i also just noticed, while trying it out further, it seems there are two stages of the error. First the transcoder seems to fallback from hardware encoding, (hw) disappears from the info in “now playing” and second it crashes and the client gets the mentioned error
Yes - first failure if it is whilst hardware transcoding, we assume there is an issue with that and switch to software transcoding
Uninstalled the update and tried to watch a movie with transcoding, unfortunately still the same issue 
so after some searching around it seems i found the culprit in my case:
searching for av_interleaved_write_frame(): Unknown error i found this site https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18274693/av-interleaved-write-frame-unknown-error-when-streaming-webm and the description from one of the answers said that the error was caused by other programs accessing the port, so i opened powershell and ran the netstat command.
Not much out of the ordinary, but i saw the mbamservice.exe, which is form malwarebytes premium, that i run on the pc.
Quit Malwarebytes, and the errors seem to have gone. Normally, it took a maximum of ~20 minutes until the error showed up, with malwarebytes quit I’m 40 minutes running on a movie and still hardware (hw) transcoding.
Will keep watching this though, maybe I just got lucky now and its a coincidence
@xenonMB / others - Though it adds a troubleshooting point to look at/try disabling, I also use Malware Bytes Premium (v3.6.1) with all realtime features enabled, but have NOT experienced this issue.
Perhaps it’s a race condition that doesn’t affect me.
yep, 3.6.1.2711 here…
yep so after a few tries i’m pretty sure it has something to do with malwarebytes or it’s interaction with other software. Trying with the same movie, i got no problems without malwarebytes running and, the error when it’s started.
@XenonMB - try adding (x):\Program Files (x86)\Plex\Plex Media Server\Plex Transcoder.exe (where x is your install drive letter) to your Malware Bytes exception list.
Perhaps that will help.
I have Plexscripthost.exe added due to some plugins I use that grab URLs from sites that run coinminers, but I don’t have the transcoder added, nor should plexscripthost.exe affect you or I playing media locally like the Plex Transcoder does.
If it works for you, I’m still lost as to why I don’t have it added but can still transcode content fine.
just tried… adding those or even the whole plex folder doesn’t make a difference… the error still comes up… i assume it’s something to do with one of malwarebytes protections that monitor or block network connections… i cant see anything in malwarebytes logs though, but i now know that it works with malwarebyten not running, and the error comes up when its on
i think i cought the relating malwarebytes events through enabling enhanced event log data:
02/24/19 " 18:48:05.249" 124595895 3678 1194 DEBUG MBAMWebProtection MessengerClassifyRequest "messenger.c" 290 "MessengerClassifyRequest: ipEvent.Host NULL connection context for 127.0.0.1:32400."
02/24/19 " 18:48:05.249" 124595895 3678 1194 DEBUG MBAMWebProtection IPCacheLocate "ipcache.c" 104 "IPCacheLocate: ipEvent.Host NULL connection context for 127.0.0.1:32400."
02/24/19 " 18:48:05.250" 124595896 3678 1194 DEBUG MBAMWebProtection IPCacheLocate "ipcache.c" 104 "IPCacheLocate: ipEvent.Host NULL connection context for 127.0.0.1:60457."
02/24/19 " 18:48:05.250" 124595896 3678 1194 INFO MBAMWebProtection AdapterCloneReinjectTransportInbound "adapter.c" 2070 "SendInject localhost to localhost!"
02/24/19 " 18:48:05.250" 124595896 3678 1194 DEBUG MBAMWebProtection AdapterInjectTransportCompleteInbound "adapter.c" 1884 "AdapterInjectTransportComplete() has failed with status 0xC0000225"
02/24/19 " 18:48:05.499" 124596145 3488 391c DEBUG MBAMWebProtection IPCacheLocate "ipcache.c" 104 "IPCacheLocate: ipEvent.Host NULL connection context for 127.0.0.1:32400."
02/24/19 " 18:48:05.499" 124596145 3488 391c DEBUG MBAMWebProtection IPCacheLocate "ipcache.c" 104 "IPCacheLocate: ipEvent.Host NULL connection context for 127.0.0.1:60458."
02/24/19 " 18:48:05.636" 124596283 3fa4 3774 DEBUG MBAMChameleon ProcessNotify "procprot.c" 469 "CreateProcess: Process 0000000000003FA4 (\Device\HarddiskVolume2\Windows\System32\notepad.exe) is exiting"
02/24/19 " 18:48:08.315" 124598961 2a30 40e0 DEBUG MBAMWebProtection IPCacheLocate "ipcache.c" 104 "IPCacheLocate: ipEvent.Host NULL connection context for 127.0.0.1:60457."
thats when the plex transcoder crashes
as indicated by the mwb log, its the web protection module that causes the issue. With malwarebytes running and only its web protection turned off, the transcoder works normally/as expected.
Plex Media Server Logs_2019-02-24_16-03-16.zip (4.1 MB)
Im getting this same error. I used to be fixed by just scanning for new files but now that isnt working. Ive tried looking in the files however I have no idea what im looking for and which file to look into
Edit: Running unraid host with plex running in a docker
I dont know if this helps but after much restarting of the container and then enabling privileged mode it started to work. I also noticed that my transcode directory was set to /tmp/transcode so i changed it to just /tmp and disabled privileged. Tested again on a bunch of video files and all seems to be working. Hopefully that can shed some light to what is going on and can help in development and or other users
@XenonMB - Sorry I’m at a loss then - I’ve no clue why your machine would not allow, while mine would, while both of us run MB Premium with all protections enabled.
I understand the whole issue of port contention, but as to why you’re experiencing it, no idea.
Perhaps sa2000 or other can provide more insight/troubleshooting ideas as to how to prevent the contention.
(Also, edit your post, select your logs, then press the ‘</>’ button to wrap it in code tags.
I’ve also made a post in the Malwarebytes forum here: Web protection crashes PLEX Transcoder - Malwarebytes for Windows Support Forum - Malwarebytes Forums
Sadly their forums seemingly very weird spam protection doesn’t let me reply to my own topic anymore though
@sa2000 I’ve discovered a fix that’s revealed a bit more information about my EAE problem that’s been giving me the conversion failed error. It’s a bit more manual than just “restarting the container”.
When I experience the error, I log into my container and run top to see the processes running. Every time I experience the conversion error, there’s always an EasyAudioEncode process that just running (it looks like an orphaned one). After I terminate the process via kill -15 <pid>, I can play the video without any issue. I think there’s a bug with the Plex EAE Service that doesn’t properly terminate the EAE process after I watch a few videos.
That is very interesting. We know something is blocking some 127.0.0.1 requests. We also know that this problem was previously encountered after a Microsoft Windows Update in July 2018 and then rectified by Microsoft by a further update 6 days later. The thoughts are that Microsoft re-introduced the problem in a new update
I am sure you know this already since i repeated it many times
This was the 10th July 2018 update that introduced the problem before
and this was the 16th July 2018 update that resolved the issue
I will pass the info about malwarebytes to the development team
So with regards to the feedback from @XenonMB concerning the Transcoder error `av_interleaved_write_frame(): Unknown error`` on windows and malwarebytes, it would be good to know from others if the mbamservice.exe is in use
Glad you fixed it
The logs show the following
Feb 24, 2019 15:57:14.245 [0x146379bff700] ERROR - Failed to calculate available disk space for path '"/transcode/Transcode/Sessions"': 1 (Operation not permitted)
and
Feb 24, 2019 15:57:14.296 [0x14637f3ca700] ERROR - [Transcoder] Could not write header for output file #0 (incorrect codec parameters ?): Permission denied
The issue appears to be with /transcode/Transcode/Sessions
Similar issue was reported here Conversion failed. The transcoder crashed or failed to start up. - #8 by sa2000
interesting. On launch Plex Media Server kills any child processes left over from previous session. It is either there is an issue with this or you have an EAE process hang causing subsequent conversions to fail
