Plex Server not able to transcode

Strayan_Hades · October 30, 2017

Hi,

After the recent Plex Media Server update I've been experiencing playback issues related to transcoding on Android App, TV and web browser. When a video requires to be trans coded it only loads the first 2 seconds and shows the following error message " The server isn't powerful enough to transcode the file, try playing the original file for smooth playback ".

I've also notice when watching a trans coded stream my CPU usage doesn't move from 0-20% to 80-100%. So its like not even attempting to transcode.

I'm running Plex media server version: 1.9.4.4325

CPU:i7 4790k

Windows 10 64bit

Any help on how to fix this would be great.

Cheers.

brwainer · October 30, 2017

For best support I’d recommend posting on the Plex forum, you may see other people with a similar version-related issue.

To confirm it is a version-related issue, can you try downgrading to the last version you know was working? You just have to get the old installer (it may still be sitting in the Updates folder in your Plex library directory) and run it.

Did you do any other changes, like moving the library to a different drive? Have you made sure that the folder for the library (and the transcoder working directory, if you have set that somewhere else) is on a drive that has at least 5GB free space?