I’ve had issues since installing plex server on my windows micro PC and using HW acceleration.
“Server” is based on Celeron J4105 SOC which should have enough power when using HW transcoding.
transcoder stays on, but when trying to transcode, it doesn’t do much (0% CPU use, 0% GPU use)
transcoder works, but is only using CPU for transcoding
I have found out the culprit was using the server as a server and accessing it only via Remote Desktop!
(Hopefully reproducible) Behavior:
when you startup a server and login only using RDP first, transcoder crashes / is not wroking [1/2]
if you startup, login regular way, transcoder works and HW acceleration is fine. But when you login using RDP, GPU is not used [3]
Workaround for this was not using RDP in favor of TeamViewer. I’ve not yet activated automatic login (which probably would have solved [1/2] till I connected remotely to the server), but I’ll try that as well and suppose it will be working as expected, at least when using teamviewer only. Will update later.
Not sure if this is something that Plex can resolve in their server implementation or is a Microsoft / Intel driver issue, but I guess it can help someone battling same/similar issue.
Spiffy, absolutely spiffy. You are right. I’ve tried everything for three months now, a plethora of intel graphics drivers, uninstalling and installing Windows 10 Patches, resetting the computer, every single plex version i could get my hands on…
2 hours ago I had a conversation with my girlfriend telling her that i am fed up with plex and that i will delete the bloody server. I scrolled through the forums to give it one last try. And found your post.
My “Server” is a Windows 10 Desktop (1903), i3-8100, hw acceleration enabled, It starts with AutoLogin and i connect to it via RDP. If i do not connect, everything runs fine, remote and local. After i logged in (RDP), it will crash with HW acceleration enabled (if it is disabled, it does not crash, but uses 100% CPU).
Will try teamviewer this afternoon. For now: If i have to login via RDP i’ll restart the server after that. so everything runs fine.
I was having the same problems i ended up buying a DisplayPort display emulator, Its not crashing anymore with hw acceleration enabled you can also still use RDP.
Why are you using Remote Desktop to run PLEX? Maybe I am missing something here. Are you doing other things with the server? If I need to get to PLEX I do it over the web on my server - but my machine is dedicated to PLEX.
I run various services on the serve, eg file/backup server, torrent, etc… and most of the time accessing it directly is the simplest way to do something
Same here, when i access to Windows 10 with remote desktop Plex crash. I was install teamviewer but now teamviewer told me that i need to buy a license (and pay 10€/per month) to continue using…
I’ve experienced similar issues whenever using the built in RDP client on a headless windows 10 pro. Fortunately I discovered this thread and have switched over to real VNC and HW transcoding is working again. Unfortunately it’s not as slick as the built in Microsoft app.
So glad I found this thread! Switched from RDP and now all is well! Was driving myself crazy with reinstalls, old drivers etc. Now if I could get VC1 to work with HW (without disabling encode) I’d be all set.
Setup: Dell T20, Intel QuickSync, Windows Server 2019, PMSService.
Not sure if helps or was mentioned before but my finding:
After every server reboot or PMS update HW transcoding crashes.
If the server is restarted a Displayport cable has to be hooked to an active display. (or a dummyDP connector can be used)
After reboot or update Plex always crashes with HW transcoding ON.
Disabling HW transcoding -> starting a random play with SW transcoding -> killing it right after it started -> and turning back HW transcoding solves the trick.
(The display has to be connected and displaying picture only until the login screen appears. No need to login or RDP.)
