Plex Jail (not plugin, manually created) extreme CPU use.

[diskdiddler]

I am having all kinds of issues with plex. Scanning my TV library (6500 files, 1.8TB, only 65 shows) took at least 3 or 4 hours.
Once it was complete, I was hoping the performance would pick up, I even turned off "generate video thumbnails" and what have you.

If I open a web page to the corresponding URL or try to access a show direct through my ipad and plex app (either..) it'll perform incredibly slowly and effectively time out providing me a list of files for the show(s)

http://i.imgur.com/URCg8Jx.png
20 minutes to try and pull up a list of files, for Season 1 of Archer.
The initial browsing process of the TV library is fast. Opening the show itself is kind of ok, bt populating the season list 3 to 5 minutes, populating the episodes once drilling into a season, nope, not going to happen.

Is this a common bug? It makes no sense to me, it's immensly slow.
I understand transcoding might be slow but this is simply presenting me with a list of what to play.

Any ideas?
AMD Dual Core 2.2ghz Turion N54L with 8GB memory. Same issues with 16GB too.

 

[diskdiddler]

Just a note, Kodi on my ipad can scan the same TV library in under 25 minutes, might even be as little as 15.
Navigating the general WEB UI, just drilling into shows and their episodes is agonising, yet oddly enough, clicking the "TV Library" on the left is relatively quick

 

[dlavigne]

Were you able to figure this out?

 

[nightshade00013]

What is the drive setup like on the system as well as any other jails? I do also have to say that the CPU is kinda underpowered especially if any transcoding is involved and doubly so with any other jails running. Have you checked what the CPU and Memory usage as well as HDD activity is like when nothing is happening and the system should be idle.

I have a system setup for my step daughter to use at her place and it is synced to mine and it has a cpu near the one you quoted with one HDD and it can play some stuff in house but that is seriously about it and everything is very slow to load and CPU use stays at around 20 percent minimum all the time. I doubt it would be able to transcode SD content let alone anything else.

 

[SweetAndLow]

Looks like Plex is still analysing your media. Mine took days to analyse.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

[diskdiddler]

CPU load dropped to 0 after the initial identification of the media?
There was nothing in the graph / logs to indicate the application was still pumping away at the media.

Also the fact Plex could reboot my server, despite upgrading to 16GB was very un-nerving. I'd have thought a jail has limits to how much resources it can take.

 

[SweetAndLow]

Sounds like your system is overheating or has a bad psu if it's rebooting.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

[danb35]

I'd have thought a jail has limits to how much resources it can take.

No, this is not and has never been the case. And in earlier times, Plex was a major memory hog--I've had it exhaust 32 GB of RAM plus another 40+ GB of swap, and reboot the computer and/or bring it to its knees, but not for a year or more.

 

[diskdiddler]

Thanks Dan, I think that's an interesting tidbit.
My server has been replaced less than 6 months ago. With active cooling and nothing else gives it trouble at all. Infact plex was causing reboots on my server about a year ago when I tested it last. I was hoping more ram would solve this issue, clearly not. That's not ideal that I can't entirely limit the jail resources (even if plex is slow) to ensure stability

 

[Zofoor]

I had the same troubles, and after looking at the plex help pages and changing some options the cpu dropped to 0%.
Then I have deleted the library db and re-imported and it took somerthing like 15-30 minutes to scan 8Tb.
If you look on the plex website you should find the guides on how to reduce the cpu usage (sorry I'm on phone right now, I don't have any link).

 

[Jailer]

You're CPU doesn't meet the minimum requirement for transcoding. A CPU with a minimum passmark score of 2000 is required. If you want to run Plex and do transcoding get better hardware.

 

[diskdiddler]

I don't actually want to transcode, I want the program to simply serve the files to me and the local client plays them.
I am unsure if this is possible to force 100% in Plex but it's frustrating, Kodi when installed on an ipad (iOS / Darwin release) or my HTPC (Windows release) will play virtually any file thrown at it.

I do not need or desire transcoding in any way :( I know the devices can do it locally but plex seems to love transcoding.


As for what you said Zofoor, problem is the scanning process literally resets my FreeNAS machine, be it immense CPU use or immense memory, I have a big library.
As it stands, I may be considering my HTPC running Plex server and using my FreeNAS box simply as an SMB provider to Plex. :(

 

[Zofoor]

Try to look here:
https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/ar...nscoder-using-my-CPU-when-nothing-is-playing-

 

[Stux]

It's more likely your CPU is not adequately cooled for a heavy load, and that's why your box resets.

I'd fix that first.

You can confirm your thermals by running mprime in torture mode. It should run indefinitely without resetting or generating errors.

 

[diskdiddler]

it's ok to run this mprime application under a jail? easy to install?

 

[Stux]

it's ok to run this mprime application under a jail? easy to install?

well. I dunno. I just run it in my root account by downloading the freebsd build from mprime binary from mersenne.org
http://www.mersenne.org/ftp_root/gimps/p95v287.FreeBSD10-64.tar.gz

It was just a matter of tar -xzvf, then cd mprime, then ./mprime

You want to do the torture test, with all threads, mode 1.

And keep an eye on your temps.

mprime calculates prime numbers. Its very hard work for your cpu. So hard in fact, that it makes the CPU run hotter than its ever run before.

If it over heats it will either reset, or begin making errors.

Your cpu will have a maximum temperature its specified to run at.

the following cmdline will show your cpu temps

sysctl -a |egrep -E "cpu\.[0-9]+\.temp"

None of them should exceed the maximum junction temperature for your cpu... which is available from Intel Ark.

You need to confirm that :
1) while running mprime, your cpu doesn't approach the maximum temperature
2) it doesn't crash
3) it doesn't produce errors.

You might need to run it over night to confirm 2&3.

Then you will know your CPU cooling is adequate.

For bonus points you need to confirm that WHILE you're running hd tests so that your HDs are producing maximum heat... and if it were a Windows box, you'd want to run FurMark too to stress your GPUs.

 

[Stux]

Here's how to install and run it.

1) login to a shell

mkdir mprime
cd mprime
curl -O http://www.mersenne.org/ftp_root/gimps/p95v287.FreeBSD10-64.tar.gz
tar -xzvf p95v287.FreeBSD10-64.tar.gz
./mprime

 

[diskdiddler]

Well I'm going to run it on my live freenas machine,........... so I wouldn't mind (for test #1) dropping the hard drives into a state where they are unlikely to read or write data. (my freenas machine boots from USB)

 

[Stux]

Well I'm going to run it on my live freenas machine,........... so I wouldn't mind (for test #1) dropping the hard drives into a state where they are unlikely to read or write data. (my freenas machine boots from USB)

You can detach the pool.

Its a scary dialog:

DO NOT mark the disks as new. DO NOT delete the share's configuration.

You access this dialog by selecting the pool in storage, then pressing the detach button (the one with the big red x) at the bottom.

You can re-attach by re-importing the pool when you are done.

Its pretty much the equivalent of unplugging the pool from the nas.

The NAS will auto-reimport it if you reboot it.