That’s not true at all. Plex clients support direct play of both mp4 and mkv.
I might be reading something wrong here, but it looks like mp4 only? What media formats are supported? | Plex Support
You should read the very first line under the heading there, and then also read the bit in parentheses immediately after they say MP4.
It will transcode the container, but direct play the contents. There’s no issue with this method, and doesn’t count as a video transcode.
I am not sure what you mean, however looking at the cpu benchscore of my machine it’s awful. That I think is the main problem, but you say that 2012 mac mini’s should be able to transcode just fine?
Transcoding the container only takes nearly zero CPU.
Your playback is failing because you are attempting to transcode 4k down to 1080p or lower.
I don’t have my plex in a container
MP4 and MKV are types of media containers. That’s what I’m referring to.
Okay understood, but if I have enough power then why can’t I play my files locally using direct play? Buffering is horrible
Update here. This little desktop works great as a Plex server.
I do notice with Plex’s new Sonic Analysis feature … it’s taking days of the Celeron running at 60-100% to get through all my albums (3,000 or so)
Luckily it never gets above 35-47C. And once the initial scan is done, it’s done.
To be fair I’m not positive the bottleneck is the CPU or my NFS share. The NFS share is new. Not sure how I’d test it. (On my old Plex server, media was directly connected.)
Sonic Analysis is very CPU bound, and with 3,000 albums it will take a couple weeks to do its magic, or maybe even longer depending your nightly maintenance window length.
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I would like some advice on replacing the Celeron with an i5-10400. Would I also replace the fan, or simply clean up/reuse the once from the Celeron and re-thermal paste the new chip? It’s been at least a decade since I’ve changed a CPU.
This will be for a 3 unit Proxmox cluster. Already have 500gb NVMe’s, 1TB SSDs, 24G RAM, and dual 10G HP 561T’s.
Thanks!
Either is fine. instructions in the first post of this thread for disassembly. I replaced 3 of my units also for Proxmox cluster all with i7-10400 + 1TB SSD + 32 GB RAM + Mellanox C311A - so very similar to what you are planning to do.
Somewhere here, there was a warning regarding most recent Linux kernels used by Proxmox having issues with the drives we put into the slot previously used by DVD. I think @Sea-Wolfe reported it two weeks ago.
@Sea-Wolfe, do you know if this is still an issue?
@UndSim, thanks! I have the factory HDD plugged into sata0 and the SSD into sata1, where the optical was. Before installing the SSD, I was seeing some issues related to AER, [Logs flooded with “AER: Multiple Corrected error received: 0000:00:01.0” | Proxmox Support Forum]([https://Proxmox] but was able to resolve with grub NOMMCONF as mentioned in that thread.
Posted this in the 290 thread before finding this thread… I bought the refurbished version of this that already has a 256GB SSD, 10th gen Core i3 and 8GB RAM. I installed Ubuntu Desktop x64, nomachine for remote desktop and Plex Media Server. I’m using the hdmi plug from your links. It was freezing multiple times a day with an error like this: nvme00: PCIe Bus Error: severity=Corrected, type=Physical Layer… if I had the monitor connected, everything I tried to do said Input/Output error. I fixed this by adding pci_aspm=off to the kernel options. This reduced the amount of times it freezes, but it still freezes once every other day without any useful errors in the log. 4 days ago the error log showed a gnome crash, but the 2 freezes since then showed nothing abnormal. I ran memtest86 with 4 passes and had no errors. Any ideas? My instinct is a motherboard issue but I’m not that familiar with Linux to know if it’s something else. Should I be getting a replacement from the eBay seller? Should I try Ubuntu server instead of desktop to be rid of any gnome crashes? Thanks for any help!
Can you post the full error?
The original error which was happening multiple times a day, when the system was idle:
`Dec 02 10:03:08 PlexHP kernel: pcieport 0000:00:1b.0: AER: Corrected error received: 0000:01:00.0
Dec 02 10:03:08 PlexHP kernel: nvme 0000:01:00.0: PCIe Bus Error: severity=Corrected, type=Physical Layer, (Receiver ID)
Dec 02 10:03:08 PlexHP kernel: nvme 0000:01:00.0: device [1344:5410] error status/mask=00000001/00002000
Dec 02 10:03:08 PlexHP kernel: nvme 0000:01:00.0: [ 0] RxErr`
And the error before the next freeze after I added the pci_aspm=off kernel option which fixed the pcieport error: Note: I had left the nomachine remote desktop session open overnight while this freeze happened.
Dec 02 10:50:51 PlexHP gnome-shell[1085]: cr_parser_new_from_buf: assertion 'a_buf && a_len' failed
Dec 02 10:50:51 PlexHP gnome-shell[1085]: cr_declaration_parse_list_from_buf: assertion 'parser' failed
Dec 02 10:50:51 PlexHP rtkit-daemon[857]: Supervising 3 threads of 1 processes of 1 users.
Dec 02 10:50:51 PlexHP rtkit-daemon[857]: Successfully made thread 4181 of process 842 owned by '1000' RT at priority 5.
Dec 02 10:50:51 PlexHP rtkit-daemon[857]: Supervising 4 threads of 1 processes of 1 users.
Dec 02 10:50:51 PlexHP gsd-media-keys[1247]: gvc_mixer_card_get_index: assertion 'GVC_IS_MIXER_CARD (card)' failed
Dec 02 10:50:51 PlexHP dbus-daemon[854]: [session uid=1000 pid=854] Successfully activated service 'org.gnome.Nautilus'
Dec 02 10:50:51 PlexHP gnome-shell[1085]: gvc_mixer_card_get_index: assertion 'GVC_IS_MIXER_CARD (card)' failed
Dec 02 10:50:51 PlexHP org.gnome.Nautilus[4178]: Failed to register: Unable to acquire bus name 'org.gnome.Nautilus'
Dec 02 10:50:51 PlexHP dbus-daemon[854]: [session uid=1000 pid=854] Successfully activated service 'org.freedesktop.FileManager1'
Dec 02 10:50:51 PlexHP gnome-shell[1085]: cr_parser_new_from_buf: assertion 'a_buf && a_len' failed
Dec 02 10:50:51 PlexHP gnome-shell[1085]: cr_declaration_parse_list_from_buf: assertion 'parser' failed
After that freeze, it was good for 2 days until today, which has seemingly normal info messages.
This was today’s:
ec 04 17:30:01 PlexHP CRON[79035]: pam_unix(cron:session): session opened for user root by (uid=0)
Dec 04 17:30:01 PlexHP CRON[79036]: (root) CMD ([ -x /etc/init.d/anacron ] && if [ ! -d /run/systemd/system ]; then /usr/sbin/invoke-rc.>
Dec 04 17:30:01 PlexHP CRON[79035]: pam_unix(cron:session): session closed for user root
Dec 04 17:31:47 PlexHP systemd[1]: Started Run anacron jobs.
Dec 04 17:31:47 PlexHP anacron[79065]: Anacron 2.3 started on 2021-12-04
Dec 04 17:31:47 PlexHP anacron[79065]: Normal exit (0 jobs run)
Dec 04 17:31:47 PlexHP systemd[1]: anacron.service: Succeeded.
Freezes sound like a possible hardware issue of some sort to me.
I did a quick search on your error, and the following seems to agree:
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=249098
Are you still within the return/exchange window?
I haven’t shopped ebay certified refurbished before but I believe I’m in the return window, I’ve had it 1 week today. Thanks for looking into it, that was my instinct but I wanted it to be something I could fix.
I sent it back for repair, they returned it and said it’s working at it should, but I’m having the same issues. I updated the BIOS, installed Ubuntu, and within 20 minutes I got the same nvme error as my previous post. I added the kernel option to disable pcie power management and it stayed alive for 24 hours before dying shortly after a network related disconnect / reconnect sequence:
Dec 13 15:30:32 PlexHP NetworkManager[651]: <info> [1639427432.2411] manager: NetworkManager state is now CONNECTED_SITE
Dec 13 15:30:32 PlexHP whoopsie[1545]: [15:30:32] offline
Dec 13 15:30:32 PlexHP dbus-daemon[649]: [system] Activating via systemd: service name='org.freedesktop.nm_dispatcher' unit='dbus-org.freedesktop.nm-dispatcher.service' requested by ':1.12' (uid=0 pid>
Dec 13 15:30:32 PlexHP systemd[1]: Starting Network Manager Script Dispatcher Service...
Dec 13 15:30:32 PlexHP dbus-daemon[649]: [system] Successfully activated service 'org.freedesktop.nm_dispatcher'
Dec 13 15:30:32 PlexHP systemd[1]: Started Network Manager Script Dispatcher Service.
Dec 13 15:30:32 PlexHP NetworkManager[651]: <info> [1639427432.3176] manager: NetworkManager state is now CONNECTED_GLOBAL
Dec 13 15:30:32 PlexHP whoopsie[1545]: [15:30:32] The default IPv4 route is: /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/ActiveConnection/1
Dec 13 15:30:32 PlexHP whoopsie[1545]: [15:30:32] Not a paid data plan: /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/ActiveConnection/1
Dec 13 15:30:32 PlexHP whoopsie[1545]: [15:30:32] Found usable connection: /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/ActiveConnection/1
Dec 13 15:30:32 PlexHP whoopsie[1545]: [15:30:32] online
Dec 13 15:30:42 PlexHP systemd[1]: NetworkManager-dispatcher.service: Succeeded.
After some googling I found that ubuntu was using the wrong driver for the Realtek ethernet adapter (using r8169 when the adapter is r8168). I switched to the r8168 adapter, thinking this would solve the problem.
24 hours later, the same message is in the log when it dies:
Dec 14 16:50:22 PlexHP colord[1351]: failed to get session [pid 3178]: No data available
Dec 14 17:04:06 PlexHP NetworkManager[667]: <info> [1639519446.7225] manager: NetworkManager state is now CONNECTED_SITE
Dec 14 17:04:06 PlexHP whoopsie[1512]: [17:04:06] offline
Dec 14 17:04:06 PlexHP dbus-daemon[664]: [system] Activating via systemd: service name='org.freedesktop.nm_dispatcher' unit='dbus-org.freedesktop.nm-dispatcher.service' requested by ':1.13' (uid=0 pid>
Dec 14 17:04:06 PlexHP systemd[1]: Starting Network Manager Script Dispatcher Service...
Dec 14 17:04:06 PlexHP dbus-daemon[664]: [system] Successfully activated service 'org.freedesktop.nm_dispatcher'
Dec 14 17:04:06 PlexHP systemd[1]: Started Network Manager Script Dispatcher Service.
Dec 14 17:04:06 PlexHP NetworkManager[667]: <info> [1639519446.7963] manager: NetworkManager state is now CONNECTED_GLOBAL
Dec 14 17:04:06 PlexHP whoopsie[1512]: [17:04:06] The default IPv4 route is: /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/ActiveConnection/1
Dec 14 17:04:06 PlexHP whoopsie[1512]: [17:04:06] Not a paid data plan: /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/ActiveConnection/1
Dec 14 17:04:06 PlexHP whoopsie[1512]: [17:04:06] Found usable connection: /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/ActiveConnection/1
Dec 14 17:04:06 PlexHP whoopsie[1512]: [17:04:06] online
Dec 14 17:04:16 PlexHP systemd[1]: NetworkManager-dispatcher.service: Succeeded.
I saw earlier in this thread that people had SATA MODE set to RAID in the BIOS, where mine is set to AHCI. Changing that to RAID will be my last attempt before sending it back for a refund 
The specific model I got is the S01-pF1016 which comes with a 256GB nvme ssd and 8GB RAM. I saw earlier in the thread someone had the same model but they left Windows on it, not sure if anyone else got linux working on it.