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User can't stream videos on Roku Stick


bozrdnag

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bozrdnag

I have a friend that I setup with a Roku Stick to stream from my Emby server.  The problem is that everything they try to play usually only plays for a couple seconds and the they just get the spinning wheel or once in a blue moon it will alternate between playing for 5-6 seconds and then buffering for 10-15.  They literally can't watch anything.  They have no problem streaming from Netlfix or Hulu on the same Roku device.  Multiple speed tests show >120 Mbps download at the TV and I have Emby playback quality set to 4 Mbps.  So I don;t think throughput is the issue.

 

I would really like to get this working for them but I am stumped.  I have attached my logs.

embyserver.txt

ffmpeg-transcode-624d7419-9070-4b5b-b07f-0838c50f2ab0_1.txt

Edited by bozrdnag
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That isn't a ton of upload bandwidth.  Your server is transcoding plenty fast enough so I'd say this is a bandwidth issue of some sort somewhere in the chain.

 

Try having him set the quality to 1Mb and see what happens.

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bozrdnag

@@pir8radio How much upload bandwidth do I need to support a single 4 Mbps stream?  I used to only have 5Mbps upload speed and nobody ever had any issues. I have a user with only 50Mbps download and they are set for a 5Mbps stream and they have been watching videos for over a year without a single issue.  I will ask them to try 1Mbps when they can but I donlt really think that is the issue.  Furthermore, until today they were set to auto which was limiting them to about 2 Mbps with the same results.

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Happy2Play

I would have them set their Roku to max quality and you set a stream limit on the user account to take Auto mechanizm out of the mix.  But I would assume all ISPs are doing a lot of traffic shaping these days. 

 

Even Netflix had to reduce quality with their current high usage.

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bozrdnag

This is not a new problem.  It has been going on for months.  They have never been able to watch anything from my server.  I finally just got them to try and troubleshoot it a bit.  I changed them from auto today to 4 Mbps and I limited them to 2 Mbps at one point and it still acted the same.

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Happy2Play

Add could it be the signal strength on the Roku stick itself?  But I have one user that has a Roku stick and a 4Mbps limit on server user and have not had any reported issues.

Edited by Happy2Play
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bozrdnag

If you mean the wifi signal, I had them run a speedtest on their phone while holding it right next to the Roku stick and they repeatedly recorded over 120 Mbps.  That makes it hard for me to think it's a bandwidth issue

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Happy2Play

But they are two different wifi receiver, but is only a guess.

 

 

All you can really do is have them step test each quality setting, lowest to highest.

Edited by Happy2Play
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If you mean the wifi signal, I had them run a speedtest on their phone while holding it right next to the Roku stick and they repeatedly recorded over 120 Mbps.  That makes it hard for me to think it's a bandwidth issue

 

That doesn't sound like it tested the Roku stick's speed at all... just his phone's.

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bozrdnag

What I mean is that doing that tested the wifi signal available in the area of the Roku.  I'm not saying the Roku isn't getting a worse signal or speed but even if it's only 10% of what the phone was getting it's still 12 Mbps which should be more than enough to handle a 4 Mbps stream.  

 

And like I said, they stream Netflix and Hulu just fine from that same Roku stick,  It's only Emby that doesn't work.  Is there nothing else I can do to track down what the problem might be?

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The big streaming services use constant bitrate adjustment that they may never notice.  Did you try the test at 1Mb?

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pir8radio

as others have said, it could totally be that users ISP purposely limiting video stream bandwidth.  Ever since net neutrality laws, ISP's are able to slow down video while leaving everything else at full speed if they want to...   Probably forcing you to buy their tv services...      But the more realistic reason as others have said as well, is that person has a dual band router/wifi the roku is on one band your phone test was on another, it could still be poor wifi. 

 

a 4mb/s stream should only use about that in network bandwidth, you dont really notice the overhead.    Who is their ISP, are they using a VPN, what kind of wifi access point/router, reboot the roku stick, what do you see on the server side?  Is your cloudflare setup correctly (roku's can be picky).   you will have to do some more digging first, i think.

 

What kind of movies are they trying to play?   MP4, MKV?     I think you should start with bypassing cloudflare (remove orange cloud) and see what you get.

Edited by pir8radio
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pir8radio

looks like you are using nginx too... (server: nginx/1.16.1) that is actually probably where your issue is,   want to share the cofig?   

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bozrdnag

I have not gotten the user to try 1 Mbps yet.  It's hard to get them to try things because I can't insist they do it right now and they always forget to get to it.  If the ISP is throttling video would that include Netflix and Hulu too?  I'm not sure who their ISP is.  The media they were trying to play were various ripped BluRay and DVD movies all in MKV containers.

 

Would Cloudflare and/or Nginx settings affect users differently?  Because like I said, other users have no issues streaming from me at all. 

 

Here is my Nginx config:

server {
    listen 443 ssl;

    server_name emby.*;

    include /config/nginx/ssl.conf;

    client_max_body_size 0;

    location / {
#        auth_basic "Restricted";
#        auth_basic_user_file /config/nginx/.htpasswd;
        include /config/nginx/proxy.conf;
        resolver 127.0.0.11 valid=30s;
        set $upstream_emby emby;
        proxy_pass http://$upstream_emby:8096;
        proxy_set_header Range $http_range;
        proxy_set_header If-Range $http_if_range;
        proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
    }
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pir8radio

cloudflare and nginx would affect different devices differently, and different media formats mp4 vs mkv due to some headers. 

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bozrdnag

On Cloudflare do I need to remove the proxy on the subdomain too?  It was already disabled on the domain.

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pir8radio

 

I have not gotten the user to try 1 Mbps yet.  It's hard to get them to try things because I can't insist they do it right now and they always forget to get to it.  If the ISP is throttling video would that include Netflix and Hulu too?  I'm not sure who their ISP is.  The media they were trying to play were various ripped BluRay and DVD movies all in MKV containers.

 

Would Cloudflare and/or Nginx settings affect users differently?  Because like I said, other users have no issues streaming from me at all. 

 

Here is my Nginx config:

server {
    listen 443 ssl;

    server_name emby.*;

    include /config/nginx/ssl.conf;

    client_max_body_size 0;

    location / {
#        auth_basic "Restricted";
#        auth_basic_user_file /config/nginx/.htpasswd;
        include /config/nginx/proxy.conf;
        resolver 127.0.0.11 valid=30s;
        set $upstream_emby emby;
        proxy_pass http://$upstream_emby:8096;
        proxy_set_header Range $http_range;
        proxy_set_header If-Range $http_if_range;
        proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
    }

 

Oh are you using one of those pre-built containers?  where did you download the setup?   I seldom see these prebuilt docker jobbies that someone is putting out, that actually works right. 

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bozrdnag

Yes.  It's a LinuxServer.io container.  They have many different Docker contianers ready for Unraid (which I run).  It has LetsEncrypt and nginx together.

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bozrdnag

So I finally got them to try 1Mbps and it is working now.  Thanks for the advice.  Now I need to help them figure out why it needs so low of a bitrate.  I would like to be able to up that for them for better picture quality.

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