Waiting to be converted

Syncing a movie to the ipad makes the server hold on Waiting to be converted.

 

Ive installed plex media server on a windows 8 machine and the iOS app on an ipad.

Now ive tried syncing a MP4 movie with the ipad which works just fine but when i try to

sync a non natively playable file (in this case a MKV container) the server gets stuck on waiting to be converted. 

 

The movie file is located on an external hard drive connected to the windows 8 machine using SMB/CIFS.

Folder is writeable.

 

Plex Media Server version 0.9.8.6.

Plex app version 3.2.4. on iOS 7.0.2.

 

It is not stuck, it is just not showing you the status.

Transcoding a video can take a long time, about 30mins to 3 hours depending on source and destination formating.

Use Task Manager to see that your PMS is transcoding -- it should be obvious if the server is preparing the file, even if the client is not indicating its progress.

The PMS was not transcoding, even after 2 hours the server was still stuck.
Rebooted the PMS which didn't help, but after a full system restart the PMS invoked the transcoding.


So it is fixed, if it comes up again i will update the topic.

This is an old thread, but it came up when I tried to google my similar problem.

Make sure “Prioritize streaming transcodes” is not unchecked on your Server->Transcoder settings, otherwise the sync / conversion won’t start until all the clients stop playing something from your server.

@Treytor said:
This is an old thread, but it came up when I tried to google my similar problem.

Make sure “Prioritize streaming transcodes” is not unchecked on your Server->Transcoder settings, otherwise the sync / conversion won’t start until all the clients stop playing something from your server.

I was having a similar issue and unchecking the setting started the conversion for me. Not sure if that’s what you meant or not with the double negation :slight_smile: But for others just to be clear, when this box is ticked: “Pause background transcoding tasks when streaming content that requires transcoding. Recommended for low-powered systems.” So unticking it enables multitasking transcodes. If that’s what you want. If you start getting slow transcodes for streaming you might want to enable this setting again.

@Treytor said:
This is an old thread, but it came up when I tried to google my similar problem.

Make sure “Prioritize streaming transcodes” is not unchecked on your Server->Transcoder settings, otherwise the sync / conversion won’t start until all the clients stop playing something from your server.

Most helpful, makes the difference between a frustrated post b*tching about how plex doesnt seem to work and a happy one saying “thanks for pointing that out”.

Is this the default setting? I dont remember tampering with it.

It’s now an even older thread and the problem is still happening for me. I purchased plex pass purely to do the offline sync and it’s not working… aaahhh. I too am getting the “Waiting to be converted”

@“Lord Jadawin” said:
It’s now an even older thread and the problem is still happening for me. I purchased plex pass purely to do the offline sync and it’s not working… aaahhh. I too am getting the “Waiting to be converted”

Hi.

I had the same problem, and what I did was the following:

I clicked on the state icon, then on the conversion tab, and there I could see that the state was paused.

I clicked the button, paused, and “voila”, all working perfectly.

Try and post.

Cheers

@fernandoaza Thank you! That was it. It only makes me wonder how it got stuck.

Same issue here. It does work with some movies though. When I go to the conversion tab there is nothing there. I’m also trying to sync the original quality so I don’t understand what it is trying to convert. I’ve tried all the different quality settings.

I cannot find this STATE icon. I have the latest version of Plexweb on windows 10 (as of 18-09-14) and I believe Plex has changed their look since this thread. Anybody else having this problem?

You can find “status” here:

http://127.0.0.1:32400/web/index.html#!/status/sync

I’m seeing the same problem - stuck indefinitely on “… Waiting to be converted”, even after letting it go overnight without any other sync’s. other tv shows and movies sync fine and start immediately.

Does anyone have any troubleshooting guidance, log analysis, etc…?

I’m running Version 1.13.8.5395 on a fedora 28 vm.

@swvajanyatek Does this always happen with a given item? If so can you please remove it from sync, add it again, and then (once it’s been stuck at “waiting to be converted” for a while) share server logs?

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

There were issues in some platforms with videos containing eAC3 streams getting stuck, wonder if that’s what’s affecting you?

@ManuelPG I just tried it with a demo clip, here are the logs below.

Plex Media Server Logs_2018-10-10_10-10-31.zip (26.6 KB)

Another with a movie
Plex Media Server Logs_2018-10-10_10-26-22.zip (28.8 KB)

Anyone know how to solve this?

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