# Transcode Issues - Movie playback "buffering"

**URL:** <https://forums.plex.tv/t/transcode-issues-movie-playback-buffering/935005>\
**Category:** Plex Media Server\
**Tags:** server-unraid, roku\
**Created:** [December 31, 2025, 10:53pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/transcode-issues-movie-playback-buffering/935005 "2025-12-31T22:53:09Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 6

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ChuckPa](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/chuckpa/32/79710_2.png) [@ChuckPa](https://forums.plex.tv/u/ChuckPa)\
**Post date:** [January 1, 2026, 7:12am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/transcode-issues-movie-playback-buffering/935005/6 "2026-01-01T07:12:35Z")

</div>

Thanks for the logs

I see one clear error.

```auto
Dec 31, 2025 22:17:37.892 [22687809637176] DEBUG - Request: [209.173.242.220:54280 (WAN)] GET /video/:/transcode/universal/session/D7920280-972B-42E8-B6A8-4DF799BD9D60/base/header (27 live) #326632 TLS Signed-in (range: bytes=0-) 
Dec 31, 2025 22:17:39.000 [22687971916600] ERROR - [Req#326506/Transcode/ec8c63c8-1558-45a6-b7f6-2bef7ca3db38-1229/85532663-1520-4d79-b181-21761e28fe33] [eac3_eae @ 0x154c59b5c040] EAE timeout! EAE not running, or wrong folder? Could not read '/tmp/pms-8ad1b322-4a57-48db-8fff-421d0927da76/EasyAudioEncoder/Convert to WAV (to 8ch or less)/ec8c63c8-1558-45a6-b7f6-2bef7ca3db38-1229_128813-0-2.wav'
Dec 31, 2025 22:17:39.001 [22687962590008] ERROR - [Req#326665/Transcode/ec8c63c8-1558-45a6-b7f6-2bef7ca3db38-1229/85532663-1520-4d79-b181-21761e28fe33] [eac3_eae @ 0x154c59b5c040] error reading output: -5 (I/O error)
Dec 31, 2025 22:17:39.001 [22688105806648] ERROR - [Req#326666/Transcode/ec8c63c8-1558-45a6-b7f6-2bef7ca3db38-1229/85532663-1520-4d79-b181-21761e28fe33] Error while decoding stream #0:1: I/O error
Dec 31, 2025 22:17:40.926 [22688397105976] DEBUG - Push: There are 0 new top level things for filter '0' (episode.addedAt>>=1767235695&sort=episode.addedAt:desc&type=2).
Dec 31, 2025 22:17:40.931 [22688397105976] DEBUG - Push: There are 0 new top level things for filter '0x14a28a77ad48' (episode.addedAt>>=1767235695&sort=episode.addedAt:desc&type=2).
Dec 31, 2025 22:17:40.935 [22688397105976] DEBUG - Push: There are 0 new top level things for filter '0x14a271b09218' (episode.addedAt>>=1767235695&sort=episode.addedAt:desc&type=2).

```

PMS cannot transcode the Dolby EAC3 audio.  
(There are no Notify slots available for the transcoder to use – it needs 2 for Dolby)

Do you have a lot of Music or Photos? They eat up a lot of the notify slots  
The transcoder temp directory is local HDD/SSD/SHM ?

The remedy for this is:

1. For all your media, count the total (linux `find` will help with this)
2. Do a little math and round that up to the next multiple of 32768
3. Add a Linux kernel tunable parameter (sysctl.conf) to increase the table size
4. Restart the server

Here is the FAQ about how to do it.

> [@Linux Tips](https://forums.plex.tv/t/linux-tips/276247/9):
>
> Increase the number of directories Linux can monitor (inotify) for PMS The default size of the Linux inotify table is 8192 directories (\*1). When PMS is configured to update automatically when media is added, with properly organized media, especially music, this table rapidly fills and exceeds the default allocation requiring you to increase it. The solution to this is straight forward. Increasing the table size is easy. The first step is to determine how many directories to allocat…

Please ask if you have any questions.

---

_[View the full topic](https://forums.plex.tv/t/transcode-issues-movie-playback-buffering/935005)._