Plex CPU High Usage and currently can't use Plex because it doesn't work even for internal

[Gilgameshxg]

Sorry if this isn't the place to post this since I'm just trying to get my server working again. If anyone would be so kind as to help me resolve this that would be awesome!

Server Version#: 1.18.6.2368
Player Version#: 4.22.1

So I’ve tried a multitude of things. I updated Plex not sure what version I was using before but it was before Christmas 2019. But now I can only have 1 stream and it uses 100% of my CPU. I tried for help on here before and sadly it went no where just stopped getting responses after trying to provide everything asked for. I found that people said to turn off upnp which i did and tried to just doing port forwarding. I found that if you can Subtitles to always it would help which did help because it lowered my 100% cpu to 20 % which was beter but I still can’t play MKV files with TrueHD Audio at all. It either won’t load or keeps doing micro jumps while watching. I used to not have any kind of issue. I found a way to update to the latest plex pass version with FreshPorts since I can’t wait months on end to test and hope that Plex is fixed. I’m still having the issue on the newest version. I was wondering if anyone was having this issue and if so what did you do to fix it. Wondering what’s the command in FreeNAS with FreshPorts to install a specific version of Plex since people are saying that they are still using a way older version of Plex since the new ones with all their features can’t do transcoding very well. Used to do 4-5 streams no problem with using 30% CPU and now I can’t even get 1 to work. People are saying that they are still using 1.14/1.17 since newer then that doesn’t work. I love Plex and I’ve been useing it for at least a few years and decided to buy a lifetime pass but it’s just really annoying to not be able to use it for months on end and have no idea on how to fix it.

Intel® Xeon® CPU E3-1240 v6 @ 3.70GHz.
65 GB 2400 Unbuffered ram.
FreeNAS on it’s own SSD with Plex on Mirrored SSD.

Older Thread Link:

Plex Transcoder Has the CPU at 100%

Server Version#: 1.18.3.2129 Player Version#: FreeNAS OS Version: 11.2-U7 Plex Media Server Logs_2020-01-06_22-11-30.zip (2.3 MB) I’m having the issue of when I start a video stream my CPU goes from 0.46% to 100% for the begining and then go down to normal but if I jump through the video it...

forums.plex.tv

Links I think have been helpful:

PMS will not transcode True HD for clients - makes them error out

Hello, I am pretty new to PMS (about 2 weeks) just about everything works as it should, But there is one exception… True HD. From my understanding, this is how it works: Client request movie from PMS while saying how it can play it back, resolution, data rate, and audio capability…PMS send...

forums.plex.tv

Can’t remember the other location I found out about the Subtitles change since I guess the Automatic setting is broken.

Any help would be greatly appreciated so that i don’t have to look at other options since I’ll have no other choice since I can’t get Plex to work as intended.

 

[Gilgameshxg]

Sorry if this comes off as a-holeish just very tired and frustrated with trying to get this to work like it used to. Love FreeNAS since learning how to use it and having work with Plex when Plex is working lol. Thanks for any help in advance!

 

[Basil Hendroff]

Not seeing this issue, but I'm using the Plex plugin (1.18.3.2129), which is several versions behind. Maybe you could test it out using another instance of Plex in a second jail. If it addresses the problem, you can at least update the post at https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-transcoder-has-the-cpu-at-100/522690/10

 

[Gilgameshxg]

That was the version I was using before. I'll check right now to double check.

 

[Gilgameshxg]

What does your Plex say when you hit update? Mine tries to download 64 things and says it was updated but then I hit update and it does the same thing again. The progress never goes above 00.0 and then it just says that it's updated.

 

[Gilgameshxg]

Same issue.

 

[Basil Hendroff]

What does your Plex say when you hit update? Mine tries to download 64 things and says it was updated but then I hit update and it does the same thing again. The progress never goes above 00.0 and then it just says that it's updated.

I'm away from my computer atm, but I don't quite understand what you've done here. You did install it as a plugin? If so, I'll try setting up another instance when I get home and see if I can replicate what you're seeing.

 

[Gilgameshxg]

I'm wondering if i didn't do permissions correct for Plex. I created a user and a group with UID 972. Have gave them rights to my dataset with permissions passed down to all sub folders/files.

 

[Gilgameshxg]

Yeah that would be helpful not sure if I didn't do permissions right of if I put in the wrong UID so that only some of Plex works correctly or whats going. I don't think DNS would have anything to do with Transcoding issues.

 

[Gilgameshxg]

Do you know how to target a plex version with Freshports via ssh cmd so that I can keep downgrading until I get one that works?

 

[Basil Hendroff]

Do you know how to target a plex version with Freshports via ssh cmd so that I can keep downgrading until I get one that works?

Sorry, I've got no experience with this.

 

[Gilgameshxg]

I've rechecked permissions and they look fine.

 

[Gilgameshxg]

O Ok. Thanks anyways.

 

[Basil Hendroff]

This is what I see post-installation when I install an instance on the Plex plugin on one of my backup servers.

...and the corresponding plugin jail...

While I have this test install up, let me know if you want me to try anything out.

 

[Gilgameshxg]

Do you know how to make a ram disk and then have plex cache to that? Also I would have to think about what to test besides basic functions and updating it.

 

[Gilgameshxg]

I see that when I'm starting a movie and it's transcoding it seems to be writing to my data set with my media and not my mirrored ssd set that has plex installed on it. I thought that plex would transcode to the root of whatever dataset it's installed on.

 

[Gilgameshxg]

When transcoding seems to be writing to my data set and increasing my disk temp from 30 to 60. Wondering if I don't have songbird set right for the temp data location for transcoding.

 

[Basil Hendroff]

Sounds like you might be on to something.

I see that when I'm starting a movie and it's transcoding it seems to be writing to my data set with my media and not my mirrored ssd set that has plex installed on it.

How did you establish this?

Do you know how to make a ram disk and then have plex cache to that? Also I would have to think about what to test besides basic functions and updating it.

Sorry, no. Also, getting in under the Plex plugin via to upgrade it to the latest Plex release is, I understand, ill-advised. The only thing that I've done with my plugin jails post the upgrade to FreeNAS 11.3 was to manually upgrade the jail release from 11.2-RELEASE-p15 to 11.3-RELEASE-p6.

 

[Gilgameshxg]

Well I noticed that when I would play a video I saw a large uptake on disk writes across my Raidz3 which I thought was weird since from what i understand is that since I added a mirrored pair ssd and then deleted the iocage from my raidz3 and selected the mirrored ssd to install applications on that that is were Plex was going to transcode to and that my Raidz3 shouldn't have any writes to it since Plex is just reading data off of it. Is that right? I saw usage not writes. I'm assuming that usage is writes? I tested with just playing a video through SMB and usage didn't go up.

LMAO - I was looking at cpu usage not hard drive usage. HDD usage was fine.

 

[Gilgameshxg]

So it seems that Direct Stream is the problem that I've been having issues with. When I have it enabled videos stutter and just spin.