Xiaomi mi box s crashing the plex media server

[PAK]

Server Version#:1.21.1.3876-3c3adfcb4
Player Version#:8.11.0.22186 (a1b8a7fb)

Hello everyone,

I tried finding something similar to my issue but could not find anything. If this has been mentioned before please redirect me there and close this topic.

I have a Plex Media Server running on a Late 2016 MacBook Pro 13-inch and I play media through an external hard drive on an Apple TV 4K and a Xiaomi Mi Box S. When playing media from the Apple TV everything works fine and transcoding is not really an issue so far.

The issue is with the Xiaomi Mi Box S. As soon as I open the Plex App on the Mi Box, the Plex Media Server on my MacBook crashes, and I have to manually open it again. Sometimes it crashes again within a minute and so far I have only been able to keep it running if I don’t exit the Plex App on the Mi Box.

I have deactivated the Generate video preview thumbnails, Generate chapter thumbnails, Analyze audio tracks for loudness settings, and nothing else is running on the Mac when the Server crashes so RAM shouldn’t be an issue. The Apple TV is also turned off, so the only thing logging in to Plex is the Xiaomi Mi Box. The weird thing is that I don’t even have to play media on it for the Server to crash, it crashes as soon as I open the Plex App on the Mi Box, therefore it seems like logging in crashes it.

I would also submit logs but none have been created.

Has anyone else encountered anything similar? Is there anything I can do?

Edit: I’m logging in to the Plex App with my account on all devices, there is no other account. Is there a limitation on the devices that my account can be used on? And could that limitation crash the Plex Media Server?

[PAK]

To anyone who may have the same issue, I found a workaround, although I still believe it should be investigated on why it happens in the first place.

On my Mac, I created a new application using the script editor with the following code:
on run
doit()
end run

on idle
doit()
return 5 – in seconds
end idle

on doit()
tell application “System Events”
set plexApps to every application process whose bundle identifier is “com.plexapp.plexmediaserver”
if (count of plexApps) is 0 then
tell application “Finder”
launch application “Plex Media Server”
end tell
end if
end tell
end doit

I then saved this script as an application with the option “Stay open …” checked. I moved it to my applications folder and ran it. I also selected it to run at login in case my Mac restarts.
I then tried opening the Plex App on the Mi Box, which crashed my Plex Media Server, but the Server then opened up by itself after 5 seconds because of the script.

This seems to solve my issue for now.

Note: This was not my solution. I found this https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7457783 where someone pasted this code for the Mail App, and then I switched the bundle identifier etc. for Plex. Hope this helps some people.