There was not enough free disk space to start the recording

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
1

Server Version#: 1.15.3.858

I’m seeing the error above (in the title) on “some” recordings but not all.

There was not enough free disk space to start the recording

26%20PM
26%20PM726×689 146 KB

The thing is; this should NOT be possible; see:

# df -h | grep -E '\/data\/'
10.0.0.7:/mnt/data/media/photos    19T  148G   19T   1% /data/photos
10.0.0.7:/mnt/data/media/tv        19T  302G   19T   2% /data/tv
10.0.0.7:/mnt/data/media/videos    19T   14G   19T   1% /data/videos
10.0.0.7:/mnt/data/media/youtube   19T   21G   19T   1% /data/youtube
10.0.0.7:/mnt/data/media/movies    19T  376G   19T   2% /data/movies
10.0.0.7:/mnt/data/media/music     19T  108G   19T   1% /data/music

/data/tv is my “TV Shows” library and where my DVR settings are set to store recordings.

Anyone run into this?

NB: The only thing that might be an issue here is the fact my “storage” are all NFS mounts on a very large NAS.

cheers
James

2

I think I’ve answered my own question:

Looking at the server logs I see:

prologic@Jamess-MacBook
Sat Apr 06 21:43:30
~/Downloads/Plex Media Server Logs_2019-04-06_21-41-56
 0
$ sift -A 3 -i 'disk.*space'
Plex Media Server.log:6277:Apr 06, 2019 21:15:00.199 [0x7f29f77fe700] DEBUG - DVR:Grabber: checking for 23210 MB of available disk space in grab path and transcode cache path
Plex Media Server.log:6278:Apr 06, 2019 21:15:00.201 [0x7f29f77fe700] WARN - Low disk space: 22.67GB source file, 29.87GB capacity, 11.72GB available on "/transcode/Transcode/Sessions"
Plex Media Server.log-6279-Apr 06, 2019 21:15:00.202 [0x7f29f77fe700] ERROR - DVR:Grabber: Not enough free space in "/transcode/Transcode/Sessions"
Plex Media Server.log:6280:Apr 06, 2019 21:15:00.202 [0x7f29f77fe700] DEBUG - DVR:Grabber: Operation for 'Die Hard 4.0 (2007)' on channel 71 completed with status error (There was not enough free disk space to start the recording)
Plex Media Server.log-6281-Apr 06, 2019 21:15:00.202 [0x7f29f77fe700] DEBUG - Activity: Ended activity 344e5e73-e9f5-4860-bd6b-91bc47c66951.
Plex Media Server.log-6282-Apr 06, 2019 21:15:00.205 [0x7f29c9ffb700] DEBUG - HTTP 200 response from GET http://10.0.0.179/lineup_status.json
Plex Media Server.log-6283-Apr 06, 2019 21:15:00.255 [0x7f29f77fe700] ERROR - DVR:Grabber: Starting media grab failed.
--
Plex Media Server.log:7093:Apr 06, 2019 21:16:06.069 [0x7f299bfff700] DEBUG - DVR:Grabber: checking for 0 MB of available disk space in grab path and transcode cache path
Plex Media Server.log-7094-Apr 06, 2019 21:16:06.069 [0x7f29917fa700] DEBUG - DVR:Grabber: Scheduling 'Two and a Half Men - E2 - A Bottle of Wine and a Jackhammer' for timed grab at 2019-04-10 20:30:00 (in 342834 seconds)
Plex Media Server.log-7095-Apr 06, 2019 21:16:06.070 [0x7f29917fa700] DEBUG - DVR:Grabber: Scheduling 'Hard Quiz - Episode 04-10' for timed grab at 2019-04-10 20:02:00 (in 341154 seconds)
Plex Media Server.log-7096-Apr 06, 2019 21:16:06.070 [0x7f29917fa700] DEBUG - DVR:Grabber: Scheduling 'The Simpsons - E17 - E My Sports' for timed grab at 2019-04-10 21:00:00 (in 344634 seconds)
--
Plex Media Server.log:18180:Apr 06, 2019 21:30:00.851 [0x7f299bfff700] DEBUG - DVR:Grabber: checking for 38912 MB of available disk space in grab path and transcode cache path
Plex Media Server.log:18181:Apr 06, 2019 21:30:00.854 [0x7f299bfff700] WARN - Low disk space: 38GB source file, 29.87GB capacity, 11.7GB available on "/transcode/Transcode/Sessions"
Plex Media Server.log-18182-Apr 06, 2019 21:30:00.855 [0x7f299bfff700] ERROR - DVR:Grabber: Not enough free space in "/transcode/Transcode/Sessions"
Plex Media Server.log:18183:Apr 06, 2019 21:30:00.855 [0x7f299bfff700] DEBUG - DVR:Grabber: Operation for 'Conan the Barbarian (2011)' on channel 93 completed with status error (There was not enough free disk space to start the recording)
Plex Media Server.log-18184-Apr 06, 2019 21:30:00.855 [0x7f299bfff700] DEBUG - Activity: Ended activity d7a94ca1-5fe7-40a8-948d-e326dbbee310.
Plex Media Server.log-18185-Apr 06, 2019 21:30:00.863 [0x7f29927fc700] DEBUG - HTTP 200 response from GET http://10.0.0.179/lineup_status.json
Plex Media Server.log-18186-Apr 06, 2019 21:30:00.892 [0x7f299bfff700] ERROR - DVR:Grabber: Starting media grab failed.
--
Plex Media Server.5.log:5505:Apr 06, 2019 19:20:00.208 [0x7f29927fc700] DEBUG - DVR:Grabber: checking for 32221 MB of available disk space in grab path and transcode cache path
Plex Media Server.5.log:5506:Apr 06, 2019 19:20:00.213 [0x7f29927fc700] WARN - Low disk space: 31.47GB source file, 29.87GB capacity, 11.25GB available on "/transcode/Transcode/Sessions"
Plex Media Server.5.log-5507-Apr 06, 2019 19:20:00.215 [0x7f29927fc700] ERROR - DVR:Grabber: Not enough free space in "/transcode/Transcode/Sessions"
Plex Media Server.5.log:5508:Apr 06, 2019 19:20:00.215 [0x7f29927fc700] DEBUG - DVR:Grabber: Operation for 'Bluey - Bumpy And The Wise Old Wolfhound' on channel 22 completed with status error (There was not enough free disk space to start the recording)
Plex Media Server.5.log-5509-Apr 06, 2019 19:20:00.215 [0x7f29927fc700] DEBUG - Activity: Ended activity eada4d82-992b-4f43-aee2-4deae80790ae.
Plex Media Server.5.log-5510-Apr 06, 2019 19:20:00.267 [0x7f2a22ffd700] DEBUG - Auth: authenticated user 1 as prologic@shortcircuit.net.au
Plex Media Server.5.log-5511-Apr 06, 2019 19:20:00.267 [0x7f298dff3700] DEBUG - Request: [10.0.2.7:42024 (Subnet)] GET /transcode/sessions (31 live) GZIP Signed-in Token (prologic@shortcircuit.net.au)

It looks like the default /transcode path on my server (which runs in a Docker container and its VM host only has ~11GB free space) is the problem here.

Anyone have a good idea on how much disk space is needed by the transcode process? Any rule of thumb? If it helps I have a quad tuner so I could have up to 4 recordings at 1080p to transcode.

3

Map your /transcode to your /data/tv. Otherwise you need 10 GB per hour per show.

4

Yeah I have another ZFS dataset I can use here so I’m mapping /transcode to it.

5

where is the /transcode setting stored? I’m running into the same thing for the first time ever (huge NAS, smb mount rather than nfs though). my local disk is a 500gb ssd with 381 left on it, but i’d like to make sure it’s not set to something dumb like tempfs

Thanks

6

Looks like that is exactly the issue:

Apr 07, 2019 13:00:00.554 [0x7f22ddfeb700] WARN - Low disk space: 16GB source file, 9.74GB capacity, 9.74GB available on “/tmp/Transcode/Sessions”
Apr 07, 2019 13:00:00.555 [0x7f22ddfeb700] ERROR - DVR:Grabber: Not enough free space in “/tmp/Transcode/Sessions”

tmpfs 9.8G 100K 9.8G 1% /tmp

I’m guessing this must be new as I’ve been recording 1080p movies OTA since I installed Plex and just upgraded to Version 1.15.3.876 late last week.

7

Previous answer is related to using docker.

Default Plex install will use directory under /var/lib/plexmediaserver/… , you can change this under settings > transcoder > transcoder directory.

Looks like you have it set to /tmp.

16GB, well that matches up with a developer saying they changed the timeshift buffer to 90 minutes. This will be a nice surprise for all the people using ramdisks and multiple tuners.

8

I found it in /var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Preferences.xml so I set it there and rebooted. However, the easy solution was for me to stop being dumb (as usual) and turn off ‘hide advanced’ which then shows it under settings > transcoder :slight_smile:

Thanks!

9

Ouch, I always forget about the hide advanced.

10

With the timeshift buffer my recordings are also failing…

A RAM drive is used to /transcode play back of stored media content. Unable to record shows as the RAMdisk is only 9GB with the timeshift buffer.

Is there a way to point the DVR recording to the TV Folder (on SSD) and keep the general transcode drive pointed to the RAMdisk for content playback?

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11

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