I’ve been having this problem for a while now, that at some times, certain videos will not start playing.
This seems to happen more often on my iPad and on my AppleTV than it does on chrome. I’ve been keeping an eye on the logs when this happens and there appear to be a lot of “ClientProfileExtra: video transcode target already exists for streaming hls” and "Got a request to stop a transcode session without a sessions GUID (or with an invalid one). Screenshot here .
Usually this issue would somehow resolve itself and the video would play fine a few minutes later. I should note that my Synology DS918+ was under no particular stress at these times and the videos played fine when accessed via chrome.
Today I ran into this problem again and decided to gather both the logs from the PMS as well as the client logs from my iPad and make a post here. I should note that in this instance the video wouldn’t even play in chrome, so I’m not 100% if it was the same issue.
I should also note that in none of those instances was any video transcoding required, only audio and subtitles.
Ok, it has just happened again. Same scenario: iOS App just appears to be loading forever, Plex in Chrome plays video instantly this time. I’ve attached both logfiles
I’ll try the permission thing tomorrow. I’m too tired right now to be messing with permissions in SSH
I do however wonder if that’s that the root of the issue since it usually resolves itself by waiting a couple minutes and then trying again.
I’ve had this issue before I had the transcode folder on a USB stick. I did this as it’s slightly faster than my main volume and I guess to keep R/W on my HDDs low. I’ll try putting it back on the main volume though.
Do you have any idea what the “ClientProfileExtra: video transcode target already exists for streaming hls” and "Got a request to stop a transcode session without a sessions GUID (or with an invalid one). could mean?
So I’ve double-checked the permissions, moved the transcode folder back to an actual HDD and restarted plex.
The issue doesn’t seem to be resolved though. I just tried it again: I tried to start playing a movie on my iPad, it gave me the spinning wheel for a while, played the movie for like half a second and then it seemed to have crashed and just said “there was an error playing the media”. The same movie played fine and without delay in the plex web app.
I went to the (iOS) Logs again and there seems to be a lot of unknown errors:
2018/06/30 14:28:16.546 (244 MB) (652266) ⌠PMKAVQueuePlayer.m:142 | Current item did finish playing with status FAILED. Error: Error Domain=NSURLErrorDomain Code=-1008 “See -[AVPlayerItem errorLog] for 1 events” UserInfo={NSDebugDescription=See -[AVPlayerItem errorLog] for 1 events, NSLocalizedDescription=resource unavailable, NSUnderlyingError=0x1c284fcc0 {Error Domain=CoreMediaErrorDomain Code=-12884 “Playlist File not received” UserInfo={NSDescription=Playlist File not received}}}
PMKVideoPlaybackEngine.m:1815 | Unexpected problem loading tracks in player item <PMKAVPlayerItem: 0x1c5a3f2a0, asset = <AVURLAsset: 0x1c5a2a2a0, URL =…
PMKPlayerManager.m:249 | Error playing media of type video: Error Domain=PMKPlaybackEngineErrorDomain Code=4 “Playback ended prematurely for unknown reasons.” U
When googling those errors I came across this thread which seems like it’s the same issue I’m seeing. Unfortunately it didn’t really provide a solution.
I am told that you have a bandwidth limit set on the iPad Plex app, check the settings in the app and also there is/was an issue with the transfer speeds on the USB drive during transcoding.
I wasn’t aware that you could set a bandwidth limit in the iPad app. I haven’t one and I cant find the setting anywhere.
Can you test the transfer rate using a 100GB file between your PC and the USB drive on the NAS. If you would, transfer the file to/from the USB drive and record the average bitrate.
Also check the network transfer speeds between the iPad and your PC and let us know what sort of transfer speeds you get, thanks.
Since I’ve now moved to an actual HDD now, I assume you mean that. I used to NAS performance tester (PC ↔ NAS) and a simple file copy from my NAS to my iPad. Screenshots here and here.
I don’t think it’s a network performance/bandwidth limit. My router is a new Synology RT2600AC and I don’t have any problems with other applications on any of my devices.
Since you mentioned connection issues on the iPad, I’m starting to get a suspicion as to what might be the issue:
I access the WebUI of my NAS using a domain name that forwards to a dynDNS service that forwards to my current IP. At times, I do however fail to access my NAS this way from WITHIN my local network. I get a DNS error in chrome. Accessing the webUI from my phone connected to LTE (so not in my LAN) works during those times. This issue resolves itself after a couple minutes, very similar to how this issue resolves itself.
I also use PiHole as my DNS resolver in my network. Until just now I’ve had DNSSEC checks enabled and this morning I saw a message similar to this but it said “BOGUS” instead of INSECURE in the DNSSEC column.
I understand plex somehow communicates from the internet to my local plex instance using a domain similar to this 192-168-2-2.4896[…]ea8.plex.direct. I’ve temporarily switched my DNS server to the google one (8.8.8.8) and I’m gonna see if this resolved the issue.
Ye I don’t wanna say this too early, but I think that was indeed the issue. Changing my standard DNS server to 8.8.8.8 instead of pihole solved the issue. I’ll re-enable pihole now and keep an eye on the logs to see exactly what the issue is.
