the machine unresponsive so it has to be force rebooted.

That poster asked how the amount of memory this errant badly written MEDIA SCANNER can be limited as to the amount of resources it demands. No response to that was ever received.

Esoteric file formats or not, this is a BAD WAY to leave the media scanner. SHAME on PLEX.