Content being transcoded will appear in one of two places:
The default (DSM 6 and newer) is Plex/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Cache/Transcode/Sessions
It still does serve as the transcoder’s temporary directory for downloading of codecs.
The directory was a holdover from DSM 5. It was carried into DSM 6.
In DSM 7, I’ve cleaned that all up.
As always, you can manually set the transcoder temporary directory (for actual transcoding) wherever you like.
Regarding MKV files, most devices don’t accept MKV as DirectPlay. They need to be converted to either MP4 or f-MP4 (Apple devices). The transcoder does run to perform this task… It is a multiplexing task and not a hard transcode.
thankyou @ChuckPa . Next question is where are the default player profiles stored ?
I copied a custom WD TV Live profile into
/Plex/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Profiles
on plex start it seems to detect the profile however when a file plays it seems to be using the plex default WD TV live profile ?
you can see the DLNA server logs it picks up the custom profile:
Mar 20, 2021 02:13:31.651 [0x7ffbd7a40780] DEBUG - Unique device name = e9524959-b10c-b834-bfee-bc598314d24a
Mar 20, 2021 02:13:31.651 [0x7ffbd7a40780] DEBUG - DLNA server port: 32469
Mar 20, 2021 02:13:31.651 [0x7ffbd7a40780] DEBUG - PMS: http://127.0.0.1:32400/
Mar 20, 2021 02:13:31.651 [0x7ffbd7a40780] DEBUG - MyPlex: https://plex.tv/
Mar 20, 2021 02:13:39.120 [0x7ffbd7a40780] DEBUG - Reading system DLNA client profiles
Mar 20, 2021 02:13:39.327 [0x7ffbd7a40780] DEBUG - Reading user client profile "Western Digital TV Live Custom"
Mar 20, 2021 02:13:39.328 [0x7ffbd7a40780] DEBUG - Read 23 DLNA client profiles
Mar 20, 2021 02:13:39.342 [0x7ffbd7a40780] DEBUG - DLNA device discovery enabled every 60 seconds
Mar 20, 2021 02:13:39.342 [0x7ffbd7a40780] DEBUG - Initialization complete
Mar 20, 2021 02:13:40.313 [0x7ffbc16fb700] DEBUG - GET for http://10.1.1.3:32469/proxy/027d672c6a70ab72aa7c/260x260.png
but then when it plays a file it does not seem to use it:
Mar 20, 2021 02:14:31.588 [0x7ffbc22b3700] DEBUG - Caching document http://127.0.0.1:32400/library/metadata/11923 as 6c6f90d2d39c587206f5035a4f4414f04c8a4d41
Mar 20, 2021 02:14:31.588 [0x7ffbc22b3700] DEBUG - Serving up item /library/metadata/11923 part 0
Mar 20, 2021 02:14:31.589 [0x7ffbc22b3700] DEBUG - MDE: Selected protocol http; container: mpegts
Mar 20, 2021 02:14:31.589 [0x7ffbc22b3700] DEBUG - MDE: analyzing media item 12901
Mar 20, 2021 02:14:31.589 [0x7ffbc22b3700] DEBUG - MDE: E1 - Episode 1: no direct play video profile exists for http/mkv/h264/eac3
Mar 20, 2021 02:14:31.590 [0x7ffbc22b3700] DEBUG - MDE: Cannot direct stream audio stream due to codec eac3 when profile only allows aac
Mar 20, 2021 02:14:31.590 [0x7ffbc22b3700] DEBUG - MDE: E1 - Episode 1: selected media 0 / 12901
Mar 20, 2021 02:14:31.879 [0x7ffbc288f700] DEBUG - GET for http://10.1.1.3:32469/proxy/73cd284517bc9fbfe088/albumart.jpg
Mar 20, 2021 02:14:31.879 [0x7ffbc288f700] DEBUG - Mapped client to profile Western Digital TV Live using header User-Agent: ALPHA Networks/CTID
instead it looks like its using the standard WD TV Live profile.
After finding that even my Samsung TV was having issues playing the same media & displaying the same error resulting in the player exiting as the WD TV Live units I ended up going all the way back to a clean install of PlexMediaServer-1.13.4.5271-200287a06-x86_64.spk.
This is actually earlier than the previous version I was using which was an iteration of 1.8.
For whatever reason after installing this and starting PLEX up it decided to re-scan all my media so I had to wait a fair while.
The end result is everything now works including all the media that was previously not playing.
I think I will stick with this version for the moment even though the response rate while browsing titles is slower.
