SOLUTION: Conversion failed. The transcoder exited due to an error

That is a very clear error. The codecs directory needs to have execute permissions and if on mounted volume then it must have exec in \etc\fstab and must not have noexec

There should be no difference between 1.15.1.710 and 1.15.1.780 relating to hardware transcoding - could you provide logs from the two versions using same video

I did try to create a smaller file to expose the problem, but sadly trimming down to just the area that was giving me problems made those problems go away. I’m going to try doing some different snippets and across different files this evening to see if I can find something smaller that will do it. Unfortunately I’ve never seen the problem earlier than 16 minutes into the file, so it could end up being that that’s the minimum. Will check back in when I know more.

I have my Plex running in a jail. All of my Plex files run in /config inside the jail and I have that folder mounted to a folder out my jail for easy backups.

bkwolfe@Packers:~ % sudo iocage fstab -l plex
Password:
+-------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| INDEX |                                 FSTAB ENTRY                                 |
+=======+=============================================================================+
| 0     | /mnt/vol1/apps/plex /mnt/iocage/jails/plex/root/config nullfs rw 0 0        |
+-------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| 1     | /mnt/vol1/Downloads /mnt/iocage/jails/plex/root/mnt/downloads nullfs ro 0 0 |
+-------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| 2     | /mnt/vol1/Emily /mnt/iocage/jails/plex/root/mnt/emily nullfs ro 0 0         |
+-------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| 3     | /mnt/vol1/Movies /mnt/iocage/jails/plex/root/mnt/movies nullfs ro 0 0       |
+-------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| 4     | /mnt/vol1/Sports /mnt/iocage/jails/plex/root/mnt/sports nullfs ro 0 0       |
+-------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| 5     | /mnt/vol1/TV /mnt/iocage/jails/plex/root/mnt/tv nullfs ro 0 0               |
+-------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| 6     | /mnt/vol1/Andi /mnt/iocage/jails/plex/root/mnt/andi nullfs ro 0 0           |
+-------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
bkwolfe@Packers:~ %

root@plex:/config/Plex Media Server # ll
total 157
drwxrwxr-x+ 3 plex  plex     3 Dec 28  2017 .python-eggs/
drwxrwxr-x+ 7 plex  plex    16 Mar 13 13:06 Cache/
drwxrwxr-x+ 5 plex  plex     6 Mar 13 00:42 Codecs/
drwxrwxr-x+ 2 plex  plex     2 Dec 28  2017 Crash Reports/
drwxrwxr-x+ 2 plex  plex     2 May  3  2018 Diagnostics/
drwxrwxr-x+ 4 plex  plex     4 Dec 28  2017 Library/
drwxrwxr-x+ 3 plex  plex    64 Mar 13 13:12 Logs/
drwxrwxr-x+ 8 plex  plex     8 Dec 28  2017 Media/
drwxrwxr-x+ 6 plex  plex     6 Dec 28  2017 Metadata/
drwxrwxr-x+ 3 plex  plex     3 Dec 28  2017 Plex/
drwxrwxr-x+ 7 plex  plex     7 Dec 28  2017 Plug-in Support/
drwxrwxr-x+ 6 plex  plex     6 Mar 12 23:14 Plug-ins/
-rwxrwxr-x+ 1 plex  plex  1150 Mar 13 00:42 Preferences.xml*
drwxrwxr-x+ 2 plex  plex     2 Dec 28  2017 Scanners/
drwxrwxr-x+ 2 plex  plex     2 Dec 28  2017 Site Configurations/
drwxrwxr-x+ 3 plex  plex     3 Dec 28  2017 Thumbnails/
drwxrwxr-x+ 2 plex  plex     2 Dec 28  2017 Updates/
root@plex:/config/Plex Media Server #

What am I missing here?

On my Firesticks that need to transcode/convert, I am getting the transcoding failed message. I do not have any issues on my Roku’s. I’ve attached PMS log here. I reproduced it at roughly 4:39PM (16:39ish)

Any ideas? I see the Transcode Failure messages within the log, but no idea how to decipher it. Thanks!Plex Media Server.log (260.8 KB)

So after using mkvtoolnix for a small clip and having no error, I’ve just run it again, trimming off only the last couple of minutes which were English-version credits. So far after running it through that tool, I’m not seeing the errors. I’ll need to do a few full episodes watched front to back to be sure, but I’m wondering if just running it through that is enough to ā€œfixā€ whatever is wrong with the file.

Windows 10 Version 1.15.1.710

I have Malwarebytes Premium

I have tested with it running and not running and so far since I turned it off I do not get errors.

After exiting and running it successfully with Malwarebytes off I tried recording with it running again. I started getting the ā€œRecording failed. Please check your tuner or antennaā€ again.

Nothing was recording for me (Windows 7/64) - got the check tuner message while recording. Disabled MWB on the server and now it’s working for the past couple of hours!!! Will report back if I get any problems with this, then would like to find a definitive solution so I can restart MWB.

i have also been running it all week with the MB changes (disabling web protection, exlucding the transcodr) and have not had 1 failed recording. I can’t believe it took virtually 6 months to work this out!

glad to hear i was on the right trail with this. now hope the plex and mwb teams can work out a solution :slight_smile:

EDIT: Would also be cool if you guys could leave a reply on my topic about this in MWB forums, so they know there are more people with this problem.

Good to see that everyone is confirming it was MalwareBytes Web Protection

@XenonMB - brilliant work tracking this down and would like to document the solution in a support article which i will discuss with the team. Could you please help me put that together if you can send me by Private Message what we need users to do to whitelist the binaries - with screenshots if possible

And thank you again

@xenonMB - Am I correct in saying that, even if you whitelist certain Plex applications, UNLESS you totally disable Web protection overall, you still experience issues?

@sa2000 - If Xenon’s answer is ā€˜correct, requires full disable’, then disabling web protection temporarily is a work-around, not a full term solution.
To me, that would be like Plex asking me to leave my house doors unlocked while I’m away so my Plex users could watch Plex.

it works if you exclude all the plex executables one by one as ā€œapplication that connects to the internetā€ (see also my thread on MWB forum)

@XenonMB I have added the following to the exclusion list (see screenshot), but I am still getting the error. However, if I disable the Web Protection completely there are no issues. What could I be missing?

@Gosling did you try rebooting your system after the exclusions? Unfortunately I am not able to test this out further, because as i wrote in the Malwarebytes forum, my errors went away after i added the exclusions and weirdly don’t come back if I remove them.

Another theory could be, that in your case, you could have something additional that uses port 32400, that could also be part of the problem. You can try using netstat -a -b in a command line and see what comes up, that’s how i found malwarebytes sometimes using/interfering with the port.

I installed MWB about 5 years after started using Plex. Previously, I’d relied on Win10 defender (which, used to simply run in conjunction, then later MWB replaced entirely in an update)
I wonder if MWB is ā€˜smart’ enough to detect ā€˜hey, these ports are being used’ and avoid them - that might explain the ā€˜exclude - de-exclude and it still work’ scenario. This is only conjecture on my part.

It is just a matter of whitelisting all the Plex Media Server .exe files. A support article is being written to cover that

I tried excluding all of the PLEX executables (11 total), but it had some weird glitches. They recorded a few minutes, but did not show as recording failures.

I turned off Web protection for now.

so whitelisting doesnt work for most or all of you, weird. my theory is, that you have another service running on 32400, which MWB is blocking, and ā€œaccidentallyā€ blocks plex services sometimes too.

Plex Media Server would fail if the 32400 tcp port is in use by another application

netstat -a -b -n in an elevated command line window would show what is listening on 32400