Server Version#: Version 1.19.4.2935
Player Version#: N/A
Recently I’ve noticed my computer bogged down frequently when trying to work.
It appears Plex Transcoder (usual 2 of them) processes are running in the background.
I can tell plex to stop but it usually starts again within a few minutes.
No media is playing, syncing or converting according to plex when the transcoding is happening.
I’ve disabled optimized versions since I generally want direct play.
It sounds like this is related to the new intro skipping feature?
It is really annoying that plex is doing a huge amount of transcoding while I am trying to work in order to support this intro-skipping feature which I don’t particularly care about.
It is really annoying that telling plex to stop transcoding only stops the current transcode and transcoding resumes within a minute.
It is also really annoying that plex is transcoding but the dashboard doesn’t tell you what or why.
Makes for a confusing and frustrating user experience.
if the intro detection feature requires all my series (I have a ton) to be transcoded… then I would rather not have this intro detection feature. I cannot seem to find a way to turn this off.
Check Settings -> Library for generating intro markers, thumbnails, etc. You can change them to run only at scheduled times or never instead of when media is added. Then check Settings -> Scheduled Tasks for when such things are scheduled to run.
You can also disable Intro Detection at the Library level. Using Plex Web, edit the library (click on 3 vertical dots to right of library name, choose Manage Library -> Edit), choose Advanced, and uncheck “Enable Intro Detection.” You can disable preview thumbnails on the same screen.
Thanks for the advice. And pointing me to those settings. I tried this yesterday. It was already set to “scheduled” and I haven’t added new media recently anyway.
Scheduling was/is set from 2-5AM.
But I re-confirmed all the settings anyway and then quit and restarted plex server just in case.
However the transcodes continue in the middle of the day (it is now almost 10am here and plex is transcoding while nothing is playing).
My computer time and timezone are correct.
Watching the Plex server console while telling plex to stop the transcodes reveals it is indeed intro detection. I see tons of these messages:
So it appears these settings aren’t helping to prevent plex from doing non-stop transcodes during business hours?
Any other ideas? I guess I will try to turn off intro detection completely (vs scheduled) and see if the transcodes then stop. Perhaps the scheduler is broken.
Some processes may not stop when the scheduling window closes.
Intro detection is time consuming. Plex may let it run to completion once it starts instead of pausing it when the window closes.
If you disable Intro Detection and it doesn’t stop in short order, then you may have to stop/restart the Plex server for the setting to take effect. I’ve never seen a definitive list, but some settings changes require a stop/start of the server to take effect.
The way I saw Intro Detection explained in another thread is that Plex analyzes all episodes of a season, looking for a common audio footprint, like what is found with opening credits/theme song/etc.
If you want to see if intros have been detected for a show, you can look at the Plex XML for one of the episodes. Look for Marker type="intro" in the XML.
Ex: Marker type="intro" startTimeOffset="123" endTimeOffset="61123"
