Plex Media Server glitch where Nvidia GPU hardware decoding fails with some driver versions under investigation

The Plex Media Server version 1.31.1.6733 is the latest update to the popular media streaming platform. This update includes several bug fixes and performance improvements for a smoother and more stable user experience.

Some of the key highlights of this update include a fix for detection that could fail with certain video codecs and have added Ukrainian translations. However, there seems to be an issue with it.

Some Plex Media Server users are reporting a glitch where the Nvidia GPU hardware decoding fails.

The affected users say that the from 160p to 720p (320kbps to 4mbps) hardware transcoding works as intended. 4K (25mbps-40mbps) hardware transcoding also works as intended.

However, at 1080p (8mbps – 20mbps) the server reverts to software transcoding with the logs stating that a hardware accelerator cannot be found.

Refreshing the tab in the browser seems to ‘restore’ a failed stream, at the original quality selected and not the new one. The transcoder process also appears in nvidia-smi, and playback begins.

Plex Media Server 1.31.1.6716 beta was released with a patch for this issue, however, users were not pleased as the problem continued.

Plex Version: 1.31.1.6716 is doing the same thing as well
Source

This happened again with the Plex Media Server 1.31.1.6733 beta as well.

Fortunately, there are ‘engineering’ versions of Plex Media Server that apparently contain a fix for this issue. Here are links(1,2) for the file, give it a try.

The problem has not yet been fixed in a stable version, and a release date for the patch is not yet known.

A Plex employee claims that another build 6739 is under testing, this may indicate that a proper fix will soon be released in the stable channel:

I went and checked. It looks like some is in 6733 but there is still a 6739 in Alpha build (our internal – pre-QA testing) I ask we all test as much as possible. If tweaks are needed, let’s please get them ASAP
Source

That said, we will keep an eye on the Plex Media Server issue where Nvidia GPU hardware decoding fails and update this story as we come across any new information.

Featured image source: Plex.

PiunikaWeb started as purely an investigative tech journalism website with main focus on ‘breaking’ or ‘exclusive’ news. In no time, our stories got picked up by the likes of Forbes, Foxnews, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, Engadget, The Verge, Macrumors, and many others. Want to know more about us? Head here.