Video fails to start - Only working if I reboot my PC and then stops working after 1 day or so

General Discussions
1

Hi everyone,

I would need some advice to troubleshoot a problem that I have never had before. I have been using Plex MS for a long time and since the last month or so I am unable to play/stream movies on any device (even when inside my local network) if my Windows 7 PC (x64) has been running for about a day or so. It happens with both wired (i.e. Ethernet) and wireless clients/devices.

The message in the client says something like “Video playback did not start on time”.

Other symptoms:

  • Heavy CPU usage (~15%) by Plex threads such as PlexScriptHost or DLNA server (which I disabled to check if it was the cause) even when no-one is playing anything
  • Accessing the server settings page in plex takes a very long time and sometimes it fails loading (“Server settings currently unavailable” or similar message shows up)
  • Navigating through my media files feels really slow

If I reboot my PC and try to play anything it works like charm. Also, Plex threads do not seem to be using the CPU (~0-1%) and navigation through server settings and media files works as I would expect.

I have tried uninstalling Plex, deleting all Plex entries in registry, going to older Ples MS versions… I have found some threads discussing similar issues and tried all solutions in them. I just have one network. The PC is connected through Ethernet. I do not know what else to do.

I have attached the fail and the success case. I appreciate any help someone experienced with the logs could provide.

Thanks a lot in advance!

3

Thank you very much @trumpy81 for taking your time in checking my logs and replying! And sorry about the verbose logging, it won’t happen again.

I will try everything you suggested and get back after I check the results.

I also noticed I have a pretty old Java version - Perhaps something nasty got to my computer through there. I had to re-install Windows at the beginning of the year and I forgot about Java completely. Updating as I write this.

Update/re-install the drivers for your network card. Also, make sure you disable Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power for your NIC in Device Manager (Control Panel).

The checkbox for this setting was set, I just disabled it so it does not turn it off.

If you have a lot of apps and processes running in the background, then you should try to eliminate those where possible.

There was nothing else running, but certainly a high CPU usage from some Plex threads.

Thanks again. I will update on this in a couple of days.

Br,

Dimas.

4

Unfortunately, everything I tried resulted in same behaviour…

I will need to “purify with fire” and reinstall windows. I will just install the minimum stuff and give it a try.

I will not be able to do this soon, but once I do I will get back to this thread and share the outcome.

Br,

Dimas.

5

Hi,

I’m comming back to this as I have not found the cause or a solution yet.

I’ve tried all the suggestions and nothing. Then I tried formatting the OS drive and installing all again, changing all hard drives for new ones… nothing!

This morning I collected new logs (attached) I would really appreciate someone that understands them to have a look.

There are some error messages in “Plex Media Server.log” that look related, as they show up constantly:

  • ERROR - Throttle: timed out trying to read chunk -1
  • ERROR - [PlexRelay] kex protocol error: type 7 seq 11

There are other errors:

  • [TranscodeOutputStream] Streaming Session 0x8d43258 appears to have died from under us

Or:

  • WARN - SLOW QUERY: It took 218.401398 ms to retrieve 58 items.
  • ERROR - EventSource: Retrying in 15 seconds.
  • ERROR - EventSource: Retrying in 15 seconds.
  • WARN - Waited one whole second for a busy database.
  • ERROR - Failed to begin transaction (C:\O\Statistics\StatisticsManager.h:201) (tries=1): Cannot begin transaction. database is locked
  • ERROR - EventSource: Retrying in 15 seconds.

I have not been using Plex in the last 24 hours or so, so I do not know what the server is trying to do in those logs… Or why are those errors showing up.

Can anyone please help?

Thanks in advance.

Dimas.Plex Media Server Logs_2019-01-14_08-16-54.zip (787.8 KB)