January 1, 201313 yr Has anyone seen crappy transcoding such as this image? No issues buffering, getting 1080p streams just fine, its just this weird quality. I can't for the life of me figure out what would cause the issue. My first assumption was the CPU wasn't up to the task, but I figured that would cause buffering, not this bad quality. This was also the conclusion by some people on the plex IRC channel. If anyone has seen this issue, what causes it?
January 2, 201313 yr could you give an output of the mediainfo? i'm guessing, playing the video without transcoding (on the pc/mac client), the video looks good? what are your bitrate settings for the transcode (set in the players setting)
January 2, 201313 yr Nope, doesn't matter what type of video file, AVI, mp4 or any other type gives the same distortion. Same with direct play not transcoding or with transcoding ranging from 320kbps all the way to 20 mbps. Same look every time.
January 2, 201313 yr so far i have only seen such results on crappy encoded files when i fast forwarded... it was crappy until the next keyframe was reached. other media player play the files without any errors? (mediainfo could still help)
January 2, 201313 yr As long as I do not transcode, yes the files play fine. Here is the MediaInfo from the test file in that picture. eneral Complete name : Z:\SD Movies\1114 (1900)\1114.avi Format : AVI Format/Info : Audio Video Interleave File size : 700 MiB Duration : 1h 22mn Overall bit rate mode : Variable Overall bit rate : 1 192 Kbps Writing application : VirtualDubMod 1.5.4.1 (build 2178/release) Writing library : VirtualDubMod build 2178/release Video ID : 0 Format : MPEG-4 Visual Format profile : Advanced Simple@L5 Format settings, BVOP : 1 Format settings, QPel : No Format settings, GMC : No warppoints Format settings, Matrix : Custom Codec ID : XVID Codec ID/Hint : XviD Duration : 1h 22mn Bit rate : 1 064 Kbps Width : 608 pixels Height : 336 pixels Display aspect ratio : 16:9 Frame rate : 25.000 fps Color space : YUV Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0 Bit depth : 8 bits Scan type : Progressive Compression mode : Lossy Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.208 Stream size : 625 MiB (89%) Writing library : XviD 1.2.0.dev47 (UTC 2006-11-01) Audio ID : 1 Format : MPEG Audio Format version : Version 1 Format profile : Layer 3 Mode : Joint stereo Codec ID : 55 Codec ID/Hint : MP3 Duration : 1h 22mn Bit rate mode : Variable Bit rate : 115 Kbps Nominal bit rate : 128 Kbps Channel(s) : 2 channels Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz Compression mode : Lossy Stream size : 67.7 MiB (10%) Alignment : Aligned on interleaves Interleave, duration : 24 ms (0.60 video frame) Interleave, preload duration : 576 ms Writing library : LAME3.97 Encoding settings : -m j -V 4 -q 2 -lowpass 17 --abr 128 Language : English I have upped the clockspeed of my ram(it has been running underclocked) and changed my NIC out since the previous NIC had issues dropping the link. I don't believe dropping the link would cause this issue but would rather cause buffering/loss of video, but it was an outstanding issue that needed to be corrected anyway.
January 3, 201313 yr can anyone help me with creating a plex profile for the Android Media center for Pivos XIOS. I'm not sure I understand how to create one and where to put the XML file once created. I have Plex installed on my Linux Ubuntu 12.04 media Box and running the Plex app on my XIOS media center.
January 13, 201313 yr Can anyone give me a bit of help to get plex going. It's the reason I upgraded to RC10 from 4.7! I've mounted an apps drive /mnt/apps with a go script for now, and I've got my existing installs of SAB And SB running off that fine with unmenu. I installed plex, rebooted, and I changed the settings because I want the library to run off my apps drive, which doesn't spin down because of SB. Enable Plex : Yes Library Directory mnt/apps/plex/Library/ Temp Directory mnt/apps/plex/tmp/ When I press apply it doesn't start, and has this a few times in the syslog Jan 13 22:24:56 Tower usermod[9660]: change user 'nobody' shell from '/bin/false' to '/bin/bash' Jan 13 22:24:56 Tower su[9665]: Successful su for nobody by root Jan 13 22:24:56 Tower su[9665]: + root:nobody Jan 13 22:25:19 Tower su[10149]: Successful su for nobody by root Jan 13 22:25:19 Tower su[10149]: + root:nobody Jan 13 22:41:51 Tower su[11290]: Successful su for unraid-plex by root Jan 13 22:41:51 Tower su[11290]: + root:unraid-plex Jan 13 22:41:55 Tower pms: Starting Plex... Jan 13 22:41:55 Tower su[11309]: Successful su for unraid-plex by root Jan 13 22:41:55 Tower su[11309]: + root:unraid-plex Jan 13 22:41:57 Tower pms: Check 1: Plex has NOT started yet, something is maybe wrong! Jan 13 22:42:00 Tower pms: Check 2: Plex has NOT started yet, something is maybe wrong! Jan 13 22:42:03 Tower pms: Check 3: Plex has NOT started yet, something is maybe wrong! Jan 13 22:42:06 Tower pms: Check 4: Plex has NOT started yet, something is maybe wrong! Jan 13 22:42:09 Tower pms: Check 5: Plex has NOT started yet, something is maybe wrong! Jan 13 22:42:12 Tower su[11338]: Successful su for unraid-plex by root Jan 13 22:42:12 Tower su[11338]: + root:unraid-plex Jan 13 22:51:51 Tower pms: Starting Plex... Jan 13 22:51:51 Tower su[12057]: Successful su for unraid-plex by root Jan 13 22:51:51 Tower su[12057]: + root:unraid-plex Jan 13 22:51:53 Tower pms: Check 1: Plex has NOT started yet, something is maybe wrong! Jan 13 22:51:56 Tower pms: Check 2: Plex has NOT started yet, something is maybe wrong! Jan 13 22:51:59 Tower pms: Check 3: Plex has NOT started yet, something is maybe wrong! Jan 13 22:52:02 Tower pms: Check 4: Plex has NOT started yet, something is maybe wrong! Jan 13 22:52:05 Tower pms: Check 5: Plex has NOT started yet, something is maybe wrong! Jan 13 22:52:08 Tower su[12085]: Successful su for unraid-plex by root Jan 13 22:52:08 Tower su[12085]: + root:unraid-plex Jan 13 22:56:58 Tower su[12424]: Successful su for unraid-plex by root Jan 13 22:56:58 Tower su[12424]: + root:unraid-plex Jan 13 23:03:27 Tower su[13189]: Successful su for unraid-plex by root Jan 13 23:03:27 Tower su[13189]: + root:unraid-plex Also the folders created by plex is /mnt/apps/plex/library and tmp are locked to a users root:unraid-plex and can't be deleted or modified. I've googled, and checked out the plex forums, and I've already commented out the following which hasn't worked #export LC_ALL="en_US.UTF-8" #export LANG="en_US.UTF-8" I also checked unmenu and gcc isn't installed Anyone have any other ideas? I've just bought an LG TV so I really want to get Plex running so that I can use it's medialink app. Thanks in advance for any help. Edit: I installed Plex Version 0.9.7.10.382 if that helps anyone diagnose the problem.
January 14, 201313 yr Hi All, A quick question if I may - I had plex installed using the plex updater plugin, which installed plex etc. I removed the updater plugin and plg file and used the removepkg command to remove Plex itself. Is that it? Or will Plugin re install itself upon restart? Thanks very much for any tips sutty.
January 14, 201313 yr you probably still have the plex install file in the extra folder on your flash drive. delete that, if you want to remove plex permanently.
January 15, 201313 yr I seem to have a problem as well. I have installed Plex a total of 3 times (removed each one afterwards). I finally thought I had it on the 4th try, but no avail. Everything plays fine, except when I download something new. For example: Bones was aired tonight, it downloaded, processed and Plex picked it up once Sickbeard moved it over. I go onto the Plex Web console and it shows the episode as the follows: Problems /mnt/user/TV Shows/Bones/Season 8/Bones - 8x10 - The Diamond in the Rough.mkv Please check the permissions for this file. I have Plex installed onto /mnt/user/plex. Once I run the newperms command, everything works correctly, but I DO NOT want to be running that every time I download a new show. I am running the latest version of plex (0.9.7.9). Any help is appreciated!
January 15, 201313 yr I seem to have a problem as well. I have installed Plex a total of 3 times (removed each one afterwards). I finally thought I had it on the 4th try, but no avail. Everything plays fine, except when I download something new. For example: Bones was aired tonight, it downloaded, processed and Plex picked it up once Sickbeard moved it over. I go onto the Plex Web console and it shows the episode as the follows: Problems /mnt/user/TV Shows/Bones/Season 8/Bones - 8x10 - The Diamond in the Rough.mkv Please check the permissions for this file. I have Plex installed onto /mnt/user/plex. Once I run the newperms command, everything works correctly, but I DO NOT want to be running that every time I download a new show. I am running the latest version of plex (0.9.7.9). Any help is appreciated! What users are SAB and SB running as? They should be run as the user "nobody". It sounds like maybe they are being run as user "root" or some privileged account and therefore the files/directories you download with them are associated with the root user. The user account Plex is running as then can not access those files/directories. When you run the new perms script it is changing the user:group of them to nobody:users which Plex can then access. In a telnet session run "ps -ef" to see what user they are running as if you do not know. Also, in the SAB config under Folders what do you have the permissions for completed downloads set as? This could be a cause also. I just set mine to 777 since I am the only one that accesses my server. Also, if suggest moving your SAB and SB (and CP if you use it) over the the 5.0 plugin versions. Your data directories for them should transfer over fine.
January 16, 201313 yr That solved it. Also had a problem with my USB that I had to fix in Windows first, but setting SB and SAB to nobody worked. Thank you very much mrow!!!
January 18, 201313 yr On the Plex install forum page it says UnRaid v5.x only. This hasn't been tested on a 4.7? Does anyone know if it would work?
January 18, 201313 yr Now I seem to have the problem where plex dies after each Library Update. I cannot get to the Plex Web and my Plex Client on my Mac dies. I have the setup the same as I posted at the end of page 69. I check the ActivityMonitor on the Unraid Tools and it says the PlexMediaScan is still running, but I do not have access to any of my videos/tv shows on Plex until I do a full reboot of my unraid server. Any ideas?
January 19, 201313 yr On the Plex install forum page it says UnRaid v5.x only. This hasn't been tested on a 4.7? Does anyone know if it would work? Nope. Definitely needs 5.
January 27, 201313 yr trying Plex Media Server again.... I have been running the PMS on my unraid for some time, but not really using it for the past several months because I have a popcorn hour, so no official Plex client release that works well. I just puchased a Roku 2 and installed the Plex client, so I'm back to testing the PMS plugin. I'm getting very choppy playback with some movies (these play fine on my pch), and sometimes it just freezes or won't play at all. Playback from the plex webgui, right on the server works fine. My unraid is not out of memory, no issues with my server. Again my pch can play any of these files over my lan without any issues. The pch connects to a movie share via smb on my unraid, works just fine. So, I thinking that perhaps my PMS is not setup correctly. I have the current PMS version installed and I'm running the current release of v5 rc10, and that is using samba 3.6.10. Back when I installed this plugin, I was told to select a specific drive, so my current settings are; /mnt/disk5/plex/library /mnt/disk5/plex/temp For the plex share, I have that configured to Include disk5, and exclude all other disks. Use Cache disk set to NO. SMB only and is set to Hidden / Private, as I was trying to block my kids from being able to connect to it from their ipads. The share was /is created automatically because of the "plex" folder at the root of disk5, so I just edited the disk settings back when I was trying to get this going based on feedback from this forum. I don't think anything actually uses the plex share. I don't think the plex clients use smb, or any other regular protocol. Please correct me if I have that wrong. On page 1 of this thread, under Information link that takes you to Plex website, it says to use (and it says not to use hidden shares??); /mnt/cache/appdata/plex/library /mnt/cache/cachetmp/plextmp Then later I read in this thread that says to use; /mnt/cache/.plugins/plex /mnt/cache/.plugins/plex/tmp Doesn't the . in front of plugins make that directory hidden? Why should I use the cache drive instead of my current disk5. I guess I missed something while I was away. Again, my current setup plays, finds the movie files and downloads the art work, I'm just getting crapy performance. What is the best / current recommendations that I should use? Thanks! Update: Tested playback on the server itself via Plex page in IE, worked just fine. It would seem my issue is using any Plex client results in crapy performance.
January 28, 201313 yr trying Plex Media Server again.... I have been running the PMS on my unraid for some time, but not really using it for the past several months because I have a popcorn hour, so no official Plex client release that works well. I just puchased a Roku 2 and installed the Plex client, so I'm back to testing the PMS plugin. I'm getting very choppy playback with some movies (these play fine on my pch), and sometimes it just freezes or won't play at all. Playback from the plex webgui, right on the server works fine. My unraid is not out of memory, no issues with my server. Again my pch can play any of these files over my lan without any issues. The pch connects to a movie share via smb on my unraid, works just fine. So, I thinking that perhaps my PMS is not setup correctly. I have the current PMS version installed and I'm running the current release of v5 rc10, and that is using samba 3.6.10. Back when I installed this plugin, I was told to select a specific drive, so my current settings are; /mnt/disk5/plex/library /mnt/disk5/plex/temp For the plex share, I have that configured to Include disk5, and exclude all other disks. Use Cache disk set to NO. SMB only and is set to Hidden / Private, as I was trying to block my kids from being able to connect to it from their ipads. The share was /is created automatically because of the "plex" folder at the root of disk5, so I just edited the disk settings back when I was trying to get this going based on feedback from this forum. I don't think anything actually uses the plex share. I don't think the plex clients use smb, or any other regular protocol. Please correct me if I have that wrong. On page 1 of this thread, under Information link that takes you to Plex website, it says to use (and it says not to use hidden shares??); /mnt/cache/appdata/plex/library /mnt/cache/cachetmp/plextmp Then later I read in this thread that says to use; /mnt/cache/.plugins/plex /mnt/cache/.plugins/plex/tmp Doesn't the . in front of plugins make that directory hidden? Why should I use the cache drive instead of my current disk5. I guess I missed something while I was away. Again, my current setup plays, finds the movie files and downloads the art work, I'm just getting crapy performance. What is the best / current recommendations that I should use? Thanks! Update: Tested playback on the server itself via Plex page in IE, worked just fine. It would seem my issue is using any Plex client results in crapy performance. Hi, plex on a roku client is very CPU demanding as it has to transcode. my directories are set to /mnt/disk1/Plex and /mnt/disk1/Plex/temp yes, . makes it hidden. The pch has it's own built in decoding of files. So to troubleshoot this further i'll need to know what the media files are: HD/SD, audio etc and the settings of playback, (try reducing them) Just looked up Intel E6600 and it's a core 2 duo @ 2.4GHz, so it seems powerful enough. To check when you are playing a file check what your cpu usage is on the server. Also are you running anything at the same time? it sounds like it's running our of resources some where. Is the Roku over wifi or LAN? Plex is really quite a simple beast with minimal settings.
January 28, 201313 yr Back when I installed this plugin, I was told to select a specific drive, so my current settings are; /mnt/disk5/plex/library /mnt/disk5/plex/temp Why should I use the cache drive instead of my current disk5. I guess I missed something while I was away. Again, my current setup plays, finds the movie files and downloads the art work, I'm just getting crapy performance. What is the best / current recommendations that I should use? Thanks! Update: Tested playback on the server itself via Plex page in IE, worked just fine. It would seem my issue is using any Plex client results in crapy performance. Hi, plex on a roku client is very CPU demanding as it has to transcode. my directories are set to /mnt/disk1/Plex and /mnt/disk1/Plex/temp yes, . makes it hidden. The pch has it's own built in decoding of files. So to troubleshoot this further i'll need to know what the media files are: HD/SD, audio etc and the settings of playback, (try reducing them) Just looked up Intel E6600 and it's a core 2 duo @ 2.4GHz, so it seems powerful enough. To check when you are playing a file check what your cpu usage is on the server. Also are you running anything at the same time? it sounds like it's running our of resources some where. Is the Roku over wifi or LAN? Plex is really quite a simple beast with minimal settings. Ok, so your settings are about the same as mine. Therefore, why do some use the . and make theirs hidden? Why do some recommend using the cache drive? Media files are mostly mkv and 1080p with 5.1 or dts audio. I'll have to try to reducing to see if that will help. I will also take a look at server cpu when trying plex client, but as you said I think my cpu is good enough. During these tests, I'm not running anything else. Roku is on LAN. Oh, on the PMS settings, those are all set to defaults, meaning I didn't change any of them. I just pointed to my movie directory and that's it. Thanks!
January 29, 201313 yr Ok, so your settings are about the same as mine. Therefore, why do some use the . and make theirs hidden? Why do some recommend using the cache drive? Media files are mostly mkv and 1080p with 5.1 or dts audio. I'll have to try to reducing to see if that will help. I will also take a look at server cpu when trying plex client, but as you said I think my cpu is good enough. During these tests, I'm not running anything else. Roku is on LAN. Oh, on the PMS settings, those are all set to defaults, meaning I didn't change any of them. I just pointed to my movie directory and that's it. Thanks! Transcoding 1080p video on the fly with a 6, going on 7, year old 2.4GHz processor is pushing it a little. The E6600 was released in the third quarter of 2006. Also, for the temp directory I just use /tmp. Writing these temp files to the array like you're doing is going to be even more taxing on the CPU as it then has to calculate parity. If you insist on writing it to a disk the write it to a temp folder on the cache drive. However I've found I've gotten better performance just writing to /tmp for both Plex and Air Video. Using a period in front of the library directory was the old way a lot of people stored their plugin data on the cache drive without it getting moved to the array. The mover does not move directories starting with a period. However you can now create cache only shares so this is no longer necessary or recommended. For instance I created a cache only share called "plugins" so my Plex library is located at /mnt/cache/plugins/plex.
January 29, 201313 yr Transcoding 1080p video on the fly with a 6, going on 7, year old 2.4GHz processor is pushing it a little. The E6600 was released in the third quarter of 2006. Also, for the temp directory I just use /tmp. Writing these temp files to the array like you're doing is going to be even more taxing on the CPU as it then has to calculate parity. If you insist on writing it to a disk the write it to a temp folder on the cache drive. However I've found I've gotten better performance just writing to /tmp for both Plex and Air Video. Using a period in front of the library directory was the old way a lot of people stored their plugin data on the cache drive without it getting moved to the array. The mover does not move directories starting with a period. However you can now create cache only shares so this is no longer necessary or recommended. For instance I created a cache only share called "plugins" so my Plex library is located at /mnt/cache/plugins/plex. Ok, did some more test. Played 1080p to my ipad 2 with no issues, using the same files. CPU was never over 40%, and was around 20% most of the time. I agree it's old, but seems to be working ok. As for the tmp directory, I'm not set on anything, I just setup my PMS as instructed. If the tmp files are no big deal and better off being written to memory (/tmp) I'm good with that. I'll try changing the path to /tmp For Plex directory, thanks. I have no issue with the files being on the cache drive, as if anything ever happen to my cache drive, PMS would just download the movie info again, so that that could save cpu time by not having to generate parity, etc. I'll try the same path as you have. I assume that to create a cache only drive, I just need to use the same path as you are. Or do I need to do something else to setup the cache only drive? BTW - are you using the Roku 2 with Plex and all happy?
January 29, 201313 yr Transcoding 1080p video on the fly with a 6, going on 7, year old 2.4GHz processor is pushing it a little. The E6600 was released in the third quarter of 2006. Also, for the temp directory I just use /tmp. Writing these temp files to the array like you're doing is going to be even more taxing on the CPU as it then has to calculate parity. If you insist on writing it to a disk the write it to a temp folder on the cache drive. However I've found I've gotten better performance just writing to /tmp for both Plex and Air Video. Using a period in front of the library directory was the old way a lot of people stored their plugin data on the cache drive without it getting moved to the array. The mover does not move directories starting with a period. However you can now create cache only shares so this is no longer necessary or recommended. For instance I created a cache only share called "plugins" so my Plex library is located at /mnt/cache/plugins/plex. Ok, did some more test. Played 1080p to my ipad 2 with no issues, using the same files. CPU was never over 40%, and was around 20% most of the time. I agree it's old, but seems to be working ok. As for the tmp directory, I'm not set on anything, I just setup my PMS as instructed. If the tmp files are no big deal and better off being written to memory (/tmp) I'm good with that. I'll try changing the path to /tmp For Plex directory, thanks. I have no issue with the files being on the cache drive, as if anything ever happen to my cache drive, PMS would just download the movie info again, so that that could save cpu time by not having to generate parity, etc. I'll try the same path as you have. I assume that to create a cache only drive, I just need to use the same path as you are. Or do I need to do something else to setup the cache only drive? BTW - are you using the Roku 2 with Plex and all happy? To create a cache only share create a new share and choose the option for it to be cache only. You call it whatever you want: "plugins", "apps", "programs", etc. It doesn't matter. You just have to make sure you set it as cache only: Where it asks you to 'use cache disk' select the option 'only'. No, I don't use it on a Roku. I use it on a jailbroken AppleTV2, an iPad, and iPhone and a Mac. For all but the Mac it transcodes the video and I have great results. I've got a Core i3-2120 3.3GHz CPU. On my HTPC I use XBMC with a local library because I've been using that since before the Plex server plugin was available and have never bothered to switch.
January 29, 201313 yr Ok, made all the changes, but I do have a couple more questions. I created a cache ONLY share called plugins (as you did). I left the defaults, meaning Include Disks says ALL I figured that if it's set to cache only, shouldn't need to Exclude the other disks. I hope that is correct. Also for this share it enabled smb only when I created it and set to public. I changed it to a YES/HIdden and then changed the permission to Private, granting a specific login Read/Write. I don't like to leave anything as Public unless it's necessary. Are my settings for this share ok? My PMS settings are now: Library directory: /mnt/cache/plugins/plex Temp directory: /tmp correct? Last, can I just delete the old Plex share? I assume that PMS will have to download all metadata anyway and I don't care so I might as well clean up the old stuff. Thanks!
January 29, 201313 yr The Include disks doesn't matter, it will remain cache only. The share settings aren't vital, basically anything you give it will work since ideally it shouldn't need to be accessed. Your PMS settings are correct, and you can delete the old plex share Also, depending on your settings(and what the roku can handle as well as your network) the higher you can set the quality, the better. The processor has more work to do to convert to lowest quality than it does to a higher quality. Also, I suspect plex was able to direct play whatever you were trying to play. The way plex is designed, if it has to transcode it doesn't really transcode "on the fly", it will transcode past where your at all the way to the end of the video. For example, if you have a Intel i7 that can transcode at 700x, for every one minute of transcoding it will transcode 7 minutes of video. Instead of stopping and waiting until you catch up to what has been transcoded already, plex will continue to transcode until it has finished the entire video file. So for a 70 minute video, plex would transcode at full speed for 10 minutes, then stop. It will(or should) never use less than 100%, as it will use all available resources to transcode as fast as possible, regardless of the power of the CPU. Your observation that watching a video on your iPad the CPU was at 40% max, usually closer to 20%, I suspect that was other tasks using the processor or possible SHFS from accessing the files, but not plex transcoding.
January 29, 201313 yr Thanks! I will test and report back. Playback on the server itself works fine. The ipad worked fine too. The roku is set to playback at 1080p. Oh and the cpu when playing back on the ipad, went up to 20 or 40, but now seems much lower, just a spike here and there. I'm think I'm down to it being the roku, and if it's worth keeping or not. I also tested a xbmc openelec test box, played just fine. Of course that isn't plex, but it shows that the network is fine. I run gig throughout, yet some devices only connect at 100. Thanks again for your help!
January 29, 201313 yr Thanks! I will test and report back. Playback on the server itself works fine. The ipad worked fine too. The roku is set to playback at 1080p. Oh and the cpu when playing back on the ipad, went up to 20 or 40, but now seems much lower, just a spike here and there. I'm think I'm down to it being the roku, and if it's worth keeping or not. I also tested a xbmc openelec test box, played just fine. Of course that isn't plex, but it shows that the network is fine. I run gig throughout, yet some devices only connect at 100. Thanks again for your help! Plex makes a Windows client so that is always an option. Not as 'clean' of a solution as XBMC OpenElec but still an option. Plex has announced, however, they are working on an OpenElec, as well as Linux, version. http://forums.plexapp.com/index.php/topic/56548-plex-home-theater-will-have-official-linux-support/
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.