Emby Stops Playing on iPad Web & App

[djdevon3 5]

Started having an issue last week with emby-next-gen and Kodi out of nowhere. emby-next-gen Auto updates perhaps. Since then everything has gone nuts. Kodi kept freezing and throwing errors for emby-next-gen. I cut Kodi out of the loop by reinstalling it and then just not using it.

Now I'm only using Emby in Firefox on 2 PC's (I don't use Chrome) and my iPad on Firefox but Emby server reports it as Safari. Playing files across the network with Emby Web on 2 different PC's (Firefox Web) works flawlessly. Like, I couldn't ask for better performance on PC via browser it's great.

• On my iPad however it's a whole different story. Movies take a long time to load and stop playing after random period of time on iPad Web (Firefox/Safari) usually under 2 minutes. There's no blue circle for buffering it just immediately loads the next episode in the series and will continue that behavior indefinitely.
• It's even worse with iPad Emby App (No compatible streams to play error, can't play anything). Kind of narrowed down the issue to it only not working correctly on the iPad. Emby is basically unusable on my iPad currently either via web browser or Emby app.

Was using an older 750 Ti and thew in a GTX 1650 today hoping it was some kind of CUDA related transcoding issue but the issue persists. The 750 Ti didn't give me access to all the HW acceleration options but the 1650 does. Installed nvidia drivers with clean install even though it's the same WHQL driver the 750 Ti uses. Have all advanced HW acceleration options selected.

I have no idea if this is the optimal way for my setup. At my wits end because I like to fall asleep with something playing on my ipad and haven't been able to do that lately.

Emby server is a little mid tower connected to a large tv which acts as a media server wirelessly (802.11AC). I usually keep my streams limited to about 1.5mbps-2mbps. I won't discount the possibility of a wireless issue. I'd like to think it would start buffering instead of immediately playing the next episode if it was a wireless connection issue.

embyserver.txt ffmpeg-transcode-80f2d6b5-0631-46d0-8b25-91ae281084b4_1.txt

hardware_detection-63795598644.txt

Edited August 9, 2022 by djdevon3
added hw detection log and screenshot

[djdevon3 5]

Think I fixed the Emby app problem by fiddling with options. Seems like sometimes the options don’t actually save or work even though it’s showing what you’ve set especially for max bitrates even with a server restart.  It’s like it has a mind of its own if it’s going to honor the bitrate limit you’ve set.

 So I went from 60 to 1.5mbps to try to limit my usage but that made things worse (no available stream error in iOS Emby app). So I bumped it up to 10 and now Emby app is happy. No more incompatible stream error. 

Here are the settings I have now that are working for the app. Not working for playing from iPad web.  At least I can use the app now.

 

There are separate settings in the Emby iOS app I didn’t realize because they look the same/similar to the Emby server settings.  They are user settings and I think that’s where some of my bitrate conflict was stemming from.  

Still can’t play from iPad web for more than a minute though.  

Edited August 9, 2022 by djdevon3

[Luke 37019]

Hi, why exactly do you think the options are not applied?

[djdevon3 5]

Let's say I want to stream on my network at 1.5mbps. I set the server network quality to 4mbps, then play a video. It was trying to play it at 60mbps first. I had to manually choose 1.5mbps in the video player which is my real target value for streaming small 720 videos. I would expect the video player to default to the maximum of the server network bitrate but it wasn't doing that. It was ignoring all bitrate settings for a while both server and user maximums as if the option wasn't being saved properly and would default to the absolute maximum which I think is 60mbps. I was doing server restarts after ever change to attempt to get it to correct itself but that wasn't working. Of course my meager little system won't do 60mbps so it would immediately fail until I set the bitrate manually in the video player.

As you can see in the screenshots yesterday it started magically accepting the new setting and working correctly but everything still not working with ipad web. Maybe that's a Safari/Firefox issue in particular I don't know.

Needs more graceful bitrate client/server mismatch error messages to help the admin (me) know that a video is failing to play because the server bitrate is set lower than the video or client bitrate or the distance between file bitrate and server bitrate is too taxing for transcoding. If those error messages exist I never ran into them. Could have helped me figure out my bad bitrate settings issue a little faster. 

Most of my files bitrates are between 1-4mbps, not really asking the server to do too much work. I don't do 4K, 1080p is the max but usually 720p.

Been using Emby app on iPad for hours without a problem on the new settings in the screenshots. Emby app is definitely fixed now with the new settings. Still no clue why Safari/Firefox web on iPad is failing shortly after video starts.

Edited August 9, 2022 by djdevon3

[visproduction 122]

Possible related issue with Cuda update.  Apparently this has been a problem for some years.  I am not sure it still applies to current OS.  But you said you were having the issue with an iPad.  See: https://forums.developer.nvidia.com/t/mac-cuda-driver-fully-compatible-with-macos-high-sierra-10-13-error/54788

Hope that helps.

[djdevon3 5]

That's relative to MacOS servers. I have a Windows 10 server. The iPad is just a client. 

I went to play a new movie today with the iOS emby app and it defaulted to 60mbps again. It somehow bypassed/ignored the max bitrate I have set for the server... Decided to run an experiment and see how long out of the 2 hour movie it would play like that, about 40 minutes then the server crashed. My wifi isn't good enough to keep up that kind of bitrate but I would expect it to buffer, not crash.

just finished watching the same entire movie on Emby iOS app at 1.5mbps without a problem. I think part of the problem is just getting movies to load is hit and miss because it’s defaulting some new titles to 60mbps and they can’t load at that bitrate so the movie fails to play.  If it does load, only then I can manually set the player to 1.5 mbps and it plays fine.  It’s definitely ignoring bitrate preferences both server or user and playing at maximizing bitrate, sometimes. It doesn’t happen for titles I’ve already played so I’m guessing the preference is stored in an nfo? New titles go straight to 60mbps most of the time.  

Edited August 11, 2022 by djdevon3

[Luke 37019]

Can you try lowering the in app quality setting a little lower and see if the issue persists? Thanks.

[djdevon3 5]

Lowered to 1mbps and has been working well.  The problem is for new titles it wants to default to a much higher rate sometimes like 60mbps, ignoring server and user settings. 

I set my user preference to 4mbps and if the video bitrate is higher than that (5mpbs for example) it will say no compatible streams available.

I set my user preference to 8mbps and manually set video stream rate to 1.0 or 1.5mbps and that works perfect. 

I have to fight with it which seems like something I shouldn't have to do. God forbid I accidentally get a bluray title by accident at 25mbps and I have to reconfigure the entire server to attempt to play it and it never works because my wifi just isn't fast enough for it.  This is really a slow wifi scenario and I know that doesn't help but I just moved into a new place and forced to use repeaters because of cinderblock walls. This winter when it cools down and I can actually go into the attic without suffocating or dying of heat stroke I intend to run ethernet. I'm stuck with what I have for now.