Search the Community

I have seen many people have been switching to using mkv over mp4 in recent times and others complaining about playback issues with mkv. Many know that remuxing can help but it's very time consuming to do so, but it works. The issue is that the cues of a mkv file are normally written to the end of the file. This is an issue that's been corrected with mp4 files with -movflags faststart option when encoding mp4 files, but with mkv it's a little different. The script I have put together makes use of a program to move the cues to the front of the mkv and optimize the file for faster playback and better skipping and resume support. So I have a rather large library and it's become a bit of a problem for me so I found a program called mkclean from matroska that is used to fix and move the cues to the start of the mkv file. With very little documentation on the issue I had to go through a lot of trial and error to get things to work properly, but I put together a python script to fix this. Attached is that python script for those of you who would like to try it out. As of right now this guide is only for Windows machines but I still believe those that are using linux are more than capable of adapting this info for their environment. Step 1: Download the MKClean file to a directory. https://www.matroska.org/downloads/mkclean.html My files are located in a separate drive lettered K: so I created a folder called K:\mkclean to house my mkclean.exe file. Step 2: Download and install Python on your machine if you don't already have it installed. You can see the link below for that. https://www.python.org/downloads/windows/ Step 3: Open a command prompt as administrator and update pip to the latest then download the watchdog feature to python to be able to monitor your folders for newly added files. Use the following command python -m pip install --upgrade pip when done then run python -m pip install watchdog Step 4: Once both of these commands are completed update your system environment PATH with an entry for mkclean. Settings -> System -> About -> Advanced System Settings -> Environment Variables... In the system variable section scroll down and select path and click on the edit button. Then click on New to add an entry for the folder containing the mkclean.exe file. (In my case it was K:\mkclean) Once done click ok and reboot your system. Step 5: Not it's time to create your python file. Attached is a .txt version of the python file I created for myself and have been running. You will need to edit it some, but I'm here to help with that. NOTE THAT WHEN ENTERING A PATH YOU MUST ENTER IT WITH \\ AS EXAMPLE BELOW K:\mkclean WILL FAIL BUT K:\\mkclean WILL WORK. (Below is the path were you want your database of the the files it's processed to be stored at, update it to the path you want your database created at, but please leave the files_processed.db name for ease of use of you will have to edit more lines.) LINE 9: DATABASE_FILE = 'K:\\mkclean\\files_processed.db' (Below is the path to make the connection to the database you created on line 9, be sure that the path matches what you have entered on line 9) LINE 65 conn = sqlite3.connect('K:\\mkclean\\files_processed.db') LINE 77: conn = sqlite3.connect('K:\\mkclean\\files_processed.db') (Below are lines identifying the folders to work it's way through looking for .mkv files and running this mkclean optimization script on. Change each line to identify your library folders. You will need 1 line per folder that you are looking to process and it will search recursively through them for any .mkv file) LINE 95 process_existing_files("K:\\TV_Shows") LINE 96: process_existing_files("K:\\Movies") (Below is a line to identify the folders to monitor after it has completed it's initial task of recursively working it's way through your files and checking for .mkv files to optimize. When new ones are added it will find them and run the optimization on them again making them perfect for streaming.) On this line all the folders to monitor should be comma seperated values inside of double quotes and AGAIN take note of using \\ when entering a path vs a single \. LINE 99: folders_to_watch = ["K:\\Movies", "K:\\TV_Shows"] Step 6: Now when you go to save this I recommend saving this in the same folder as your database and the mkclean.exe file so you can locate it easily, but save it once with a txt extension for ease of updating later, and then save it again with a .py extension. Step 7: Now you can run the file by opening a command prompt and entering this command. python "K:\mkclean\mkclean_optimization_script.py" NOTE: To stop the running program hit CTRL+C with the command window active. Step 8: Many of you would probably like to have this also start up when your system starts so it's easy enough to do by creating a .bat file and placing it in your startup folder. I'm not going to walk you though that in this tutorial, but the code is simple enough to add for you and for you to make your edits to so it's below. @echo off python "K:\mkclean\mkclean_optimization_script.py" PLEASE NOTE I AM NOT THE BEST PYTHON PROGRAMMER OUT THERE BY FAR AND THIS IS A PERSONAL PROJECT OF MINE THAT I'M MAKING AVAILABLE FOR YOU TO USE IF YOU LIKE, BUT I TAKE NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR IT IN ANY WAY. PLEASE TEST OUT ON SOME COPIES OF FILES FIRST AND USE AT YOUR OWN RISK. Other than that enjoy and let me know if this helped you out at all. mkclean_optimization_script.txt

Issue: When resuming a previously played media, media play stops after about 16 seconds. The only ways to continue play are: 1) use play from start (not resume), or 2) skip a few frames ahead - but then stops again after 16 seconds. Play from start works fine until the end (always). Media: The Flash - S02E10 (Video: 1080p AV1 - Audio: English OPUS 5.1 (default) Emby App Log sent at: UTC-5 19:17 on the 18th November 2023 (Australia) Emby user on the local server: Pete-Bete

Hi, using latest server and clients (MacOS, iOS and AppleTV, and Chrome) and resume doesn’t work at all. Watch a movie for > 5 mins, exit, come back, only option is to Play, starts at 0:00 every time. All movies are encoded as MP4/H.264 by DVDFab (latest). This is a blocking issue for me as I use a lot of study reference material of multi-hour duration and I really REALLY need to be able to jump to where I left off.

Hi Guy's, To be clear this is only with the webapp and presuming this is due to HLS caching problem since there is some proof in the console. Seen allot of threads in this forum about pausing video maybe this might solve a few more of them. So playback stops randomly (faster with higher bitrate content, which makes sense) and error's out in the chrome console with the errors in the attached screenshot. The only thing that helps is restarting the video, unpausing is not an option since HLS already errored out. Also checked my transcoding settings etc. But even without transcoding this happens. And with transcoding I can trick the webplayer with lower bitrate content to keep playing. Oh and I noticed that "H264 encoding CRF" had noticeable impact, I always had it on 18 but going higher (now on 30) helps with this issue. (Or its a placebo effect since I can't measure when the buffer runs out) Now I've done some digging towards the solution, and I know this is close to blasphemy but here is the link , since it contains a possible solution to the problem.

Hi Emby community. Hope you're all well. On my Emby it is very slow to resume video if it resumes at all. Is this a common issue? On all the platforms I use Emby on, it either stalls when I try to scrub through the video (like say to the halfway mark) or just starts it back at the beginning. Any thoughts on this? Also, is it possible to adjust the display of the files in my Colletions on the android box to get rid of the Netflix like side scrolling and just have a thumb wall? All the best and Merry Christmas!

Hi resuming a movie in the LGe Emby app always leads to an error. After the error the playstate seems to be reset and one can only start the movie again form the beginning. In other emby apps resuming works fine. Any suggestions?

Hi, Just moved over from Firefox to Chrome, Now cant get emby to resume video it just seems to buffer, On local network or Public, It plays from the start in Chrome, and will resume in Firefox Chrome Version 79.0.3945.130 (Official Build) (64-bit) Any help Thanks embyserver.txt ffmpeg-transcode-636cec64-0467-47a4-aa06-fedf88a927cd_1.txt

Hello, Sometimes I jump to the next episode through the arrow on the OSD, before the "next episode start in..." appears. That episode then shows up as partially watched.. I do this often as I binge through a series. This hogs up the "continue..." section. If the episode would be marked as fully watched, after I click on the next episode, that would be a lot less hassle to get those partially watched ones out of the way. I'm not sure if I'm the only one who wants this implemented, but I guess it doesn't hurt to ask. Cheers!

I searched but I couldn't seem to find an existing topic on this. I feel like this has got to be my stupidity because I can't see how no one has mentioned this before. So my apologies if this is a duplicate topic and can you please point me to the old one? In case this is the first time this has been reported, I use offline sync to my mobile on Emby a lot now that I fully switched over from Plex. If I watch something offline and then close it, then come back later to it, it does not resume and I cannot find my left off point anywhere. However, as soon as I connect to my Emby server, my left off point is there and I can resume it on my phone, Android TV client, or HTPCs. Interestingly, if I watch something offline and exit, then go online for like a minute and then go offline again, I can then resume from my left off point on my offline mobile client. So clearly the Android mobile client is storing my left off point offline somewhere. So why can't it resume or at least, why can't I get the time code of my left off point if I stay offline? Its quite irritating. Thanks!

Hey, in the past i had my emby server on a NUC, now its switched back on my DS218+. For some reason i miss the feature "resume playback" of my audiobooks or music. i had this working on my NUC and i got single file audiobooks (length about 8hrs xD) so resume playback is essential to use emby for that. how can i enable this? i dont see any option right away, but could be blindness Ok, i found the actual problem. first of all, for whatever reason i needed to rearrange the librarys to get the feature working.i got audiobooks with files that go something like 8-14hrs ... there must be a minimum % of playback before the file is listed to make resume possible or something, if i move forward to the middle of the file, its listed. if its played like 13min its not listed. can somebody tell me more about this? wouldbe great to change that because if i start listening to a file and just drive to work (10minutes away) i cant resume . thanks in advance using latest Server for Synology

Would like to be able to resume playback using external player such as MPC-HC with Emby Theater. This was possible with Emby on WMC,activated through the "web interface" in MPC-HC somehow. Just switched my HTPC to Win 10 and did not realize it was not a feature with ET. Thanks, CFC

Hello. There is a problem with Emby Theater 1.0.44 on UE49MU6100. Some times when I resume a video the app hangs and won't respond to commands, and will crash when I press back button. There is outgoing traffic from the server when I press resume but than it stops. If I resume from the other device it plays ok, and if I rewind some time forward or backwards, than it resumes fine on TV. Log.txt

Hello all, So far I really love Emby. It has provided 95% of the solutions I need for multiple users in my home however, there is one really nagging issue that is kind of a deal breaker. I bought premium for one month to see if it's worth it and the only thing holding me back now from purchasing a lifetime membership is this one issue. No videos will resume playing if I leave that video's screen. It correctly marks where I left off and when I go to play it from where I left off it quickly loads to that marker and then the slider moves to the beginning of the file and pauses. If I hit play, it just does nothing. My only option is to go back to the show's page and hit play rather than resume and then manually go back to where I left off. This only seems to happen on my PC's (all running Arch, both Chrome and Firefox), it works fine on my Android devices. I would really appreciate any insight on how to fix this. Just let me know if you need any log files and I'll upload them.

Hello, HELP ME PLEASE!!!! I purchased the HDMI wifi EXCast4K dongle --> https://shopping.ezcast.com/prod/ezcast4k It works fine but has some problems because Emby server can transmit video files via DLNA protocol to the dongle, but it is not possible to control the time or volume. Using other types of software and transmitting the DLNA video stream to the dongle, time and volume control is possible. Could you verify and possibly solve the problem by reporting it to the programmers? I am available to perform all the tests you want to help you solve. Thank you

Hello I was trying to resume a movie on my phone, but was unable to find the resume button. There was only the play button, although a resume point is available. Long pressing did not bring up an additional menu. Requesting the desktop site did not change anything. This behavior also shows on desktop web browsers. When windows are the normal size, both resume and play buttons are displayed (when a resume point is available). However, when the browser is made smaller (horizontally, to about 1015 pixels), when it switches over to the "small screen UI", there is no resume button. I am running Emby Server 3.4.1.0 on Windows. Thank you in advance for your assistance

Currently, if you watch an in progress recording, reach the point to where it’s live, and then you exit out of the recording, it will be considered as watched. Would it be possible to only set as watched when you reach the in progress program’s end time, rather than the end of what’s currently recorded? That way, you can come back to a recording you’ve only had the chance to watch the first 15 minutes of, and resume right where you left off. Not only that, but if you can show the proper duration of the show in the player, you would be able to tell how far along a show has been recorded while watching, and know when you’ve reached the point to where it’s live.

Hi all im looking for some help. For a while now ive been unable to play new shows or movies but im able to play ones I have previously watch fine, which is very odd. Im able to play the other shows and movies fine over the network as normal. Thanks.

I have now gone full Emby as it gets better with every update and actually surpassed Plex in my opinion. I love everything about video playback but I am missing a feature for audiobook playback. I like to listen to audiobooks before I'm going to bed and from time to time I am waking up and my headset needs a charge and I have to find my spot again. the Android App "Smart AudioBook Player" has a feature that fades the current playback out when your phone doesn't move for 5 minutes (can be set to whatever you choose). once you shake your phone it aborts the progress. it can easily be activated with one tap on a screen icon. If the sleep function was triggered the playback position is saved and you can resume it when you open the audiobook again. Is there any way something like this can be implemented?

I often just watch one or two chapters from a music video for my favorite tracks. However, Emby then puts them into the resume playback category. In this case I do not want to resume and they clutter up the interface. Can Emby have features to: 1) For items in resume playback list have a button to cancel the resume 2) Have a setting at the Media Library level to exclude all items in the library from being resumed. I could then flag my music video library in one go.

Being able to stop watching an active recording and resume where I left off, either later or on another device, is a key feature. The resume function on previously recorded files works great. Providing this same capability for active recordings would be great. Sports provide an easy scenario. I usually start watching 30 to 60 minutes after the start of the game so that I can skip over a lot of the dead time (commercials, time outs, etc.) and focus on the game. Over the course of a 3+ hour game, I inevitably have interruptions and often move my watching from one device to another. Today, the only way to support this is to stop/re-start recording, effectively creating a "resume" point. While effective, it's an annoying process. Enabling "resume" on playback of active recordings would make this seamless.

I have notice that when I play an audio book or podcast from a resumed location, if I pause the playback then resume playback it starts back on the last resumed location. For example if I resume a podcast at 00:54:34 listen for 5 minutes and pause it so it is now at 00:59:34. When I press play again it will go back to the 00:54:34 instead of 00:59:34. To get around this I need to stop the podcast instead of pause, this way it will update the resume location and go to the correct time. This issue does not happen if there is no resumed location. When starting an audio book/podcast from the beginning play/pause works as intended. Hopefully this explanation was somewhat intelligible. Let me know if I need to explain any thing.

If I configure ET to use MadVR I can't resume any videos. I have to hit pause then play to get the video playing again. I can start playing a video just fine. I tested this on three different PC's and I get the same results using Emby Theater 2.9.2 and 2.8.8. Is there a setting I need to configure in order to get Emby-Theater to resume a video using MadVR?

Can you please add the ability to clear a resume point from somewhere inside the episode or movie's information? Right now if I want to get something out of the "Continue Watching" I have to start it from the beginning, let it load, and then back out of the episode or movie.

Hallo liebe Gemeinde, Problem1: Ich brauche eure HILFE , es geht darum ich habe zwei Systeme wo Kodi 17.4 darauf läuft, einmal einen Fire tv2 und einen Fire tv stick und einen emby server auf dem RaspberryPi 3 . Ich habe das Problem das jedes mal wenn ich einen Film schaue und den zum Beispiel nach 30 min Stoppe wird er mir bei Kodi sowie auf dem emby Server als gesehen angezeigt und kann ihn nicht an der gestopten stelle weiter fortführen. Problem2: Wenn ich über meinen Computer schauen möchte dann kann ich die Filme anwählen aber er spielt sie nicht ab ffmpeg ist installiert . Desweitern meckert auch der Apple TV und gibt eine Fehler warnung heraus. Liegt das an dem RaspberryPi3 das er die mkv dateien nicht transcodieren kann oder ist er zu schwach auf der Brust ? ffmpeg-transcode-60cc35fa-ab79-43ea-97a1-ebbafc208778.txt

I've noticed that resume points are not working when using kodi+emby. Instead a movie is instantly set to "watched" after i started it. I've searched a little bit and one possible explanation is a missing runtime - but I'm not 100% sure if that is the case (there are some other clues pointing to that: e.g sorting by runtime in emby does not work either), because I could not find a single place where emby displays the runtime. So my first question before investigating further is: Where is the runtime displayed in emby? How can I confirm that the runtime is missing (or not)?