Unable to record channel "There was a transcoder error"

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
41

I’m also seeing this issue. I’ve seen it on many versions. I’m currently running the following version:

ii plexmediaserver 1.12.1.4885-1046ba85f amd64 Plex organizes all of your personal media so you can easily access and enjoy it.

May 17, 2018 20:00:31.816 [0x7fe1b8ff7700] DEBUG - DVR:Recorder: Asked to stop recording ‘Supernatural - E23 - Let the Good Times Roll’.
May 17, 2018 20:00:31.816 [0x7fe1a5bff700] DEBUG - DVR:Recorder: Asked to stop recording ‘Gotham - E22 - A Dark Knight: No Man’s Land’.
May 17, 2018 20:00:31.816 [0x7fe1b8ff7700] DEBUG - DVR:Recorder: Stopping transcode session.
May 17, 2018 20:00:31.816 [0x7fe1a5bff700] DEBUG - DVR:Recorder: Stopping transcode session.
May 17, 2018 20:00:31.816 [0x7fe1b8ff7700] DEBUG - Killing job.
May 17, 2018 20:00:31.816 [0x7fe1a5bff700] DEBUG - Killing job.
May 17, 2018 20:00:31.816 [0x7fe1b8ff7700] DEBUG - Signalling job ID 17634 with 9
May 17, 2018 20:00:31.816 [0x7fe1a5bff700] DEBUG - Signalling job ID 17633 with 9
May 17, 2018 20:00:31.816 [0x7fe1b8ff7700] DEBUG - Job was already killed, not killing again.
May 17, 2018 20:00:31.816 [0x7fe1a5bff700] DEBUG - Job was already killed, not killing again.
May 17, 2018 20:00:31.816 [0x7fe1b8ff7700] DEBUG - Stopping transcode session 6772f24a-58be-46d5-9794-a301bde21c90
May 17, 2018 20:00:31.816 [0x7fe1a5bff700] DEBUG - Stopping transcode session 289394d3-26e1-4a5f-a696-24b74030aa16
May 17, 2018 20:00:31.818 [0x7fe1c7fff700] DEBUG - Cleaning directory for session 289394d3-26e1-4a5f-a696-24b74030aa16 (/var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Cache/Transcode/Sessions/plex-transcode-289394d3-26e1-4a5f-a696-24b74030aa16)
May 17, 2018 20:00:31.818 [0x7fe1a2bf9700] DEBUG - Cleaning directory for session 6772f24a-58be-46d5-9794-a301bde21c90 (/var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Cache/Transcode/Sessions/plex-transcode-6772f24a-58be-46d5-9794-a301bde21c90)
May 17, 2018 20:00:31.818 [0x7fe1a5bff700] DEBUG - DVR:Grabber: Freed a tuner (now 2 available)
May 17, 2018 20:00:31.819 [0x7fe1a5bff700] DEBUG - DVR:Grabber: Operation for Gotham - E22 - A Dark Knight: No Man’s Land completed with status error (There was a transcoder error)
May 17, 2018 20:00:31.819 [0x7fe1a5bff700] DEBUG - Activity: Ended activity 260107fc-f0f8-4867-98fc-f519f0982bed.
May 17, 2018 20:00:31.819 [0x7fe1a5bff700] ERROR - DVR:Grabber: Starting media grab failed.
May 17, 2018 20:00:31.835 [0x7fe1b8ff7700] DEBUG - DVR:Grabber: Freed a tuner (now 3 available)
May 17, 2018 20:00:31.835 [0x7fe1b8ff7700] DEBUG - DVR:Grabber: Operation for Supernatural - E23 - Let the Good Times Roll completed with status error (There was a transcoder error)
May 17, 2018 20:00:31.836 [0x7fe1b8ff7700] DEBUG - Activity: Ended activity 5a19403e-94fa-4a0b-8b72-f221a367710b.
May 17, 2018 20:00:31.836 [0x7fe1b8ff7700] ERROR - DVR:Grabber: Starting media grab failed.
May 17, 2018 20:00:32.351 [0x7fe1af3ff700] DEBUG - DVR:Recorder: Asked to stop recording ‘Gotham - E22 - A Dark Knight: No Man’s Land’.
May 17, 2018 20:00:32.351 [0x7fe1af3ff700] DEBUG - DVR:Recorder: Asked to stop recording ‘Supernatural - E23 - Let the Good Times Roll’.
May 17, 2018 20:02:18.037 [0x7fe1bdffe700] DEBUG - NetworkServiceBrowser: SSDP arrived: 10.8.42.16 (http://10.8.42.16:8008/ssdp/device-desc.xml)
May 17, 2018 20:02:18.038 [0x7fe1a4bfd700] DEBUG - HTTP requesting GET http://10.8.42.16:8008/ssdp/device-desc.xml
May 17, 2018 20:02:18.057 [0x7fe1a4bfd700] DEBUG - HTTP 200 response from GET http://10.8.42.16:8008/ssdp/device-desc.xml
May 17, 2018 20:03:02.373 [0x7fe1c1ffd700] DEBUG - Shutting down idle session 289394d3-26e1-4a5f-a696-24b74030aa16 (idle time is 180 seconds)
May 17, 2018 20:03:02.379 [0x7fe1c1ffd700] DEBUG - Job was already killed, not killing again.
May 17, 2018 20:03:02.379 [0x7fe1c1ffd700] DEBUG - Job was already killed, not killing again.
May 17, 2018 20:03:02.379 [0x7fe1c1ffd700] DEBUG - Whacked session 289394d3-26e1-4a5f-a696-24b74030aa16, 1 remaining.
May 17, 2018 20:03:02.379 [0x7fe1c1ffd700] DEBUG - Shutting down idle session 6772f24a-58be-46d5-9794-a301bde21c90 (idle time is 180 seconds)
May 17, 2018 20:03:02.379 [0x7fe1c1ffd700] DEBUG - Job was already killed, not killing again.
May 17, 2018 20:03:02.379 [0x7fe1c1ffd700] DEBUG - Job was already killed, not killing again.
May 17, 2018 20:03:02.379 [0x7fe1c1ffd700] DEBUG - Transcoder: Cleaning old transcode directories.
May 17, 2018 20:03:02.405 [0x7fe1c1ffd700] DEBUG - Whacked session 6772f24a-58be-46d5-9794-a301bde21c90, 0 remaining.
May 17, 2018 20:03:02.405 [0x7fe1c1ffd700] DEBUG - Killed 2 idle sessions out of a total of 2.
May 17, 2018 20:03:14.522 [0x7fe1a93fe700] DEBUG - EPG[onconnect]: Purging 158 airings which completed in the past.

I’m about to upgrade to the latest and restarting will likely resolve the issue for a few weeks and then i’m certain it will return.

42

@big_d_271 said:
I’m also seeing this issue. I’ve seen it on many versions. I’m currently running the following version:

ii plexmediaserver 1.12.1.4885-1046ba85f amd64 Plex organizes all of your personal media so you can easily access and enjoy it.

May 17, 2018 20:00:31.816 [0x7fe1b8ff7700] DEBUG - DVR:Recorder: Asked to stop recording ‘Supernatural - E23 - Let the Good Times Roll’.
May 17, 2018 20:00:31.816 [0x7fe1a5bff700] DEBUG - DVR:Recorder: Asked to stop recording ‘Gotham - E22 - A Dark Knight: No Man’s Land’.
May 17, 2018 20:00:31.816 [0x7fe1b8ff7700] DEBUG - DVR:Recorder: Stopping transcode session.
May 17, 2018 20:00:31.816 [0x7fe1a5bff700] DEBUG - DVR:Recorder: Stopping transcode session.

I’m about to upgrade to the latest and restarting will likely resolve the issue for a few weeks and then i’m certain it will return.

Please always attach full logs zip and not just an extract
In the above example, it would be the earlier log entries that would help establish why the recording was being stopped

May 17, 2018 20:00:31.816 [0x7fe1b8ff7700] DEBUG - DVR:Recorder: Asked to stop recording 'Supernatural - E23 - Let the Good Times Roll'.
May 17, 2018 20:00:31.816 [0x7fe1a5bff700] DEBUG - DVR:Recorder: Asked to stop recording 'Gotham - E22 - A Dark Knight: No Man's Land'.

Do upgrade to 1.13.1.5063 and if you get issues downloads logs zip and attach. The earlier reported failures looked like signal / tuner issues

43

I’m getting this error too… investigating now. Last night it wouldn’t record “The 100”. Tonight it seems to be recording whatever I ask it to. Weird… But looking at how Gracenote works, it appears I have to have authorization, and for some reason I’m not getting it occasionally, and then the show fails.

May 21, 2018 15:57:18.133 [43416] DEBUG - DVR:Schedule: Attempting to schedule the item ‘Dancing With the Stars - E4 - Athletes’.
May 21, 2018 15:57:18.133 [43416] DEBUG - DVR:Schedule: Trying airing at 2018-05-21 19:00:00 on channel 2.1.
May 21, 2018 15:57:18.134 [43416] DEBUG - DVR:Schedule: Device 0 tuner 0 scheduled recording between 2018-05-21 19:00:00 and 2018-05-21 20:00:00 on channel 2.1.
May 21, 2018 15:57:18.134 [43416] DEBUG - DVR:Grabber: Scheduling ‘Dancing With the Stars - E4 - Athletes’ for timed grab at 2018-05-21 19:00:00 (in 10962 seconds)

??? on channel 2.1… this is not on my HDHomeruns. Is this why the show failed?

44

I’m having the same issue. In the log files, only one file is created when I start a recording and when it stopped with the error. The file is Plex Transcoder Statistics.log, see attachement. I’m using the latest version.

45

@laffer98 said:
I’m getting this error too… investigating now. Last night it wouldn’t record “The 100”. Tonight it seems to be recording whatever I ask it to. Weird… But looking at how Gracenote works, it appears I have to have authorization, and for some reason I’m not getting it occasionally, and then the show fails.

May 21, 2018 15:57:18.133 [43416] DEBUG - DVR:Schedule: Attempting to schedule the item ‘Dancing With the Stars - E4 - Athletes’.
May 21, 2018 15:57:18.133 [43416] DEBUG - DVR:Schedule: Trying airing at 2018-05-21 19:00:00 on channel 2.1.
May 21, 2018 15:57:18.134 [43416] DEBUG - DVR:Schedule: Device 0 tuner 0 scheduled recording between 2018-05-21 19:00:00 and 2018-05-21 20:00:00 on channel 2.1.
May 21, 2018 15:57:18.134 [43416] DEBUG - DVR:Grabber: Scheduling ‘Dancing With the Stars - E4 - Athletes’ for timed grab at 2018-05-21 19:00:00 (in 10962 seconds)

??? on channel 2.1… this is not on my HDHomeruns. Is this why the show failed?

The channel would have been one of the scanned channels.
In any case your log extract was over 3 hours earlier than the time of the recording

Please always attach full zipped logs and indicate time of issue

See
https://support.plex.tv/articles/200250417-plex-media-server-log-files/

46

@“ARCADOLI@MSN.COM” said:
I’m having the same issue. In the log files, only one file is created when I start a recording and when it stopped with the error. The file is Plex Transcoder Statistics.log, see attachement. I’m using the latest version.

There would be other logs that get written to

Please ensure you have debug logging enabled
See https://support.plex.tv/articles/201643703-reporting-issues-with-plex-media-server/

restart the server to get fresh logs created
When the problem arises, note down the time and the error / problem and then download the logs zip
See https://support.plex.tv/articles/200250417-plex-media-server-log-files/
and attach the full zip file with details of the issue and when

47

I just started having this problem as well. Randomly, Plex would tell me that my recording has a ‘Transcoder Error’. I looked into it further and realized that my USB drive (where I keep all my Plex recordings) was repeatedly disconnecting.

On Windows 10 I went into Device Manager (as an Administrator), clicked on Universal Serial Bus Controllers and right-clicking each USB Device, clicked on the Power Management tab, and unchecked ‘Allow Computer to turn off this Device to save power’. Rebooted.

The number of times the USB disconnected was reduced, but not eliminated. Through trial and error I determined that the USB’s header information was corrupted (maybe due to all the file creations and file deletions of hundreds and hundreds of recordings over a couple of years). I moved all the Plex recordings to another USB, formatted my original USB (as NTFS), moved the recordings back, and haven’t had an issue since.

1 Like
48

Just to chime in so this doesn’t get closed… I had this error show up yesterday. I’m not sure I would be able to reproduce this in order to generate the debug logs since I believe this is the first time I had this happen that I’m aware. I can send the logs I have if they are worthwhile – let me know.

49

And again today. Is there anyway to get started with this?