Currently, I ran a Plex Media Server on macOS and every single time I try to access the dashboard for Plex whether it is on the Roku client or Android client, it is slow to load unless I have everything off on my Mac and have only the Plex Media Server running.
My questions: Why do I have to optimize database every time the server acts slow? Why do I have to have programs off in order to run the server on a Mac?
Is disabling dashboard and thumbnails a way to maximize on load time for items on Plex?
Tough to say based on the info you’ve provided. There are an awful lot of variables that could contribute to a slow dashboard.
Start with the basics - is your Plex server up to the latest version? Are you seeing this slowness when attempting to access Plex locally on the Mac, or just on the remote clients?
If only on clients, it could be network congestion. You mentioned it acts normally if other applications are closed - maybe you’re using a synchronization program like Box or Google Drive that is sucking up bandwidth.
On a Windows system I’d recommend using Resource Monitor, or “htop” command on Linux, to check what other applications are hogging your system resources. Unfortunately I’m not as familiar with Mac OS, but I’m sure there is an equivalent utility you can use to accomplish the same goal.
Also, can you share a bit of info about your server hardware? What kind of processor you have, how much RAM, HDD or SSD, and if the disk is dedicated to your media library or not is all good information to start with.
I have an iMac Late 2012, 2.7GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 processor, 1TB HDD, Seagate External Plus Hub 8TB HDD attached to my iMac where my content is. 8GB of RAM.
This will usually happens if I am using Handbrake or a download utility. I’m sure it’s speedy enough to not have this caused at all.
Thoughts? Or if you need more information, let me know.
Loading the main page is a complex operation because almost every library needs to get queried and the results them combined to generate the various ‘hubs’ of the main page.
If the CPU is preoccupied with another task, Plex may take much longer to perform this complex operation of creating its main page.
This I didn’t know and very interesting to how Plex works. I can barely go to other tab like Movies or TV Shows if I don’t stop a program eating up CPU. I don’t know why the process has to be so complex.
Accessing the server locally, (via 127.0.0.0 or on the same subnet via its IP) the dashboard seems fine since none of the plex monitoring stats loads or runs. However, if you login via Plex over internet … the dashboard is super slow but you get all the stats… is this a bandwidth issue? or why is the bandwidth window clocking, trying to scroll up and down seems to be locked up but annoying works after a long wait, its un-usable.
Often when Mac’s get slow it’s a cache issue, purge/ delete your cache folder and restart. It will automatically repopulate. Onyx is a good maintenance tool
