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Apparent transcoding problem. Logs sent from Android client


ricketyca

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ricketyca

The log was sent at 2022-10-28 @18:05EDT User was 'rick'

 

I was watching a program that on Chromecast with Google Tv needs to be transcoded. It is an episode of UK TV series Avengers. Season 3 Episode 19. Previous episode experienced similar issue. 

When well into the show the screen stutters momentarily and then goes into an apparent 2 or 3 times speed. Can pause and step back but same issue at same point. Restarting and jumping close to that point again shows the same symptom. I can finish the series on a Shield device or my PC (no transcoding needed).

There is not anything untoward happening on the server at the same time that I can see and it seems to happen at the same ( or similar) time spot in the show (well beyond half having been watched of either episode.

Any help or guidance would be welcomed.

 

 

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ricketyca

I have attached what I can find - server log and two ffmpeg logs. However, the two ffmpeg logs appear to span the time of the error, but do not seem to include any log items in the time range when the client tried to log the issue. 

What I discovered today, when trying to watch another episode and experiencing a similar issue, was that I saw the Settings option in the client to enable "Playback Correction" and selected Yes to the question whether I was having either audio or video issues and the problem went away. I went back to the  previous episode and that option resolved the issue on that. So I have also attached that ffmpeg log (the name makes clear which one it is).

Obviously, now I know of the Playback Correction feature I can readily invoke that when necessary, but thought you may still be interested in diagnosing the cause. 

Thanks for your assistance.

embyserver-63802598400.txt ffmpeg-transcode-6e50f9f3-6731-4fc3-aa3b-377f6a5c8256_1.txt ffmpeg-transcode-3428851c-6698-4dbe-b9ef-c2f1c4f34938_1.txt

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Both of those playback methods look identical...

This is probably why you are seeing transcoding now when you didn't before - you disabled remuxing:

>>>>>>  User policy for rick
        Enable Playback Remuxing: False

 

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ricketyca

Is that the effect of selecting the Playback Correction Feature?

I did not do anything else to my settings manually (deliberately) .

Is that a file based setting or a general one, and where is it set?

What is remuxing vs transcoding? 

Thanks.

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ricketyca

Thanks. My files come from a variety of sources, ripped, shared etc

Is there any way that when browsing with a client I can see what method will need to be used to deliver that source to the browsing client?

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15 hours ago, ricketyca said:

Is that a file based setting or a general one, and where is it set?

Bring up your user in the server management console.  There are options there for whether to allow different types of playback (and a warning if you disable any of them).

image.png

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ricketyca

Many thanks. I reviewed the settings and found that the last one was unchecked, so I checked it. Playback of the next episode worked well with a very minor glitch close by the 35 minute mark again. The video went 'out of focus' and stretched to full screen width but in one second then continued - the episode playing well to the end.

So many thanks. I have no idea how or when I would have changed that setting, but it now seems to be solved. 

Do you have some inking of why it happens at about that time in any episode? Is a log or transcoding file being closed and a new one restarted or something?

 

Rick

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2 hours ago, ricketyca said:

Do you have some inking of why it happens at about that time in any episode? Is a log or transcoding file being closed and a new one restarted or something?

No, it almost has to be related to the media itself.

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ricketyca

On running the latest episode today, it again started 'fast pay' like behaviour and I selected the Playback Correction again, which cleared it. On checking the User Settings the option to Allow Changing of Container Formats, was again cleared. Is that something that can get cleared by the Playback Correction logic? I am sure that I changed it and saved it, but will double check by trying again

 

 

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1 minute ago, ricketyca said:

Is that something that can get cleared by the Playback Correction logic?

No but that option is per-user so perhaps a different user?

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ricketyca

I am sure we have only one user - though we do watch on different devices. I re-did check that option and saw a message in the activity "User Policy has been updated for rick". I searched the activity and that is the only instance of that message. So I must not have done it properly yesterday. 

 

Thanks again for the quick responses and assistance.

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ricketyca

Yes, the problem persists. Even though I know the Transcoding setting (Allow changing of container formats) that was Off, is now On. When I got to ajust after the 35 minute mark, the glitch recurred. I again selected the Playback Correction option and it subsequently continued to play OK. I even went back prior to the glitch and played through it once I had selected the Playback Correction. 

Is there some way to automagically select that for playback of this 'format' of program?

Rick

 

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ricketyca

Can you advise what you mean and how to do it? I am not averse to trying things and have some utilites VLC, Handbrake, AVIdemux and others, but would need guidance on what I would need to do.

 

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ricketyca

Thanks for the tip. I use MKVToolnix, so I did what you suggested and when playing the MKV file, the issue does not happen. I went back and retried the original AVI and it recurs (I am a cynic when wrong things suddenly go right!). 

So that seems to solve the issue. One oddity I noticed is that when playing both files alongside the episode name when I pause, the caption "DIRECT" is showing. Doesn't that mean that it is not a transcoding issue, but something else?

Obviously even though it is a quick process (about 10 - 15 seconds per file) these older UK programs have a lot of episodes in a season! However, I am near the end of Season 3 and it looks as though Season 4 uses a lower video bitrate, so I will not remux that lot until I know it is necessary.

Again, I do appreciate the team for their help.

 

 

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12 minutes ago, ricketyca said:

I went back and retried the original AVI and it recurs

Ahhh... I had missed the fact that the originals were AVI.  That is such an old container that support for it is a bit spotty. 

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  • 3 weeks later...
ricketyca
20 hours ago, Luke said:

Are you still having an issue with this?

No Luke - thanks. I was able to remux using MKVToolnix and they played just fine.

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