My Plex Media Server Process has been arbitrarily crashing about once a day, and I’m trying to figure out why. This started about two weeks ago, and has not let up since.
Plex is on the most current version, and there have not been any significant computer configuration changes during the time this started (I’m on Windows 7 64 bit). I’ve been running my server for well over a year at this point and have never had issues like this.
I’ve included a few crash dumps in the Plex Crash folder and my server logs in the other folder. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide!
The crash on 23 July at 04:41 appears to be due to running out of memory. There may be a memory leak leading to the Plex Media Server.exe process using up the whole 2Gb memory that it can occupy.
We have seen memory leaks when using VMWare and relating to the D3D9.dll. Also there were recent bug fixes - but these fixes would already be in the release you are running on v1.13.4.5271-200287a06
The logs show first sign of errors at
Jul 22, 2018 14:18:39.028 [3088] ERROR - Thread: Couldn't add a new thread to the pool of size 5: boost::thread_resource_error: An attempt was made to load a program with an incorrect format
Later on - other logged errors
Jul 22, 2018 17:05:51.759 [10388] ERROR - Format [JPEG] - Insufficient memory (case 4)
. . .
Jul 22, 2018 17:05:56.200 [11676] ERROR - Format [JPEG] - DIB allocation failed, maybe caused by an invalid image size or by a lack of memory
To investigate memory leaks, need to use tools as was used in these investigations
using tools SysInternals VMMap and SysInternals ProcMon with VMMap running after PMS is launched and and ProcMon to be run for 5 to 10 minutes during a time when VMMap is showing stead climb in memory use and reached over 1Gb
Have a look at the other thread and let me know if you need any clarification
Thanks very much for the clarification. I’ll start by taking out the d3d9.dll, as that would have been a recent addition while I was attempting to get a Steam game to work. I’ll investigate the other tools after if I’m still having issues and report back, thanks!
Well, I can’t abandon that dll as it is needed for a critical program, so I started monitoring the process. Definitely looks to be a memory leak issue of some variety. I’m attaching a current batch of logs and an mmk file for you to look at. Plex hasn’t crashed again yet, but at the rate things are going, I think we’re headed down that road again.
Thanks - it is the stack memory use as showing in VMMap that is going up - which as was seen in the D3D9.dll case before is due to threads being created - each occupying 64 Mb
need to now bring in ProcMon.exe - during a period of the commite dmemory climbing as can be seen here - would like to have a PML procmon capture for 5 to 10 minutes - to go with a VMMap mmp snapshot and logs for the period
Last time D3D9.DLL was showing in the procmon as creating those thresds, it was thought that it was VMMware doing it. Are you running in a VM or is this an actual Windows 7 SP1 installation?
With regards to Procmon capture - please zp the PML. Upload to dropbox or other service and send me link by private message. Please do not filter the procmon capture before saving the PML - ie save all events
Spent a number of days looking into the PML and VMMAP captures and logs. Nothing conclusive - have not been able to get all the PMS stack frames out of procmon.
The snapshots taken showed what looks like a threads leak
Snapshots
At 01:25:10 = 604 Threads
At 11:43:50 = 615 Threads
At 14:02:09 = 761 Threads (significant increase - in 138 minutes +146 threads)
Spent a lot of time analyzing the process mornitor capture and logs from 13th August. Threads are being leaked with over 800 threads leaked over 4 hour period.
Again the evidence is pointing to D3D9.dll with the dll involved being this file C:\Windows\SysWOW64\d3d9.dll
Could you check the version and see if there have been any bug fixes
That’s less than ideal, as those tie back to my graphics card and DirectX. I’ve been looking at the DirectX angle and haven’t come up with much, so I’ll see if there are any driver updates ATI has put out.
As this is not a widespread issue, it is very unlikely that any further effort will be put into it. There has only been one other case of similar issue to do with codecs and that was seen was on a system with vmware running
My advice would be to ditch windows 7 and seriously consider Windows 10 for Plex Media Server. We have discussed this before.
If you have not tried it already, you could see if this windows integrity check and fix helps
in admin command line window, execute sfc /scannow
Tried that this morning to no avail - says everything’s fine, but preliminary evidence suggests otherwise.
Windows 10 is on the shortlist of upgrades I’m looking at, but I’m trying to hold off until I can get a bigger SSD in a couple months. My primary concern is that d3d9.dll will likely be a part of my Windows 10 install too - is there something 10 does to prevent memory leak that 7 does not?
A Windows 7 reinstall is next - but it’ll need to wait until a time where I can afford to have my primary computer offline. I work from home, so I’m trying to find a way to make that happen.
I do think some of the AMD dlls have issues - their drivers have never installed smoothly, even after uninstalling/reinstalling - and my administrative command prompt is missing a tool for uninstalling dlls, so corruption does seem probable. This particular Windows 7 install has been running a few years, so it could be any number of issues.
Thanks for looking into this, I’ll see what I can do with either a reinstall or Windows 10, and will work around things until then.
