Transccoding Trailers

Plex Media Server
1

Server Version#: Version 1.26.1.5798
Player Version#: Any

I have two plex servers, one of them is local in my home. I have the server set not to transcode, everything works fine all the players are set to remote quality at max so playing media is direct play.

However if I try to watch movie trailers on the remote server it fails with the ‘not enough cpu yada yada error’ but the local server (set up exactly the same) will play the same trailer.

It is though the local server will transcode the media but the remote will not.

If I enable allow transcoding the trailers will play fine but I dont want my normal media files transcoded.

Why is Plex trying to transcode the trailer when all my players have a quality profile to allow them to direct play?

Confused, any help appreciated.

CC

2

Is your remote access setup properly? If not, then the connection goes through Plex’s Relay server which limits the amount of throughput which could trigger a need to transcode.

3

thanks for the reply.

Yes the remote access is set up correctly.

Limit remote stream bitrate is set to Original (No limit)

4

Does this happen with trailers you have files for, or the automatic extras that Plex can fetch?

If it’s your files, it would be helpful to share the XML Info for the related movies.

Either way, it would be helpful to share server logs from each, with a comment about when an attempt was made.

5

Ok that is interesting, it will not play ‘most’ of them but I found one the did play.

here is the log.
For one that didnt work;

May 20, 2022 10:58:56.445 [0x700008cd7000] Error — Subscription: Error refreshing sub: No container found
May 20, 2022 10:58:56.445 [0x7000089c5000] Error — downloadContainer: expected MediaContainer element, found html
May 20, 2022 10:58:56.445 [0x7000089c5000] Error — Subscription: Error refreshing sub: No container found
May 20, 2022 10:59:00.645 [0x7000077dc000] Error — [Transcode] [FFMPEG] - Error: cannot create compression session: -12915

May 20, 2022 10:59:00.645 [0x7000077dc000] Error — [Transcode] [FFMPEG] - Try -allow_sw 1. The hardware encoder may be busy, or not supported.

May 20, 2022 10:59:00.707 [0x7000077dc000] Error — [Transcode] [FFMPEG] - Error: cannot create compression session: -12915

May 20, 2022 10:59:00.707 [0x7000077dc000] Error — [Transcode] [FFMPEG] - Try -allow_sw 1. The hardware encoder may be busy, or not supported.

May 20, 2022 10:59:00.767 [0x7000077dc000] Error — [Transcode] [FFMPEG] - Error: cannot create compression session: -12915

May 20, 2022 10:59:00.767 [0x7000077dc000] Error — [Transcode] [FFMPEG] - Try -allow_sw 1. The hardware encoder may be busy, or not supported.

May 20, 2022 10:59:00.825 [0x7000077dc000] Error — [Transcode] [FFMPEG] - Error: cannot create compression session: -12915

May 20, 2022 10:59:00.825 [0x7000077dc000] Error — [Transcode] [FFMPEG] - Try -allow_sw 1. The hardware encoder may be busy, or not supported.

May 20, 2022 10:59:02.352 [0x700006e23000] Error — [MetadataAgent/tv.plex.agents.series] downloadContainer: expected MediaContainer element, found Error
May 20, 2022 10:59:02.352 [0x700006e23000] Error — [MetadataAgent/tv.plex.agents.series] Request for item plex://season/624861acecf022dcc42b33c3 has failed

For one that did it left no log.

6

It certainly looks like it wants to transcode something! Without context I don’t have any guesses - for why it wants to do that, much less why it isn’t falling back to software successfully.

Have you disabled Debug logging for some reason?

[Server] → Settings → General → Enable Plex Media Server debug logging

There’s no reason to disable it. Plex maintains log files based on size, so disabling it just makes the logs useless, but not smaller. :slight_smile:

It’s ideal to share the server log bundle from Manage → Troubleshooting → Download Logs.

7

ok here is the log for 3 failed trailer plays and one successful one.

8

further, if I play these from my local server they all work flawlessly and it too has transcoding turned off. so it seems that the server is deeming one to be playing remote & trying to transcode anyway and the other server sees the request as local and just direct plays.

1 Like
9

OK - these are trailer files you have, not Plex-provided trailers. Thanks.

Several things stand out:

May 20, 2022 11:19:29.325 [0x7000074ca000] DEBUG - [Transcode] Streaming Resource: Reducing playback quality for 761904kbps stream bitrate: video resolution to 710x478, audio channels to 2, quality to 99, disable video DS as 2147483647kbps is > the 3393kbps available, disable audio DS as 2147483647kbps is > the 256kbps available
...
May 20, 2022 11:19:29.457 [0x7000074ca000] DEBUG - [Transcode] Clipped max bitrate to 3393Kbps based on client-requested limit

Plex thinks the video requires 2147483647kbps to play. 2147483647 is a special “stuff broke” number, and might mean analysis wasn’t performed or failed on that video file.

3393kbps available implies the client is reporting a bandwidth limit to the PMS.

I’m curious about a few things -

  1. Are you 100% certain the client has been configured for max bandwidth and quality from remote/Internet locations? Can you check a fourth time? :slight_smile:
    Are there bandwidth limits configured on the Plex server? Try temporarily setting those to 0.

  2. Does it help to ‘Analyze’ the movie?
    I don’t know offhand how to trigger Deep Analysis for an Extra. (looking)

  3. Does it help to move the movie+extras from Google Drive to a local folder? (unlikely but easy to test)

  4. Maybe Plex is having a problem analyzing these just because they’re “extras”. Does a problem file work if you rename it, pretend it’s a real movie, name it “Happy Gilmore (1996).mkv”?

  5. Can you PM me a link to one of the extras files?

10

you absolute legend, thank you.

Changing the remote access internet upload speed from the actual speed to 0 has done the trick.

Thank you so much for helping me. I really appreciate this.

11

Oh good!

Setting those to 0 can help avoid transcoding decisions, but obviously means the tubes can clog with too many simultaneous streams.

I still think there’s a maybe-bug. That 2147483647kbps number is hot garbage. Can you still PM me one of the files that’s having the problem?

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