Every time I upgrade I wonder if I’m going to regret it. (SMH)
The only way I action an upgrade is through the web interface. This time it was 1.29.1.6316 and Plex never came back. Sometimes restarting the machine clears things up when that hasn’t been done for a year or two. It’s not new hardware but it is dedicated and reliable. Anyway, still nothing after a restart, so I let out a big sigh and start digging. I check the registry and Plex is no longer in my HKLM.…\Run hive. Hm, that’s interesting, so I figure out the absolute path, paste it back to a new key, and also in the command prompt. Still nothing. No Plex, no errors. I run the last installer to see if it reveals any details and thankfully it did:
The program can’t start because dxgi.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem.
Well I did reinstall and that didn’t fix anything so I uninstalled it and installed the previous version as that’s how I got my PMS back the last time. [1.29.0.6244]
My assumption at this point is that the file is related to DirectX which has no relevance on my server. The question is, why is this suddenly a new requirement, and does that suggest my days of enjoying Plex are numbered?
If you are trying to use the 64 bit version: you need to use Windows 10 (or the equivalent server edition [AFAIK that’d be at least Windows Server 2016. Maybe it will work with Server 2012 R2]).
Or you must use the 32 bit version.
DirectX is used to access the hardware video transcoders.
I found an article suggesting that Windows 2008 could only run 32-bit Plex but anything beyond that, such as 2012 would be capable of 64-bit Plex.
So I went out on a limb and tried a few things;
tried 64-bit version of 1.29.2.6364 which uninstalled the 32-bit version but failed on launch with the same error dxgi.dll is missing
tried 64-bit version of 1.30.0.6359 failed on launch with the same error dxgi.dll is missing
tried 64-bit version of 1.29.0.6244 which basically worked as expected but puts me at the 64-bit version
That leaves us with the first question and eliminates the others;
As of today, I’ve tried 3 newer versions but the last version I’m able to run without a dxgi.dll is missing error, is 1.29.0.6244.
This is a new problem. Is it something that can be addressed or will I no longer be able to update Plex after 1.29.0.6244?
Hope everyone had a great break over the holidays!
As mentioned initially, Plex has worked very well on core for the past 10 years. Where is the published statement that core is not supported?
In fact, one of the reasons we chose core was because we were dedicating this hardware solely to Plex and wanted to ensure it could get as much as possible from the hardware. Furthermore, the fact this is a server product generally implies there is no need to use it as a desktop so why would we waste resources on a providing a desktop experience that would never be used?
Regarding the transcoding, as this is a dedicated server product, which has a bias toward CPU over GPU, we have never enabled it for hardware-accelerated video codecs and transcoding hasn’t ever been an issue for us.
As this is an installer issue; I suspect it unlikely for the installer to be reading existing configuration to make decisions on which components to install but if such tactics exist, it would be great to have a developer or packager confirm or offer a method to ignore the dxgi.dll component.
Would very much appreciate any further assistance! Cheers.
Where’s the published statement that Core IS supported? Windows is weird about multimedia APIs and hardware access. Plex doesn’t even come with a mechanism to automatically run as a service!
Many big companies run core on single-role domain controllers. But I reached out to a few peers, and none of them still use Core when any 3rd-party software is installed.
I’m not really trying to convince you. I would also be annoyed if something that used to work stopped working.
But I do think the promised ”resource savings” from Core are pretty overrated.
I couldn’t find any merit in your argument? How could it have anything to do with 3rd-party software? Sure there are pleny of reasons to choose or not choose core but your comment about Plex not designed to run as a service is a moot point because it does not run with a desktop UI; you use your browser to access the UI from a background web service. Actually I know some other savvy Plex users even run it as a service by using the “SC create” command although I am not.
All I am saying is that around version 1.29.1.6316 the install package began requiring dxgi.dll which has never existed for this otherwise very stable operating system. I get that the majority will not use a core version of Windows but could we just add a parameter to ignore it or has the product code fundamentally changed in a way that ultimately won’t continue to run without it?
Plex server is reliant on audio/video codecs to be available. That’s also the reason why you have to explicitly enable Windows Media Player when you have Windows N installed.
I assume that Windows server core doesn’t have anything like that available.
