Plex playback locked up, service won't start

[Causation9768]

In the middle of watching something on my Chromecast, playback locked up. It was late so I just went to bed, assuming that the file was corrupt for that the Chromecast had a problem. Today, I found the Plex service isn't running. The jail is running and has network access and can see its content. The last thing in the logs is about doing the playback that was happening when it failed. Here's 'Plex Media Server.log'

Code:

Aug 06, 2023 00:00:11.558 [0x80d4afe00] DEBUG - [Req#9204] Play progress on 12513 '30% Iron Chef' - got played 919000 ms by account 1!
Aug 06, 2023 00:00:11.559 [0x80d4afe00] DEBUG - [Req#9204] [Now] User is ---  (ID: 1)
Aug 06, 2023 00:00:11.559 [0x80d4afe00] DEBUG - [Req#9204] [Now] Device is Chrom
ecast (Chromecast).
Aug 06, 2023 00:00:11.559 [0x80d4afe00] DEBUG - [Req#9204] [Now] Profile is Chromecast
Aug 06, 2023 00:00:11.559 [0x80d4afe00] DEBUG - [Req#9204] [Now] Updated play state for /library/metadata/12513.
Aug 06, 2023 00:00:11.559 [0x80d4afe00] DEBUG - [Req#9204] Statistics: (xb5efiodp9c0fbl56rdre8lu) Reporting active playback in state 0 of type 4 (scrobble: 0) for account 1
Aug 06, 2023 00:00:11.559 [0x806815100] DEBUG - Completed: [10.0.1.176:55992] 200 GET /:/timeline?ratingKey=12513&key=%2Flibrary%2Fmetadata%2F12513&playbackTime
=917022&playQueueItemID=13841&state=playing&hasMDE=1&time=919000&duration=1354000 (9 live) #9204 TLS GZIP 2ms 618 bytes (pipelined: 175)
Aug 06, 2023 00:00:11.574 [0x80d4afe00] DEBUG - Request: [10.0.1.176:55992 (Allowed Network (Subnet))] POST /log (9 live) #9222 TLS GZIP Signed-in Token (robert
887) (Pixel 6)Aug 06, 2023 00:00:11.574 [0x80d4afe00] WARN - [Req#9222] [Chromecast] Did not m
ove header "accept" to query string. This can result in an unnecessary OPTIONS preflight request.
Aug 06, 2023 00:00:11.574 [0x806814a00] DEBUG - Completed: [10.0.1.176:55992] 200 POST /log (9 live) #9222 TLS GZIP 0ms 320 bytes (pipelined: 176)

It looks like the daemon went down a while before that but it was still working then.

Code:

root@PlexMediaServer:/usr/local/plexdata-plexpass/Plex Media Server/Logs # tail
/var/log/messages
Aug  5 22:22:22 PlexMediaServer syslogd: exiting on signal 15
Aug  5 22:22:29 PlexMediaServer syslogd: kernel boot file is /boot/kernel/kernel
Aug  6 19:06:52 PlexMediaServer syslogd: exiting on signal 15
Aug  6 19:06:58 PlexMediaServer syslogd: kernel boot file is /boot/kernel/kernel
Aug  6 19:09:04 PlexMediaServer syslogd: exiting on signal 15
Aug  6 19:09:12 PlexMediaServer syslogd: kernel boot file is /boot/kernel/kernel
Aug  6 19:19:54 PlexMediaServer syslogd: exiting on signal 15
Aug  6 19:26:47 PlexMediaServer syslogd: kernel boot file is /boot/kernel/kernel
Aug  6 19:34:41 PlexMediaServer syslogd: exiting on signal 15
Aug  6 19:35:49 PlexMediaServer syslogd: kernel boot file is /boot/kernel/kernel
root@PlexMediaServer:/usr/local/plexdata-plexpass/Plex Media Server/Logs # date
Sun Aug  6 19:57:20 EDT 2023root@PlexMediaServer:/usr/local/plexdata-plexpass/Plex Media Server/Logs #

Here is restarting the daemon.

Code:

root@PlexMediaServer:/usr/local/plexdata-plexpass/Plex Media Server/Logs # servi
ce plexmediaserver_plexpass statusplexmediaserver_plexpass is not running.
root@PlexMediaServer:/usr/local/plexdata-plexpass/Plex Media Server/Logs # service plexmediaserver_plexpass onestart
Starting plexmediaserver_plexpass.
root@PlexMediaServer:/usr/local/plexdata-plexpass/Plex Media Server/Logs # servi
ce plexmediaserver_plexpass statusplexmediaserver_plexpass is not running.

I also tried updating the jail and updating the whole system. Am I missing some log that might actually be recording what is happening?

 

[Causation9768]

Before this all started, I was trying to watch with my Samsung Tizen TV. I was only using the Chromecast because that was taking so long to start that it timed out. I wonder if that has something to do with messages showing issues earlier.

 

[sretalla]

If you install plex in a new jail, does it run?

 

[Jailer]

There seems to be a bug in the latest version of plex for freebsd. There is another thread on the forums with a link to the plex forums and the plex devs are aware of the situation and looking into it.

This is a good example of why you would stay on the quarterly branch for updates.

 

[sretalla]

In order for that to be the (root cause of the) issue here, the upgrade would need to have happened automatically.

I can see how the upgrade (tried during troubleshooting and/or re-install) may have conflated the issue further, since I have also noticed that issue and rolled-back my last upgrade attempt accordingly.

In this case, a roll-back to the state just after the chromecast problem would be required to work out what is/was going on there.

 

[Causation9768]

If you install plex in a new jail, does it run?

It does. It is scanning the libraries now and showing the correct played status of everything. Playback works.

The old jail is 13.1-RELEASE-p9 and is running plexmediaserver-plexpass. The new one is 13.2-RELEASE-p2 running plexmediaserver.

 

[sretalla]

The plexpass "latest" version is still hosed for now, so I guess you avoid the problem (but now have the limited features).

 

[Causation9768]

The plexpass "latest" version is still hosed for now, so I guess you avoid the problem (but now have the limited features).

It finished playing the file that was playing when the original instance stopped working.

The only difference I'm noticing is that all the corrected mis-matches have to be redone. There are a lot of them so I don't really consider this a fix, just a test. I still want to get the original instance working so I don't have to redo a lot of work.

 

[sretalla]

OK, so why not just transfer your previous jail's plex library into the new jail? (or better still, separate it out to a dedicated dataset and mount it into the jail)

 

[Causation9768]

OK, so why not just transfer your previous jail's plex library into the new jail? (or better still, separate it out to a dedicated dataset and mount it into the jail)

I thought about that but after sleeping on it, I can't remember why I rejected it. I'll try that and see what happens.

 

[Causation9768]

OK, so why not just transfer your previous jail's plex library into the new jail? (or better still, separate it out to a dedicated dataset and mount it into the jail)

That worked. I was expecting that to cause the same problem on the new server instance. I thought whatever broke it might have been a database error or a cache problem. Now I'm even more confused but at least I have a working Plex server with the correct data.