unresponsive dockers / out of memory issue?


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Hello all,

 

for some time i have had issues with my server when all docker containers become unresponsive and the server webgui is slow (specifically the docker page and the docker section of the Dashboard). I believe the issue is caused by my plex docker.

 

Regularly the webgui's dashboard shows 100% CPU and memory use. it typically last hours before it goes back to normal levels and all running dockers get accessible again (like the Logitech Media Server or Syncthing). SSH stills works and is usually how i stop or restart Plex.

 

I have identified different scenarios depending on what dockers are running:

- when Plex is the only docker running, the memory gets full at some point and i saw "oom" issues in the logs but docker kills and restart the plex container automatically.

- when several containers are running, there are no mention of "oom" in the logs and it looks like docker is not restarting Plex.

 

I have included a few diagnostic files downloaded after several occurrences of the problem hoping someone could point me towards the issue (is it really an out of memory issue?) and the fix.

 

Thank you in advance! any help will be greatly appreciated as it is very frustrating to be in the middle of a movie when the docker containers become unresponsive and i have to connect and restart them to fix (temporarily) the issue

 

David

tower-diagnostics-20190603-2320.zip tower-diagnostics-20190529-1836.zip tower-diagnostics-20190525-2035.zip

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I only looked at the 0603 diagnostics since they were the most recent. If you think one of the other attached diagnostics might tell more let me know and I will take a look, but I recommend 20G docker image, and more RAM if you can.

 

You only have 4G RAM. That might be a little tight depending on what you want to do with it.

 

Your docker image is only 10G. That also might be a little tight. I usually recommend 20G. No more than that should be necessary. Some people have set that very large trying to fix a problem with it filling, which is not really a solution. No indication you have filled 10, but I still recommend 20.

 

Are you trying to have Plex transcode to RAM? Some people with a lot of RAM like to do that but not recommended for you.

 

Also, your dockers would perform better if you didn't have them running on the array. A cache drive is the simplest fix for this. Dockers running on the array are impacted by the slower write speed of parity updates, and will also keep parity and array disks spinning.

 

 

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Thank you trurl for the advice. i increased the docker image to 20GB. looking into buying the same memory as the one install to have 8GB (2*4GC dual channel) and adding a cache drive.

 

Plex rarely transcodes the videos and if it does more often it is the audio track track only. When it does transcode the video, i have noticed that i get warning that the docker image is filling up (>90%). I read about transcoding to RAM but never looked into as i did not feel the need for it.

 

i will let you know if the problem keeps occurring (so far so good but it has only been 2 days).

Edited by mister.bizuth
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9 hours ago, mister.bizuth said:

Plex rarely transcodes the videos and if it does more often it is the audio track track only. When it does transcode the video, i have noticed that i get warning that the docker image is filling up (>90%). I read about transcoding to RAM but never looked into as i did not feel the need for it.

Transcoding to RAM is not recommended unless you have a very large amount of RAM.

 

Transcoding should not be filling docker image at all. The default setting for transcode would write to a subfolder in your plex appdata. So, something still wrong with your setup. Within the Plex application settings, what do you have for the transcode directory?

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5 hours ago, mister.bizuth said:

Hi,

 

Here is what is have for the transcode directory:

 

Container Path: /transcode

Host Path: /mnt/user/appdata/PlexMediaServer/tmp/

That's docker setting. What about Plex server setting?

 

Btw, also change it to /mnt/cache/appdata/PlexMediaServer/tmp/

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  • 2 weeks later...

So i added more RAM last weekend to get from 4 to 8GB. It seemed fine at first but the same problem happened again. I guess it took longer because of the added memory. The webgui showed 100% CPU load and the dockers were not responding. Restarting Plex solved the issue (until next time...)

 

i attached new logs downloaded after i noticed the issue and restarted Plex.

 

If someone had any idea of what is going wrong, it would be really appreciated!

 

tower-diagnostics-20190622-1930.zip

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