Just wondering if anyone found a workaround to be able to RDP into their server but also have HW Transcode working?
I have tried using a displayport dummy/emulator plug, I have tried connecting a HDMI display and leaving it turned on but whenever I use Microsoft Remote Desktop hardware transcoding no longer works until I reboot my Windows 10 system.
I’m using an AMD gpu, I have also disabled the Intel graphics from bios with no difference.
Right now I am using Chrome Remote Desktop but it isn’t as good as native Windows RDP.
I have a number of servers that I RDP into all the time running PMS…
You have to boot the OS and Plex using an attached Monitor, keyboard, mouse…
Once everything is running then you can login using RDP to manage, sometimes you can get away with upgrades and PMS reboots. But if the OS needs to be rebooted then you need the local console. I use a KVM switch for the servers for just that reason and make sure you have that unit selected before you power on since some settings are done during the bios booting sequence.
A bit curious about your setup. Are you using integrated graphics or a GPU? My plex machine is a desktop with an older i7 and an amd rx570. Machine sits in a spare bedroom and I also use it for sonarr, to manage my wireless APs and a few other things. There is a keyboard, mouse and display connected but they mostly sit turned off.
I can’t say with much certainty when this all started but the RDP + HW transcoding issue is fairly new to me. I’m wondering what you are doing differently than me.
I have rebooted via RDP many times and with the screen and KB/M all off the HW transcoding works as expected until my next RDP session breaks it again. I read something on here today about forcing plex EXEs to use a specific GPU, I wonder if that would help.
Intel integrated graphics that acts like GPU… works very well,
This is the main reason you need a monitor on it is that the bios does some minor configuring of the graphic profile before it starts the OS… Once configured your good.
Problem being that booting without a monitor connected, the profile is going to be unknown condition.
No matter what GPU you use it has to get configured for an output device (monitor).
Yes you can get a dummy plug and with some that works others not…
I’m having the same issue and the only solution I found was switching to realVNC. It’s not as smooth as using the built in RDP but at least HW transcoding works reliably. Very annoying considering I’ve used this setup for years without issue. I’ll be following this thread in hopes of a better solution.
As long as I boot everything locally with a monitor and keyboard, mouse I have no problems connecting to the system using RDP… Just don’t use it to do a restart of the OS… I can start and stop Plex with issue.
True if it’s headless…
then maybe a dummy plug would work
if not I’m not sure how thats going to work since you need to the the OS to configure everything before Plex gets to it…
I’ve used RDP on my Windows PMS with acceleration enabled for a long time. No issues with RDP. As others noted, just make sure it has a monitor or dummy plug attached to HDMI at all times so the graphics driver can engage (this is not necessary with Nvidia in my experience btw, just Intel). I also set my server to automatically log into a local account that loads up PMS, so the first login is not over RDP. No Plex as a Service, since that will prevent acceleration as well.
Looks like I jumped the gun, still having issue with hardware transcoding. When booting up the server/htpc using the TV and mouse/keyboard it works great. Perfect HW transcoding. The moment I turn off the TV it no longer will HW transcode (as verified by Varys) and default to software. I know this wasnt an issue for years. I am throughly confused, is an HDMI dongle my only option?
This is a driver thing. I’ve seen one of the devs explain it as Plex requiring a “screen” to draw video on to transcode and it will pick the primary attached display. Even if you’re RDP’d in, if that display exists, it will be drawn on. Happens with nVidia (have a 1660). A dummy plug is the way to go (I use a DisplayPort attached display and have seen plugs recommended in other threads).
Edit: if I RDP in I have to reboot remotely to get encoding working again (though decoding still works).
Okay I did some further testing on this and my edit is wrong, but with a positive outcome. I’ve got a screen plugged into a nVidia card via DisplayPort. On boot, Windows will auto-login and from this point I can RDP in and out with transcoding always remaining on the GPU.
I was confused because for some reason, when auto-quality decides I have zero bandwidth, my card won’t encode to 720kbps and the CPU takes over. It swaps back to GPU when auto-quality goes back up.
