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+#+title: How to Avoid Plex Error: 'Conversion failed. The transcoder failed to start up.'
+#+date: 2023-07-19
+#+description: Learn how to avoid Plex conversion errors caused by subtitles.
+#+filetags: :sysadmin:
+
+* Plex Transcoder Error
+Occasionally, you may see an error in your Plex client that references a
+failure with the transcoder conversion process. The specific error
+wording is:
+
+#+begin_src txt
+Conversion failed. The transcoder failed to start up.
+#+end_src
+
+* Debugging the Cause
+In order to get a better look at what is causing the error, I'm going to
+observe the Plex console while the error occurs. To do this, open the
+Plex web client, go to =Settings= > =Manage= > =Console=. Now, try to
+play the title again and watch to see which errors occur.
+
+In my case, you can see the errors below are related to a subtitle file
+(=.srt=) causing the transcoder to crash.
+
+#+begin_src txt
+Jul 19, 2023 16:49:34.945 [140184571120440] Error — Couldn't find the file to stream: /movies/Movie Title (2021)/Movie Title (2021).srt
+Jul 19, 2023 16:49:34.947 [140184532732728] Error — [Req#7611/Transcode/42935159-67C1-4192-9336-DDC6F7BC9330] Error configuring transcoder: TPU: Failed to download sub-stream to temporary file
+Jul 19, 2023 16:49:35.225 [140184532732728] Warning — [Req#760d/Transcode] Got a request to stop a transcode session without a valid session GUID.
+Jul 19, 2023 16:49:45.561 [140184532732728] Info — [Req#7648] AutoUpdate: no updates available
+Jul 19, 2023 16:51:23.402 [140184510081848] Info — Library section 1 (Movies) will be updated because of a change in "/movies/Movie Title (2021)/Movie Title (2021).srt"
+#+end_src
+
+* Solving the Error
+In my case, I simply removed the subtitle file because it was not
+critical to keep. You may also avoid this by turning off subtitles if
+you don't want to delete the file.
+
+#+begin_src sh
+rm -rf "/movies/Movie Title (2021)/Movie Title (2021).srt"
+#+end_src
+
+Once the subtitle is removed from the directory or subtitles are turned
+off, try to play the title again. At this point, it should play without
+error. If not, reopen or refresh your Plex client and the Plex server:
+
+#+begin_src sh
+sudo systemctl restart plexmediaserver.service
+#+end_src
+
+* Related Discussion
+Looking at
+[[https://forums.plex.tv/t/subtitles-crashing-plex-transcoder-samsung-q80-tv-with-or-without-hardware-transcode/741441/2][a
+related Plex forum post]], it seems that =.srt= subtitles are the core
+issue here. However, Plex does not seem to have a resolution that fixes
+these errors.
+
+Unfortunately, I would suggest converting subtitle formats, burning the
+subtitles into the title, or simply removing subtitles when they cause
+crashes.