TheGrimKeeper 30 Posted July 19, 2021 Share Posted July 19, 2021 I've seen a number of posts in the archives about audio problems with FireTV devices connected directly to TVs, and I've been having a similar issue, but some details are different so I thought I'd share what I'm seeing if it helps anyone (or helps the devs solve any underlying issues). I have an old (70s/80s) TV series that I ripped from DVD, into MKV format. The audio specs for the files are as follows: Title: English AC3 mono (Default) Embedded Title: Mono Language: English Codec: AC3 Layout: mono Channels: 1 ch Bitrate: 192 kbps Sample Rate: 48,000 Hz Default: Yes My main TV uses an Nvidia Shield Pro 2019, and it plays this audio fine whether connected to the receiver or straight to the TV. But my other two TVs use FireTV devices (one 4k Stick, one Cube), both connected directly to the TV. For both FireTV devices, the video plays fine, but there is no audio whatsoever on these episodes. What's most interesting about this is, not only is there no audio when playing the episode, but all audio on the FireTV devices no longer work after trying to play these episodes, including in other apps - no navigation sounds, no audio from streaming services, nothing. And none of it throws an error. The only way to restore audio is to restart the FireTV device. I had not made any changes to the playback settings in the Emby app, but I've found that changing the settings to Downmix to Stereo on the FireTV devices solves the problem - the audio now plays properly during the episode, and the audio continues working for other apps on the device afterwards. Not sure why this solves the problem, and not sure why the Auto setting caused such a catastrophic audio failure, but again, just sharing these details in case they are helpful to anyone else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke 37258 Posted July 20, 2021 Share Posted July 20, 2021 Hi there, @TheGrimKeeper, can we please look at a specific example? Please attach the information requested in how to report a media playback issue. thanks ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ebr 14959 Posted July 20, 2021 Share Posted July 20, 2021 Hi. Yes, please be sure and follow the instructions to send a log from the app as well. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGrimKeeper 30 Posted July 20, 2021 Author Share Posted July 20, 2021 Server log is attached - the problem results from the last item played ("Undertow", which is from Season 1 of the TV show Chips). I changed the audio settings in the FireTV app back to "Auto" before playing the file to make the test as authentic as possible, and to confirm, this crashed all audio on the FireTV 4k Stick as usual. In the app I activated "Enable debug options" before playback but a send log option didn't appear in any place that I could find (the app reports its version as 2.0.21a Registered), so maybe this was sent to you automatically. The server is set to ET so the timestamps should match up if you got that. If not, please let me know where I should be looking for this option and I will repeat the test. Let me know if you need more info, and thank you for looking into this! embyserver.txt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ebr 14959 Posted July 21, 2021 Share Posted July 21, 2021 13 hours ago, TheGrimKeeper said: please let me know where I should be looking for this option and I will repeat the test. Hi. From the article linked above: Quote Now there will be a new option on the user menu at the top of your app home page labelled "Send Log". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGrimKeeper 30 Posted July 21, 2021 Author Share Posted July 21, 2021 Thanks ebr. I read that yesterday but for some reason "User menu" didn't register as "click on name". But I found it this time! Thanks for your patience. I repeated the test - I changed audio settings back to Auto, and tried to play the same "Undertow" episode as before, and as before the audio for the FireTV Cube died and required a restart to get it back. New server log file attached, and the FireTV app log has been sent. The app logs were sent at approximately 6:00pm ET, under username "me". Thanks again! embyserver.txt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ebr 14959 Posted July 22, 2021 Share Posted July 22, 2021 Unfortunately, your log just looks like normal playback. No errors or anything. Can you provide a sample video? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGrimKeeper 30 Posted July 22, 2021 Author Share Posted July 22, 2021 3 hours ago, ebr said: Can you provide a sample video? See attached. The original video is about 2 GB, and is under copyright, so I truncated it to just the first 10 seconds. I repeated the test with this clip and it crashed the audio as usual, so whatever is in the original file is here as well. Clip.mkv Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke 37258 Posted July 29, 2021 Share Posted July 29, 2021 @TheGrimKeeper are you still having an issue with this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGrimKeeper 30 Posted July 30, 2021 Author Share Posted July 30, 2021 21 hours ago, Luke said: are you still having an issue with this? As I mentioned in my initial post if I set the Audio processing in the Emby app to "Downmix to Stereo" the problem is solved. So that workaround is working for me because I'm not using my FireTV devices with a surround receiver, just connected directly to TVs, so stereo is the best I'm going to get anyway. But, the default "Auto" setting still causes the crashes. Were you able to reproduce the problem with the sample file I provided? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ebr 14959 Posted July 30, 2021 Share Posted July 30, 2021 7 hours ago, TheGrimKeeper said: Were you able to reproduce the problem with the sample file I provided? Unfortunately, no. Your sample plays without issue for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGrimKeeper 30 Posted July 31, 2021 Author Share Posted July 31, 2021 Not sure what's so unique about my setup, especially since this is happening on two different devices connected to two different TVs from two different manufacturers, but maybe it is something in my setup. Anyway the Downmix setting change continues to work for me, and I mostly opened this topic to share information that may be helpful for others, so no worries that we couldn't identify the problem. Thank you for looking into it though! I appreciate the support. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ebr 14959 Posted July 31, 2021 Share Posted July 31, 2021 Hopefully, we'll get to the bottom of it. Thanks for the info. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke 37258 Posted August 5, 2021 Share Posted August 5, 2021 @TheGrimKeeper Can you try the standard Emby android app on the same device and see how that compares? https://emby.media/emby-for-android.html Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGrimKeeper 30 Posted August 6, 2021 Author Share Posted August 6, 2021 On 8/4/2021 at 9:31 PM, Luke said: Can you try the standard Emby android app on the same device and see how that compares? Exact same problem - playing the file crashes the audio for the entire FireTV device, and rebooting the device is the only way to fix it. Note that I had to sideload the app via ADB as the Amazon app store said it wasn't compatible with my device. I managed to sign in and start playback, but it was definitely a little buggy/laggy. Anyway, same result, so whatever is going on here must be part of the common code base of the two apps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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