Transferred server to a new computer and many files now give errors or play incorrect audio with no video

[NerdAlert42]

Server Version#: 4.30.2
Player Version#:8.1.0.17967

Purchased a simple computer build to run a PLEX only machine, and transferred my hard drives over. The new PLEX server will not play many files, or give wildly incorrect playtime, some as high as 7 days long. Many files even play no video, and audio of other films like Black Panther. Strange. Intel I5 processor, but no video card. H/W acceleration is not selected.

Deleting the file from the drive and re-installing will not fix the issue, but installing a different version of the file will fix the single issue usually.

I tried looking through the logs, but i was unsure of what to look for and where.

Plex Media Server Logs_2020-05-27_20-15-35.zip (10.5 MB)

[FordGuy61]

Plex is having issues analyzing the files. It cannot find valid audio/video streams.
ERROR - MDE: video has neither a video stream nor an audio stream
Additional info from log files below.

Analyze the file with MediaInfo. What does it show? Attach the text output to the thread.

Does the file play OK with other video players - VLC, etc?

If the movie appears OK, Plex Dance the file. This clears out all information in Plex’s database. Plex will reanalyze the file when you move it back into the library.

Also, Plex does not like a library to be the root folder of a drive. Move the files to a subfolder. Renaming to Plex recommendations would be good as well. It will help with matching and pulling metadata.

Instead of:
Z:\Jojo.Rabbit.2019.1080p.Bluray.DTS-HD.MA.5.1.X264-EVO.mkv

Use:
Z\Movies\JoJo Rabbit (2019).mkv
or
Z:\Movies\JoJo Rabbit (2019) [1080p etc info].mkv

If you add trailers & other extras, use individual movie folders, such as:
Z:\Movies\JoJo Rabbit (2019)\JoJo Rabbit (2019).mkv

See Naming & Organizing Your Movies for additional info.

EDIT: Also, turn off Verbose logs (Server Settings -> General). Debug logs, the default, are generally all that is needed. Verbose adds a lot of additional information, causing the logs to wrap very quickly.

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Plex Media Server.log

May 27, 2020 20:15:05.736 [5652] DEBUG - MDE: analyzing media item 17895
May 27, 2020 20:15:05.736 [5652] ERROR - MDE: video has neither a video stream nor an audio stream
May 27, 2020 20:15:05.736 [5652] ERROR - Streaming Resource: Cannot make a decision because either the file is unplayable or the client provided bad data

Plex Media Scanner Analysis.log

May 27, 2020 20:15:18.353 [5680] DEBUG - Analyzing media parts for item 14230 (Jojo Rabbit): 17895
May 27, 2020 20:15:18.353 [5680] DEBUG - [ID 17908] Media part analysis: Z:\Jojo.Rabbit.2019.1080p.Bluray.DTS-HD.MA.5.1.X264-EVO.mkv
May 27, 2020 20:15:18.353 [5680] DEBUG - [MI] Opening input file: "Z:\Jojo.Rabbit.2019.1080p.Bluray.DTS-HD.MA.5.1.X264-EVO.mkv"
May 27, 2020 20:15:18.353 [5680] DEBUG - [FFMPEG] - Opening 'Z:\Jojo.Rabbit.2019.1080p.Bluray.DTS-HD.MA.5.1.X264-EVO.mkv' for reading
May 27, 2020 20:15:18.353 [5680] DEBUG - [FFMPEG] - Setting default whitelist 'file,crypto'
May 27, 2020 20:15:18.423 [5680] WARN - [FFMPEG] - Format matroska,webm detected only with low score of 1, misdetection possible!
May 27, 2020 20:15:18.423 [5680] DEBUG - [FFMPEG] - Unknown entry 0xF0
May 27, 2020 20:15:18.423 [5680] ERROR - [FFMPEG] - EBML header parsing failed
May 27, 2020 20:15:18.423 [5680] VERBOSE - [FFMPEG] - Statistics: 1048576 bytes read, 0 seeks
May 27, 2020 20:15:18.423 [5680] ERROR - Exception analyzing media file 'Z:\Jojo.Rabbit.2019.1080p.Bluray.DTS-HD.MA.5.1.X264-EVO.mkv' (Could not parse Z:\Jojo.Rabbit.2019.1080p.Bluray.DTS-HD.MA.5.1.X264-EVO.mkv (error=-1094995529): Invalid data found when processing input)

[NerdAlert42]

Sorry for the long reply time.

I tried the Plex dance with high hope. No luck.

Ran MediaInfo on one confirmed file that has a 13+ hour playtime and will only play audio but no video of another file in Plex. No issues with the exact same file and hard drive on my old computer. Here is what the MediaInfo said:

General
Complete name : Z:\Movies\summer.rental.1985.1080p.hdtv.x264-regret.mkv
Format : DTS
Format/Info : Digital Theater Systems
File size : 8.47 GiB
Duration : 13 h 24 min
Overall bit rate mode : Constant
Overall bit rate : 1 509 kb/s
FileExtension_Invalid : dts dtshd

Audio
Format : DTS
Format/Info : Digital Theater Systems
Duration : 13 h 24 min
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 1 509 kb/s
Channel(s) : 6 channels
Channel layout : C L R Ls Rs LFE
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 93.750 FPS (512 SPF)
Bit depth : 24 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 8.47 GiB (100%)

[FordGuy61]

If MediaInfo says there is no video track and it is 13.5 hours in length (instead of 1.5), then the file is most likely toast.

You can try remuxing it with MKVToolNix. You might get lucky and it is just the MKV container that is messed up.

If that doesn’t work, toss it in the trash and obtain another copy.