Conversion broken

[JustSomeone 2]

Hello,

I setup a conversion job to automatically convert every new media file added to a specific folder. The settings for this job are set like this:

 

Most files are converted without a problem but there are some files that are always stuck at downloaded and wont be converted nor removed from the list. So far I tried removing the specific download list entry aswell the whole conversation job which just leads to the same file beeing stuck at downloaded again while other freshly added files are being converted and later on removed from the list. Sadly this is happening to a lot of files lately:

Searching for a solution I already found someone else running into the same issue and I can indeed confirm what has been said in this this thread: the files being listed there are files which are worked on right now. Finished conversions are removed. This is no history or what so ever.

 

I will attach some logs later on.

[Abobader 2958]

Hello JustSomeone,

** This is an auto reply **

Please wait for someone from staff support or our members to reply to you.

It's recommended to provide more info, as it explain in this thread:

Thank you.

Emby Team

[Luke 37260]

Hi, they don't get removed from the list when they are downloaded. They stay there for your reference. Does that answer your question?

[JustSomeone 2]

No it doesnt. I am not asking a question I am trying report a bug. Let me try to describe it another time:

The conversion job above has already converted a dozen of files and none of the successfully converted files stayed on the list "for my reference".

The only files remaining in the list are stuck at "downloaded" forever and wont produce a converted file nor remove the old file.

 

Do you understand what I am trying to tell?

Thanks for taking the time to answer.

Edited February 4, 2022 by JustSomeone

[JustSomeone 2]

I attached a log for you. The media file in question is "The Riot and the Dance - Water (2020)/The Riot and the Dance - Water (2020).mp4"

logs.zip

[JustSomeone 2]

Another update from my side (sorry for tripple posting):
Indeed @Luke is right. A succesfully converted file seems to be shown as a completed download in the list of the job however I am stil pretty confused:
 

Let me make an example:

1. I have Folder ABC with 1000 video files.
2. All files are already processed by my conversion job
3. I delete the conversion job and recreate it with the same settings
4. 20 files which got previously converted are once again added to the list and reprocessed. The other files are somehow recognized as already converted and are not added
   1. Also: Why does it only keep certain files on the list "for my reference"? Why doesnt it happen to all files?

After double checking I can indeed confirm the conversion is working but the behavior described above is kinda confusing to me. Why does it only happen to 20 of 1000 files?

 

Thanks again and I hope you can shed some light on this.

Edited February 4, 2022 by JustSomeone

[visproduction 125]

Media files can have many different codecs, different compressions and many different types of damaged video, skipped frames or some audio errors.  You can play content back with a video player software that has built in features that solve some of these issues.  The defects can still be there.  ffmepg has tests that you can run to look for issues.  Some codecs have compression that makes it very difficult to re-encode.  Typically, this will happen, I would guess, up to 10% of the time, depending on what source you use to get your content.  

In post production for TV and film, only master quality content is used to make any changes or encoding to any new production output.  If you don't have master quality, uncompressed or very high quality copies, the post production house pretty much just won't help you.  They tell you to call back when you have a master and if you come with compressed copied, working on it to fix things goes up in price, sometimes 10 to 30 times as much.

I would guess something like this is causing your issues.  Just because you can view some media file, doesn't mean it's a good copy.  I see media issues, all the time in online media and even in DVD or blu-ray copies.  If you only see issues with 20 out of 1000 videos, that is a pretty good average.  If you want to test any encoding process, use high quality test media.  If that works, then essentially the problem is in your media copies.

Hope that helps.

[JustSomeone 2]

Thanks for the detailed answer @visproduction. I used ffmpeg with the following parameters on one of the files reappearing on each new conversion job and another time on a file where the entry is removed from the conversion job list once its processed:

Quote

ffmpeg -v error -i "abc.mp4" -f null - 2>error.log

File that stays on the list with state downloaded:

Quote

[h264 @ 0x55c064e62880] Invalid NAL unit size (9493 > 76).
[h264 @ 0x55c064e62880] Error splitting the input into NAL units.
Error while decoding stream #0:0: Invalid data found when processing input

The other file produces no output at all.

 

To me it seems like the fact that there is some kind of error leads to  the file being detected as something that needs to converted again while it is already a result of a conversion previously done emby.

Is there any way to tell the job to ignore this file or any way to fix this? Manually removing the entry from the list will just lead to emby readding and converting it again.

 

 

 

Edited February 4, 2022 by JustSomeone

[visproduction 125]

Hmmm, found this on that error: https://github.com/zmwangx/caterpillar/issues/4
Perhaps the file was converted from sequential .ts files and that is the source of the issue.  In a production environment, you would ask the client for an original master to make a proper encoded version and that would probably solve it.

In my opinion, any such problem files are a lost cause.  Find another original master.

[JustSomeone 2]

Checked a few more of those files:

The original file is completely viewable using emby aswell another web player I tried.

After conversion the file has only a duration of about 54 seconds (originally over an hour playtime).

 

I expected the original file to also cause problems when being watched over emby but this is not the case. Somehow it only fails while being converted by a job.

Anyway I will stop on this matter and just go for different sources like you mentioned. Seems to be not worth chasing further.

 

Thanks a lot to you

[JustSomeone 2]

On 2/4/2022 at 5:15 AM, Luke said:

Hi, they don't get removed from the list when they are downloaded. They stay there for your reference. Does that answer your question?

Quoting this once again to remind you that there wont be anything left on the list when the conversion is succesful. Staying on the list = some kind of error

[Luke 37260]

Actually no they always stay in the list. They'll just be in a completed state.