[USB flash drive with license key is inaccessible]

1 hour ago, JorgeB said:

Try rebooting, you cannot reconnect the flash drive on a running server.

I can't. The array cannot be stopped in this circumstance unless a power cycle. I don't know if a power cycle will damage the disks. 

[USB flash drive with license key is inaccessible]

Unraid 6.11.5 running on QNAP TS464.

 

All in a sudden, Unraid threw me an error saying flash drive is corrupted and license key is missing. 

 

Unplugged the USB flash drive and tested in two different computers, both can successfully read the drive without any issue. 

 

Went back to Unraid, even with the USB flash unplugged, in the Main page I still can see the flash drive there. Clicked it to view and saw nothing in it.

 

Plugged the USB flash drive to a different USB port of QNAP, the flash drive can be detected successfully as an unassigned device. The flash drive is still frozen in Unraid. 

 

Is this a hardware problem or software problem? How to get Unraid to detect the flash drive again? 

 

Thanks. 

eddie-nas3-diagnostics-20230913-1401.zip

[[Support] Plex Media Server - Official]

7 hours ago, xokia said:

 

When you are playing the movie what is your CPU doing? If you are not HW transcoding I would expect your CPU to be pegged 100%.

 

Also if you go into your dashboard when you are playing the movie does it say direct play? Or does it show it converting it to a different format?

Yes I am quite sure it is doing HW transcoding as I can see the sign [hw] in the dashboard. However the CPU still hike to 90-100% constantly. I guess it is because iGPU is trying to help the CPU but not that much. 

 

It is not shown direct play. It shows 4K to 1080P transcode with [hw] as the indication that iGPU is involved. 

[[Support] Plex Media Server - Official]

15 hours ago, mgutt said:

I would contradict. This user says it does not transcode 4K with HDR tone mapping:

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/r1g3wl/plex_hardware_transcoding_issue_with_pms_on_intel/

 

A different user confirmed:

 

His conclusion was a driver issue, but later he wrote this:

 

I know you said you disabled Tone Mapping. But its absolutely useless to transcode 4K without Tone Mapping as all colors would be washed out. Nobody would watch a movie in this quality. So its not worth the effort. The N5095 is too weak for 4K transcoding.

 

Something seems to be broken with your Plex installation / configuration. This is not normal.

Thanks for your explanation. I think the N5095 is not as powerful as I expect. Thanks again.

[[Support] Plex Media Server - Official]

1 hour ago, mgutt said:

Does not really make sense.

 

Does HDR Tone Mapping influence anything? Are there any subtitles active like forced PGS subtitles? 4K Transcoding with PGS Subtitle burn-in is endboss for any GPU. The best option is to use text-based subtitles like SRT.

Thanks for the advice. 

HDR tone mapping is disable

Subtitle is none. 

 

So I would like to give all the details in once:

1. QNAP TS464 with Intel Celeron N5095

2. Unraid 6.11.5 (which I believe is the latest one)

3. Plex 1.32.5.7349 (which I believe is also up to date) in docker. 

4. Plex premium member already

5. Hardware acceleration is enable

6. JasperLake [UHD Graphics] is chosen as the hardware transcoding device, which indicates Plex can recognize the iGPU

7. HDR tone mapping is disable

8. All video I tested without any subtitle enable

9. When playing the movie (no matter 4K or 1080P), the activity dashboard shows the [hw] in video codec which indicates the hardware acceleration is enable as configured. 

 

Here is my test results

1. If I turn on "Use hardware-accelerated video encoding" and play movie again, the [hw] is disappear in activity dashboard which indicates the hardware acceleration is disable. Not sure why it has to be disabled to have the hw acceleration?

2. When I tested with the hevc h.265 4K movie, even with the hardware acceleration enable, every 20 seconds the movie will be frozen for another 20 seconds. At the activity dashboard I can see it shows buffering. 

3. In the same test as above, even I set the transcode to convert to 1080P 20Mbps, or 12Mbps even 8Mbps, it does not make any difference, still buffering every 20 seconds. 

4. When I tested with the 1080P movie, with the hardware acceleration enable, the buffering issue is not there anymore. The move can be played smoothly. So is the Celeron N5095 is not capable for 4K HEVC decode?

5. Did a lot of Google search, most test shows N5095 should be able to handle 4K HEVC movie without any issue. 

 

Thanks again for your support. 

[[Support] Plex Media Server - Official]

17 hours ago, JonathanM said:

Plex pass?

https://support.plex.tv/articles/115002178853-using-hardware-accelerated-streaming/

Yes I bought the Plex pass membership. The hardware acceleration is working when I turn off "Use hardware-accelerated video encoding". However the HEVC 4K video is still unable to be played smoothly. 

[[Support] Plex Media Server - Official]

19 hours ago, mgutt said:

Install the Intel GPU Top Plugin.

 

Then edit the Plex Container, scroll to the bottom, Add device and set both path to /dev/dri

 

I thought you already did those steps. 😅

 

Yes I did pass the /dev/dri through following your suggestion. Now I can clearly see the iGPU detected by Plex. I found the hardware acceleration is working only when I disable the "Use hardware-accelerated video encoding". Once I enable it, the hardware acceleration is not working anymore (no more [hw] sign in the video snapshot). However if we disable "Use hardware-accelerated video encoding" to trigger the hardware acceleration, the HEVC (h.256) 4K video is not playing well. 

Is the option "Use hardware-accelerated video encoding" required for the HEVC video to be transcoded by GPU? 

[[Support] Plex Media Server - Official]

6 hours ago, mgutt said:

This step is not necessary. You only need to pass /dev/dri through the container settings

 

I'd say the CPU is not fully supported by the Container or unRAID Linux Kernel:

https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/r1g3wl/plex_hardware_transcoding_issue_with_pms_on_intel/

Thanks for the hint. I did some research and I can pass /dev/dri through the container settings. Now in the Plex transcode setting, I can see the hardware transcode device is JasperLake [UHD Graphics]. That means the iGPU is detected by the Plex. However when I play the movie again, I still don't see the [hw] shown in playback view as below. 

Checked CPU usage it does not seem the Plex use iGPU to transcode the movie.   

 

Do you know why with iGPU already detected by Plex, it still does not do the hardware transcode? 

 

 

Thanks.  

[[Support] Plex Media Server - Official]

4 hours ago, mgutt said:

This step is not necessary. You only need to pass /dev/dri through the container settings

 

I'd say the CPU is not fully supported by the Container or unRAID Linux Kernel:

https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/r1g3wl/plex_hardware_transcoding_issue_with_pms_on_intel/

 

 

Hi, 

Thanks for the hint. Just wondering which part of the container settings to pass /dev/dri through? I cannot see any hint in the container settings to do that. 

In the thread you provided, I can see 4K is not fully capable but 1080P and 720P should be supported to transcode. However I've tested 1080P and 720P both, and did not see that happen. 

[[Support] Plex Media Server - Official]

Hi, Folks

 

I got QNAP ts464 with Celeron 5095 and Unraid 6.11.5. I have Plex docker installed (version 4.108.0) and joined the Plex premium membership. I enable the hardware acceleration in Plex. However when I stop watch video via Plex, I found it is still using CPU instead of GPU to transcode. 

 

I read the log from Unraid and found the following error telling me cannot can find the hw device. 

 Sep 08, 2023 17:13:45.420 [23103432821560] Debug — [Req#1659/Transcode] Codecs: testing h264_nvenc (encoder)
 Sep 08, 2023 17:13:45.420 [23103432821560] Debug — [Req#1659/Transcode] Codecs: hardware transcoding: testing  API nvenc for device '' ()
 Sep 08, 2023 17:13:45.420 [23103432821560] Error — [Req#1659/Transcode] [FFMPEG] - Cannot load libcuda.so.1

 Sep 08, 2023 17:13:45.420 [23103432821560] Error — [Req#1659/Transcode] [FFMPEG] - Could not dynamically load CUDA

 Sep 08, 2023 17:13:45.420 [23103432821560] Debug — [Req#1659/Transcode] Codecs: hardware transcoding: opening hw device failed - probably not supported by this system, error: Operation not permitted
 Sep 08, 2023 17:13:45.420 [23103432821560] Debug — [Req#1659/Transcode] Could not create hardware context for h264_nvenc
 Sep 08, 2023 17:13:45.421 [23103432821560] Debug — [Req#1659/Transcode] Codecs: testing hevc (decoder) with hwdevice vaapi
 Sep 08, 2023 17:13:45.422 [23103432821560] Debug — [Req#1659/Transcode] Codecs: hardware transcoding: testing API vaapi for device '' ()
 Sep 08, 2023 17:13:45.422 [23103432821560] Debug — [Req#1659/Transcode] Codecs: hardware transcoding: opening hw device failed - probably not supported by this system, error: Generic error in an external library
 Sep 08, 2023 17:13:45.422 [23103432821560] Debug — [Req#1659/Transcode] Could not create hardware context for hevc
 Sep 08, 2023 17:13:45.422 [23103432821560] Debug — [Req#1659/Transcode] Codecs: testing hevc (decoder) with hwdevice nvdec
 Sep 08, 2023 17:13:45.423 [23103432821560] Debug — [Req#1659/Transcode] Codecs: hardware transcoding: testing API nvdec for device '' ()
 Sep 08, 2023 17:13:45.423 [23103432821560] Error — [Req#1659/Transcode] [FFMPEG] - Cannot load libcuda.so.1

 Sep 08, 2023 17:13:45.423 [23103432821560] Error — [Req#1659/Transcode] [FFMPEG] - Could not dynamically load CUDA

 Sep 08, 2023 17:13:45.423 [23103432821560] Debug — [Req#1659/Transcode] Codecs: hardware transcoding: opening hw device failed - probably not supported by this system, error: Operation not permitted
 Sep 08, 2023 17:13:45.423 [23103432821560] Debug — [Req#1659/Transcode] Could not create hardware context for hevc

 

I checked the device and found the card should be renderD128. 

root@Eddie-NAS3:/dev/dri# ls -al
total 0
drwxrwxrwx  3 root root       100 Jun 27 04:51 ./
drwxr-xr-x 16 root root      3360 Jun 27 04:51 ../
drwxrwxrwx  2 root root        80 Jun 27 04:51 by-path/
crwxrwxrwx  1 root video 226,   0 Jun 27 04:51 card0
crwxrwxrwx  1 root video 226, 128 Jun 27 04:51 renderD128

 

I edit the Preferences.xml by adding the following line and saved it. However it still has the same problem and same error in log. 

HardwareDevicePath="/dev/dri/renderD128"

 

Not sure what I've missed and also not sure if this thread is the right one to ask this question. Can you give me a hint what could be the next step to fix it? Thanks a lot. 

[Activated the key but Unraid still shows Trial already expired]

3 hours ago, JorgeB said:

A reboot should make Connect sync up.

Rebooted it again and it did resolved the problem this time. Strange. Thanks for your help. 

[Activated the key but Unraid still shows Trial already expired]

3 hours ago, JorgeB said:

A reboot should make Connect sync up.

Rebooted the Unraid for multiple times, still the same error. Still showing Trial expires in 11 days 23 hours 33 minutes ago.

[Activated the key but Unraid still shows Trial already expired]

I bought the Unraid Basic key and activate. I can see the server has basic key that in Unraid Connect website. However in my Unraid web GUI, it is still shows in trial period as screenshot below. Just wondering why Unraid server cannot recognize the license key? 

[Unassigned Devices - Managing Disk Drives and Remote Shares Outside of The Unraid Array]

Hi, Guys:

 

I tried to mount an ISO file from the disk but got nowhere to go. I have the Unassigned plugin installed and I can mount the remote SMB without issue. However when I click "ADD ISO FILE SHARE", a pop up page appeared asking me to choose iso file. I clicked it but got a draw down menu with nothing, as below. 

 

Is there anything I've missed? All disks are started already. 

[Unraid does not allow to mount an ISO file]

Hi, Guys:

 

I tried to mount an ISO file from the disk but got nowhere to go. I have the Unassigned plugin installed and I can mount the remote SMB without issue. However when I click "ADD ISO FILE SHARE", a pop up page appeared asking me to choose iso file. I clicked it but got a draw down menu with nothing, as below. 

 

Is there anything I've missed? All disks are started already. 

[Pre-built system available in the market?]

Hi, Guys:

 

Try to build a new NAS system with 4-6 12TB HDDs for photo/movie storage only. Before I built one with HP Gen8 Microserver which is pretty solid and still working stably. However the new Gen 10 microserver from HPE is over my budget so just try to find a similar budget server like Gen8 back in 5 years. Any recommendations in 2023? 

 

Thanks for any inputs.