I have what I would consider a relatively powerful server running Plex via a Docker in unraid. My setup consists of dual Xeon e5-2630l v2 processors. I’ve been slowly upgrading the system where I had 32gb ram and 50TB of storage via a DAS setup. To the best of my knowledge the hardware looks and works perfectly and performs well on the other (very few) tasks I have it doing. (e.g., running duck dns, nextcloud and a few other barely used dockers).
The issue I’m having is despite having all my cache date on an SSD in my array, transcoding via ram (I’ve tried ssd as well), turning off every other single operation my server is performing, and “optimizing the database” as many times as I can remember, the Plex direct play functionality can be insanely unpredictable. Local network is a hardwired using a gigabit switch and my internet connection is pulling nearly 500mbs/s. Last night I couldn’t direct play a 4K movie, so I tried a smaller 1080p movie and then a 720p episode of some cheesy kids show — I kept getting errors such as “couldn’t retrieve the play queue for this item” or the Plex app on my Apple TV would crash.
These errors have been ongoing and I’ve wanted to upgrade ram anyway so I’m now up to 128gb ram and the issues continue. In fact they got a lot worse after the ram upgrade but now seem to have settled down a bit.
If there is any other info I can provide that may point me in the right direction to optimize this or a setting I’ve overlooked (even though I likely didn’t give enough info) I’m all ears. Thanks in advance!
Can you describe your setup a little bit more. you talked about your Server and also a little bit about your network. what clients are you using? how are they connected? What Client and server versions ? I ask because i am running a much older machine (from 2009) and the direct play is generally based on the clients ability to direct play the media itself.
My local clients direct play because i have setup my media to be design for them. factors to look at client support for color depth, bit rate , audio track codex, …
Clients I’ve tried are Apple TV, Vizio TV Plex app, iOS Plex and the Mac OS Plex app.
The Apple TV and Vizio TV apps are connected via hardwired Ethernet. I’ve tested the iOS and Mac OS apps via wifi mostly but have also tested Mac OS via Ethernet as well. Does that help?
This does not seem like a Plex Server issue did you happen to check the Plex server logs to see if anything jumps out. I will say I have not used the Docker version of the Plex Media Server I am running mine on an Older Mac Pro directly (El Capitan).
What about the details of the Media itself. Like i said in my first reply while my clients are direct playing the factors that really impact my clients ability to direct play the media are usually the container of the media (mp4, mkv) and the bitrate of given pieces of media. can you post the media XML from the one example you have that you are struggling with? also would container , bitrate be the same for other media items you are having trouble with? what i am trying to get to is a pattern that we can address.
