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Plex + Plex drive + Google drive = slow streaming speed on a VPS
Hello everyone,
I have tried using rclone cache and plex drive mount on a decent VPS. I have my media files stored in Google Drive. When I try to download files from plex, I get maximum speed. When I try to stream, I am facing buffering after every 10 seconds. I am not even transcoding, I am playing the original playback.
I have tried emby and plex but no luck with streaming!!! Can anyone help?
Comments
What's your connection like to the VPS?
my connection is giving me maximum speed when i download using idm from plex but something gets wrong when i try to stream using web player and it keeps buffering after every 5-10 secs.
i am using digitalocean vps.
Did you check if the video is being transcoded?
i am playing the original quality so i think it is not being transcoded
Double check that IDM is not using multithreaded downloads, as Plex will stream it to you in a single stream which is generally not going to be the same as downloading with IDM.
Original quality doesn't disable transcoding on all devices.
For example on Roku you have to change "Auto" to "Force" for Direct Playing of video (Even if quality is set to original).
Good catch. I was assuming he's using the Web client, in which case "Original" should definitely respect the choice to not transcode.
A good way to check, @plex, is to run htop while playing a video and see what happens to the CPU usage - if it shoots right up, it's transcoding.
i am playing on web player and it is in original quality and i am playing on one device atm so let me check my plex log if it shows any resource usage or something. thanks
You can also install Tautulli. It will show you how many streams are being played and how, I. E. direct play, direct stream or transcode all in a nice interface.
The plex dashboard will show that without tautulli. In any case check your IO as well, ensuring the plex DB doesn't lock up due to crappy HDD is almost as important as network speed. Could also be high cpu stealing from neighbors. Lots of things can go wrong on a VPS, just get a dedi.
Web player has very limited codecs. If you want to direct play, you should stick to the official apps.
Also try kodi. It's much better in streaming media directly from Google drive. You don't even need vps.
I have tried kodi addons to use Google drive as source but the speed is too slow because it creates local proxy server first to generate direct stream links for Google drive
If you're watching on Windows, maybe you can try rclone + nssm with Plex server for Windows. For me, it plays mkv files very smooth rather than stream it on a VPS.
Also, did you use your own API's?
Chances are in the web player it's transcoding even on Max settings. The web player doesn't super many codec natively.
@plex you actually don't need plexdrive anymore. rclone VFS is a lot more stable now. You should consider installing everything using pgblitz. It's a lot easier to configure everything. But only if you are on a KVM or OpenVZ 7, as it requires docker.
Also, you might want to check a few things
1. How is the connection of your VPS to google drive's servers?
2. How is the connection of your VPS to your local device?
3. How's your bandwidth? Can it support the media quality of your stream? (don't expect that your 15mbps connection can really stream 15mbps 1080p, home connections don't really have that stable connection, heck even datacenter connections don't have true rated speeds)
4. Maybe you're transcoding? If yes then probably your VPS cannot handle the CPU load as likely it is shared and your server might be overloaded. Check if you are really playing original quality.
5. Maybe try using a CDN.
Hope that helps.
How is local slow. It's localhost. The overhead is negligible. If playing direct link from Google drive is too slow, perhaps the problem is on your connection.
Also to test this theory, you can always download the movie from Google drive, and play the incomplete file, while it's downloading. If the movie stop, it means your internet speed is not fast enough to stream from Google Drive.
I have tried playing directly from google drive with my android player and it plays without any buffering and so smoothly. When I try kodi to use google drive as a source it creates a local server address and I have tested transfer speed by copying files to local and it is not even half of what my connection has.
I have tested my speed by downloading a file from vps and from google drive and i get maximum transfer speed. Downloading from mounted drive gives me full speed but when i try to stream from that using plex then I get terrible streaming speed. I have tried playing the original quality using pelx media player and web player as well. Streaming was terrible on both.
pgblitz sounds like a good option. I can try reinstalling OS and then installing this and maybe this can work. I am looking online for installation and setup guides.
Installation is pretty much straight forward. Just follow the menu after you type the command for it.
Maybe try setting up reverse proxy using cloudflare then use the CDN, it might work. No guarantee tho.
It might be a good information on where your VPS is hosted and what plan it is. Maybe someone with similar situation as you could help.
PGBlitz website is down and I can't find instructions. Is it GUI because I have no experience with command line interface. Can you please give me a link to mount google drive?
I think they changed to plexguide.
If you don't use command line then good luck.
I was assuming you were using a linux VPS and not a windows one. If you were able to mount rclone and install plex by yourself on a linux server then you should be fine with pgblitz (plexguide).
For your reference; https://plexguide.com/
Edit: You should consider just getting a seedbox provider like ultraseedbox, seedboxes.cc, seedhost. They are a lot easier to use, no need to fuzz about installation. Seedboxes.cc even mounts your gdrive for you without fiddling with rclone.
I am getting Error 525 when visiting their website and yes i did use linux vps for rclone and plex drive because i searched on forums and websites before using command line. seedbox sounds a good option if i won't get annoying buffering and stuttering.
I can visit the site no problem.
Better do the seedbox. Where do you live btw? Usually seedboxes are hosted in NL, a few other around europe and only a few in the US.