Plex Media Server Crashing Daily

So a TL;DR here is this:

I run Plex Media Server within Docker and it was crashing daily; when it would crash, somehow it was also either taking down my entire Docker server or somehow hamstringing it causing other weird issues Docker-wide (don't ask me, I have no idea how, but it did).

After looking through the PMS logs I kept seeing something along the lines if this (note that the numbers 1.40.0.[etc.] are just the PMS version number and will change over time):

****** PLEX MEDIA SCANNER CRASHED, CRASH REPORT WRITTEN: /Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Crash Reports/1.40.0.7998-c29d4c0c8/PLEX MEDIA SCANNER/<some hash string>.dmp

so I dug into the .log files under:

C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Plex Media Server Test\Library\Application Support\Plex Media Server\Crash Reports\1.40.0.7998-c29d4c0c8\PLEX MEDIA SCANNER

which showed a ton of these (bold text added by yours truly):

Dec 26, 2023 03:24:32.295 [139813188184832] DEBUG - [MI] Opening input file: "/audiobooks/Wherever You Go There You Are/Wherever You Go There You Are 3 Jon Kabat-Zinn.mp3"

Dec 26, 2023 03:24:32.295 [139813188184832] DEBUG - [FFMPEG] - Opening '/audiobooks/Wherever You Go There You Are/Wherever You Go There You Are 3 Jon Kabat-Zinn.mp3' for reading

Dec 26, 2023 03:24:32.295 [139813188184832] DEBUG - [FFMPEG] - Setting default whitelist 'file,crypto,data'

Dec 26, 2023 03:24:32.301 [139813188184832] DEBUG - [FFMPEG] - Format mp3 probed with size=2048 and score=51

Dec 26, 2023 03:24:32.301 [139813188184832] DEBUG - [FFMPEG] - id3v2 ver:3 flags:00 len:246

Dec 26, 2023 03:24:32.306 [139813188184832] DEBUG - [FFMPEG] - Before avformat_find_stream_info() pos: 256 bytes read:32768 seeks:0 nb_streams:1

Dec 26, 2023 03:24:32.310 [139813188184832] DEBUG - [FFMPEG] - All info found

Dec 26, 2023 03:24:32.311 [139813188184832] WARN - [FFMPEG] - Estimating duration from bitrate, this may be inaccurate

Dec 26, 2023 03:24:32.312 [139813188184832] DEBUG - [FFMPEG] - After avformat_find_stream_info() pos: 6400 bytes read:32768 seeks:0 frames:50

Dec 26, 2023 03:24:32.320 [139813188184832] DEBUG - [FFMPEG] - Using s16p internally between filters

Dec 26, 2023 03:24:38.719 [139813188184832] ERROR - [FFMPEG] - Header missing

Dec 26, 2023 03:24:38.719 [139813188184832] ERROR - Analysis: Codec error 'Invalid data found when processing input'.

So in summation, one of the mp3 files in an AudioBook of mine was a little bit corrupt, and Plex being a somewhat fragile software, would crash entirely simply because it had problems reading it. Bogus.

They guys and girls(?) at Plex Corp. could easily fix this by adding in code to auto-fix mp3's with this error once detected; perhaps even making it an option in it's settings (something like "attempt to repair corrupt audio files") in case they're worried about screwing up users' files in failed repair attempts; this way the onus is placed more upon the user. Could even create backups before attempting repairs, but I digress ...

In the interim, if you want to keep the corrupt audio file, repair it, and stop Plex from crashing when it scans it (the mp3 still plays perfectly as it should) you can repair the file yourself.

Head on over and download a tiny, free program named "mp3val". Just run the mp3 through the proggie and it'll detect the corruption, choose the option to repair it, and b00m! Yur gud.

Replace the corrupt one with this fixed one and good ol' Plex will no longer crash.