FireTV doesnt play some MKV files

[AphxTwstr 0]

I'm lost by identifying a problem with MKV playback on my Fire TV Stick 4K Max. I have two MKV Files a.mkv and b.mkv. a is playing fine, b never starts and exits with too many errors, giving up. Video and Audio settings of both MKV files are nearly identical as far as i can see. Emby server runs on a Synology NAS DS720+. The playback works fine with both files when i use an iPad with the Emby App. The playback works also fine when i use VLC on the Fire TV Stick. Logs are attached.

The user who is watching: jakob

embyserver.txt ffmpeg-directstream-7f552ae5-49ae-4385-8fbe-12c41dfaad14_1.txt ffmpeg-directstream-fc307299-ed2c-45b5-bdcc-58c388fd2467_1.txt ffmpeg-remux-8bf1ba46-76b8-4f19-bcab-47bc110bdefd_1.txt mediainfo-a.txt mediainfo-b.txt

[ebr 14930]

2 hours ago, AphxTwstr said:

b never starts and exits with too many errors, giving up

Can you please play that item until it fails and then follow the instructions to send a log from the app?

 

[ebr 14930]

But here is why playback is failing entirely:

Enable Video Playback Transcoding: False

Please read the help text under that option.

[AphxTwstr 0]

1 hour ago, ebr said:

Can you please play that item until it fails and then follow the instructions to send a log from the app?

Thats not really possible because it plays just a few seconds before i exits back to the title screen. Im not able to navigate to the cog menu in that time.

 

1 hour ago, ebr said:

But here is why playback is failing entirely:

Enable Video Playback Transcoding: False

Please read the help text under that option.

But it shouldnt transcode the video at all. The Synology is not powerful enough to transcode 4k files. Video a (and many others) plays fine and its not really different as far as i can see.

[GrimReaper 3309]

3 minutes ago, AphxTwstr said:

Thats not really possible because it plays just a few seconds before i exits back to the title screen. Im not able to navigate to the cog menu in that time.

You can send logs from Home Screen after playback fails. 

Quote

Emby for Android TV/Fire TV and Emby for Roku Logs

 

These apps have the option to send an app log to us electronically.  You enter the settings page and turn on the "Debug Options".  Now there will be a new option on the user menu at the top of your app home page labelled "Send Log".  

 

[AphxTwstr 0]

6 minutes ago, GrimReaper said:

You can send logs from Home Screen after playback fails. 

Thanks! I have sent the report now.

Edit:
Time should be 10:20 AM
User name is jakob
Filename is b.mkv

Edited December 25, 2022 by AphxTwstr

[ebr 14930]

22 hours ago, AphxTwstr said:

But it shouldnt transcode the video at all

When there is a problem direct playing something, we fall back to transcoding so the the item will play.  When you disable that ability, you kill the ability for us to recover from some of these errors.

I cannot tell why this item will not direct play but something about it is not right...

playerFailed [eventTime=0.48, mediaPos=0.00, window=0, period=0, errorCode=ERROR_CODE_IO_UNSPECIFIED

Have you tried a simple remux on it?

[AphxTwstr 0]

20 minutes ago, ebr said:

Have you tried a simple remux on it?

I remuxed it from mkv to mp4 with basically the same result. If something is wrong with the file im wondering why many others from different sources also wont play. And why is VLC on the same device playing them all fine?

[ebr 14930]

17 minutes ago, AphxTwstr said:

And why is VLC on the same device playing them all fine

VLC is basically just a wrapper for ffmpeg - which can get by a lot of bad media conditions because it has been developed to do just that over many years.  Same reason us transcoding will also solve a lot of these.

It could be related to the exact location of the media too instead of the media itself.  We've seen hardware/disc errors manifest in similar ways sometimes.

[Luke 37113]

Hi.  Can you try sideloading our standard android app on the same device and see how that compares?

https://emby.media/emby-for-android.html

Thanks.

 

[AphxTwstr 0]

4 hours ago, Luke said:

Hi.  Can you try sideloading our standard android app on the same device and see how that compares?

https://emby.media/emby-for-android.html

Thanks.

The linked APK does not Install on my FireTV Stick 4k Max.

However i uninstalled Emby from the Appstore and sideloaded this version: https://emby.media/emby-for-fire-tv.html. With that i cant restore my purchase and therefore cant play the video to test that.

I then sideloaded the APK from here: https://emby.media/emby-for-android-tv.html. I cant play any video because "billing service is unavailable" to restore my purchase. 

[AphxTwstr 0]

5 hours ago, Luke said:

Hi.  Can you try sideloading our standard android app on the same device and see how that compares?

https://emby.media/emby-for-android.html

Thanks.

Tried with the wrong APK from your Link, the App works now but the video cant be played (both, mkv and mp4)

[Luke 37113]

18 minutes ago, AphxTwstr said:

Tried with the wrong APK from your Link, the App works now but the video cant be played (both, mkv and mp4)

What exactly happens when you try?

[AphxTwstr 0]

29 minutes ago, Luke said:

What exactly happens when you try?

I get the error where it says "No compatible streams available".

I tried to check the integrity with ffmpeg like described here: https://superuser.com/a/100290 without any errors.

I also tried to remux another file which does not play from mkv to mkv with MKVToolNix without success.

[Luke 37113]

1 hour ago, AphxTwstr said:

I get the error where it says "No compatible streams available".

I tried to check the integrity with ffmpeg like described here: https://superuser.com/a/100290 without any errors.

I also tried to remux another file which does not play from mkv to mkv with MKVToolNix without success.

Following the remux did you run a library scan to make emby server aware that the file had been updated?

[AphxTwstr 0]

6 hours ago, Luke said:

Following the remux did you run a library scan to make emby server aware that the file had been updated?

I remuxed it to a seperate file which then was picked up by emby because it auto scans for changes in the directory.

[Luke 37113]

11 hours ago, AphxTwstr said:

I remuxed it to a seperate file which then was picked up by emby because it auto scans for changes in the directory.

Can you provide the file for testing? Thanks.

[AphxTwstr 0]

52 minutes ago, Luke said:

Can you provide the file for testing? Thanks.

I sent you a sample of both files as PM. The issue still exists with these sample files for me. a.mkv plays fine, b.mkv not.

[AphxTwstr 0]

Happy new year everyone. I still cant play many MKV files and i dont know exactly why. As a temporary fix i am using VLC as an external player in emby now.

[Luke 37113]

HI, we're looking into this. Happy new year.

[Luke 37113]

@AphxTwstr 

Can you try updating to the latest version of the sideload build?

https://emby.media/emby-for-android.html

We've updated our embedded video player to the latest version. Let's see if it plays better with that. Thanks !

[AphxTwstr 0]

@Luke

That's it, i can confirm that every file i tested is working absolutely fine with the latest version of Emby for Android.

Do you know when we can expect this to roll out to the Amazon store?

Thanks!

[Luke 37113]

Hopefully soon. Thanks.

[AphxTwstr 0]

@Lukeany news on when this update is available on the Amazon Store?

[Luke 37113]

Hi , we are working on it. Thanks.