Trouble playing some shows on PMP for Mac, iPad and iPhone but not other shows

Plex Players Desktop Players
1

Server Version#: 1.19.1.2630 (running on a Win 7 PC)
Player Version#: 1.8.0.1159-67c4a549 (running on macBook)

This issue is annoying the bjesus out of me because I can’t determine the pattern to even describe it well and, when it does fail, the error message changes. Short version, some of my TV shows aren’t playing on Plex Media Player. I posted in the desktop media player forum because the problem happens on my MacBook but I’m also having the same problem playing content on my iPad, iPhone and Roku.

The problem seems to be limited to episodes from season of Arrest Development in .mkv format and Amazing Stories in .mkv format.

To the best of my recollection, I download Arrested Development as a season so all episodes should be on the same format (1080p, 5.1 Dolby Digital Plus). Yet episodes 1-12 play just fine and problem didn’t surface till episode 13. Amazing Stories is also 1080p/5.1 audio

I looked at other series that are working and see at least two others that are 1080p/Dolby Digital Plus/5.1

The error message varies by which player i’m using on which platform. When the episode fails to play on my macBook, the error message is “Not enough CPU for conversion of this item”. When it fails to play on the iPad, the error message is “Something went wrong playing your media. Please try again. Count not direct play because App cannot direct play this item. No direction play video profile exists for protocol http, with container mkv, and video codec h264. Could not transcode because not enough CPU for conversion of this item.”

When it fails on the iPhone it sometimes 1) give the same error message as above 2) once said “Indirect Playback: You are not connected directly to this server so streaming quality may be limited.” 3) usually just has the spinning circle that spins and spins but never plays.

When it fails to play on the Roku the error message is “We’re unable to play this video, make sure the server is running and has access to this video”.

I say WHEN it fails to play because last night the Roku gave that error message but the iPhone played the same episode just fine. Tonight the iPhone app refuses to play the same episode it played fine the other night.

Last thing to mention which I can’t imagine being a factor but, just to leave no stone unturned, until last week all my media was stored on my Synology (with PMS running on the PC). I just added a larger harder drive to the PC and transferred most of my media to the PC drive. Both of the series that are refusing to play are on the the PC drive. However, so are the working series of the same format I mentioned above.

PMS server logs attached.
I tried to attach the Mac Player logs but there either were no logs or I’m looking in the wrong place.

What can rescue me from this techno hell? LOL

Plex Media Server Logs_2020-04-14_21-35-35.zip (4.6 MB)

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ah ha! And just to show you what I mean when I say the error is not consistent, I tried playing the show again on MacBook Plex Player. Sure enough, last time it gave the error stated above “Not enough CPU for…” Now it is just the endless spinning circle with no error message. So, without changing any settings anywhere, at the same location with the same internet speed, I get different error message. The only consistent thing is the episode won’t play

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Your logs show that the issue is with your transcoder in PMS. Whenever a transcode is needed, it is failing to do so. If the file can be direct played, then it will work fine.

1 thing I see is that you’ve enabled hardware transcoding but that isn’t working, so try turning that off.

I’m not sure what the difference between ep 12 and ep 13 to cuase 1 to direct play and the other to not. Can you provide the xml for both of these episodes? https://support.plex.tv/articles/201998867-investigate-media-information-and-formats/

3

Hi MovieFan. Thank you for the quick reply. Much appreciated :slightly_smiling_face:

You said to turn of hardware transcoding. I don’t see an exact option for that. Under Settings>Transcoder I see “Use hardware acceleration when available” and “use hardware-accelerated video encoding”. I’m guessing you mean the latter. I’ve tried disabling both (and individually) but that didn’t fix the problem.

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The XML for ep 13 is…

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The XML for ep 8, the last espisode from the series that will play (see below) is…

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It is worth noting that ep 9-12 which previously played no longer play. All episodes past 8 now generate the same error message – “We’re currently unable to play this video, make sure the serve is running and access to this video.”

I had previously played through ep 12 all of which did play properly before I ran into the issue with ep 13. At one point, I tried uninstalling and reinstalling PMS to see if that would fix the problem. That must have change something because now even episodes 9-12 that formerly played, won’t anymore.

4

I just stuck to answering your questions above but, if you have a minute, I would like to understand the following things to better solve future problems and help others.

You said the PMS transcoder failed, did you determine that by looking at the logs?
What would make the transcoder spontaneously stop working?
Why wouldn’t it work even after reinstalling PMS?

The article you sent me has a sublink to " How are Direct Play, Direct Stream, and Transcoding different?" which I tried to follow to educate myself but it’s a broken link. Is that info available somewhere else?

Lastly, what’s the difference between the hardware acceleration and hardware-accelerated video encoding check boxes? They seem to be describing the same thing.

5

If it helps, I noticed ep 9 no longer plays on my PC (the same PC running PMS), on Roku, or on my iPad. It DOES still play on my iPhone and my macBook.

Does that mean it’s Direct Playing on the iPhone and macBook but trying and failing to transcode to the Roku, iPad and on the PC?

6

“Hardware acceleration” is the correct term for hardware transcoding. Sorry about that.

Transcoding involves 2 parts. Decoding to read the existing codec and encoding, creating the new one. Those boxes allow you to set both. Some systems don’t do well both so this allows you to enable/disable either.

Can’t tell without log, but sounds likely.

From the XML and going back to your logs, I’m now thinking the issue is the audio. 13 has EAC3 while 8 has AC3. There is an error in your log related to the EAC3 audio. See what audio is in Ep 9-12. There might be a bug with the EAC3 converter.

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Hi MovieFan,

Ironically, I’ve been fiddling with it for over an hour. I just figured that out myself and was logging into to give you that additional feedback.

Over multiple different files, this plays consistantly…

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but none of these files play…

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How did my EAC3 converter develop a bug?
And how would that bug survive the uninstall and reinstall of PMS?

8

MovieFan.Plex do you get a notification when I respond to a thread you commented on? I hope so. Or anyone else for that matter.

We successfully narrowed the problem down to my EAC3 converter has developed a bug. The question is, “What’s the solution?”

I already tried a full uninstall and reinstall of PMS. Somehow it still didn’t work after that. So if reinstalling PMS doesn’t fix the issue, that’s the next option please?

9

I’m checking with the team to see if they are aware of any issues with EAC3 audio. I am not able to reproduce the problem.

10

Lucky me to have a unique problem :grin:

I’m surprised the delete and reinstall didn’t resolve it. Is there a way to do a more thorough delete that doesn’t leave parts of the PMS installed? I’m just assuming that something left over from the prior install was the problem because I am shocked it would randomly fail twice.

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Here are instructions to do a full wipe, https://support.plex.tv/articles/201941078-uninstall-plex-media-server/.

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Thanks MoveFan.Plex. A regular uninstall and re-install didin’t work. The total wipe you recommended fixed the EAC3 audio encoding problem. It was a pain in the ass because I lost all my setting and record of what’s been watched and what’s new but at least it’s not playing all files. :slight_smile:

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Interesting. Thanks for the info.

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