FAQ Discussion

[Beatwolf]

Problem: During remuxed or transcoded video playback your video either skips sections of the movie (forward or back) or the video crashes entirely. When you check the debug.log file, you find the phrase "OutOfMemory".

Solution:
PMS is exceeding the available Java heap memory allocated when PMS starts. The newer (currently beta) versions of PMS handle this error by half-ing the transcode buffer (sometimes leading to skips) while older versions just let the video crash.
The heap is the sum of the transcode buffer memory plus all of the overhead memory (the actual PMS application, media library, iTunes support, Radio plugin, etc), and the overhead memory can grow quite a bit if the "extra" features (iTunes, Radio plugin, etc) are enabled.

The quick solution is just to decrease the size of the transcode buffer or disable some of the extra features. How much you need to decrease or what features depends on your system and may require some basic guess and check.
However, if you need the larger transcode buffer (better playback) or the extra features (or just want to better manage the memory on your system), then you need to increase the available heap size.

1. Locate the PMS.bat (Windows) or PMS.sh (Unix/Linux) file (http://ps3mediaserver.org/forum/viewtop ... 731#p32731) and open it in a text editor
2. Modify the "-Xmx768M" value - http://blog.paulgu.com/2008/07/19/6-com ... heap-size/
3. Save and close the file
4. Launch PMS using that file

Note: this will obviously take up more of your RAM, so make sure you set a value appropriate for your system
Example values (courtesy of Coltaine79): 32-bit JVM on a x64 Win7 machine with 4+ GB of RAM can safely use heapsize values of 1536 with a 400MB PMS buffer and a few of the larger plugins enabled.

How to Change the Heap Size If Installed as a Windows Service: (thanks lightglitch)

1. Locate the wrapper.conf (Windows) at win32\service
2. Modify the line:
   

   Code: Select all

   # Maximum Java Heap Size (in MB)
wrapper.java.maxmemory=768


3. Save and close the file
4. Launch PMS using the service

I can confirm that settings heap size to 2gig and launching via the .bat file worked for me no more skipping !!

[meskibob]

FYI:
There were duplicate posts in the tutorial thread for web streaming issues. One was posted by otmanix in the initial days of PMSencoder (there were a couple response posts about broken links), and the other (viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3507&p=37084#p37084) is the up-to-date PMSEncoder post by chocolateboy. In my attempt to clean up the tutorial thread by deleting the older post and the couple response posts, there may now be (somewhat) broken links to other posts in the tutorial thread. This is due to phpBB's page declaration in the URL (eg "&start=90"). If a link was made to a post in the tutorial thread using the "&start" url instead of the "&p" (example above), that link will be broken if the post was bumped to a new page, and the link will now just show the top of the declared page. My apologies for this issue.

Update:
We have expanded the change and moved non-tutorial items out of the tutorial thread to this discussion thread. Due to the large number of posts that were moved (and subsequent page changes), links to most of the posts in the tutorial thread are now broken (only if the "&start" was used).

[meskibob]

Issue 1015 has been created to update the Help tab within the program due to the recent changes.
This also serves a bump to make this thread a sticky alongside the tutorial thread.

[ps3slimhardcoregamer]

I tried using new photo of Xbox 360 S to replace the one PMS uses but it's blank, nothing appears, please help.

Thanks!

[chocolateboy]

As of revision 560 (currently unreleased)

Wait for the next release or use the SubJunk build:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3507&p=36904#p36904

[capitales7]

Troubleshooting - PS3
Error: You receive errors or asynchronous/frozen/stuttering playback when trying to Fast Forward, Rewind, or "Scene Search" through a video.

Solution: This is to be expected on slower LAN connections or for any media that is being transcoded or remuxed. Use the PS3's "Go To" feature instead: http://manuals.playstation.net/document ... nel.html#9

so it's safe to say that on any media being transcoded, regardless of bitrate and network bandwith, you will always have problems with ff/rew?
Even scene select errors out, and the Go To feature essentially transcodes all the frames up until the point you selected. Tried this with a movie the other day and tried to Go To an hour in... I gave up after waiting 20 minutes (PS3 MS was working away btw)... And I'm on Core i3 3.06GHz with a gigabit between PS3 and Mac.

What I don't understand is how AirVideo can support very fast ff/rew transcoded to my iPhone...unless of course iPhone supports mkv and it's being streamed? :S

[meskibob]

... and the Go To feature essentially transcodes all the frames up until the point you selected...

This issue only occurs with versions of PMS below 1.20.412 after the PS3 FW update 3.50 - viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7836
Unfortunately, that latest official Mac version is .409, so you'll need to wait for an updated release (it should be soon... viewtopic.php?f=7&t=10809) or try to compile for yourself (see previous link.)

[squadjot]

Hi, really apreciate the efforts people are making to document this software.
However, some optimization could be done regarding this topic:

•There is no option to rename PMS in the GUI. I want to run more than one PMS instance in my home network and identify them easily.
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3507&p=17364#p17364

Issues:
1. First and foremost, as this post states, you CAN change the name of server without having to compile source.. the pms.jar can be edited with winrar
2. It's worth mentioning that you can change the icon of the PMS server aswell (maybe link to this tool aswell?)
3. The topic name for this "problem" is way too long.. rename to something like, "Changing the name/icon of PMS on XMB"

I think it's still worth displaying the step by step (winrar method), and the sample content of the PMS.xml

Cheers

[akhlan]

Hy Otmanix,

I have continue on the translation of your Howto

French

• Introduction
• Réseaux et techniques de base
• Installation et configuration de base
• Configuration générale – Paramètres de navigation et de partage (I)
• Configuration générale – Paramètres de navigation et de partage (II)
• VLC, Avisynth et CoreAVC

Rgds
Akhlan

[chocolateboy]

Thanks. Merged.