Jellyfin Transcode Guard Plugin

A Jellyfin plugin that intelligently nags users when they're transcoding due to unsupported formats or codecs, while allowing bitrate-based transcoding to pass through without harassment.

Playback nag configuration and trigger reason selection

The browser install warning, its install link, and auto-close timeout

What a Jellyfin Web viewer sees when their browser forces a transcode

Login nag threshold, time window, and message

The transcode limit, user exclusions, and the live session monitor

How many transcodes each user can run at once, with per-user overrides

GPU resource guard settings

The paused transcode reaper, its warning, and its own exclusion list

What It Does

• Sends a playback nag when Jellyfin reports selected TranscodeReasons.
• Ignores bitrate-only transcodes, so users lowering quality for bandwidth do not get warned.
• Can turn the playback nag, GPU refusals and both transcode limits' blocks into a full warning with an install link for Jellyfin Web browser sessions (needs the JavaScript Injector plugin); every other client keeps the normal message.
• Can exclude Live TV channel streams from playback nags and login nag history.
• Can send a login nag when a user keeps hitting bad transcodes over the last week or month.
• Can refuse a user's next transcode outright once that same count passes a second, higher limit, so heavy transcoders are warned before they are stopped.
• Can cap how many videos each user transcodes at the same time, with a global maximum and per-user maximums that override it.
• Lets you exclude users from all nags.
• Includes a live session monitor in the plugin settings page.
• Can broadcast an optional Message of the Day to users at login, with its own user exclusions and client filters.
• Can refuse an NVIDIA hardware transcode before FFmpeg starts when that job's conservative VRAM budget will not fit.
• Can stop a transcode that has been left paused past a configurable timeout, so its FFmpeg process stops holding VRAM, an encoder session, and its output files for a viewer who is not coming back.

See here for all FEATURES.md.

Installation

[!NOTE] Migrating from Transcode Nag: run both until the config matches, then uninstall the old one.

Plugin Repository

1. Go to Dashboard → Plugins → Repositories
2. Add https://raw.githubusercontent.com/voc0der/jellyfin-plugin-transcode-guard/main/manifest.json
3. Install Transcode Guard from Catalog
4. Restart Jellyfin

[!NOTE] Full repository of this author's plugins: voc0der/jellyfin-plugins.

Manual

1. Download the latest ZIP from the Releases page
2. Extract it into your Jellyfin plugins directory:
   • Linux: /var/lib/jellyfin/plugins/
   • Windows: %AppData%\Jellyfin\Server\plugins\
   • Docker: /config/plugins/
3. Restart Jellyfin

Build from Source

dotnet build --configuration Release

Copy bin/Release/net10.0/Jellyfin.Plugin.TranscodeGuard.dll into a versioned plugin folder, then restart Jellyfin.

Configuration

Open Dashboard → Plugins → Transcode Guard.