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Movies stop playing, then I just get "Loading..."


mbguy

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I've been using my Roku to run media browser for a year and now it's on the 1.85 release. But in the last few months, I noticed that increasingly more and more full length .mkv movies would not play properly.

 

More specifically, movies would start playing just fine but randomly out of no where from they just quit and all I get is a screen with "Loading..." on it. Sometimes I just pressed "resume" and it would continue playing but sometimes, all I get is "Loading..." after pressing resume. On the other hand, all .mkv TV episodes play with absolutely no issues at all.

 

At first I thought this was a buffer issue but my home network is entirely wired so it shouldn't be the cause. Just in case, I lowered bitrate from 20Mbps to 15Mbps then 10Mbps but it doesn't make a difference.

 

I have played these "problematic" files with Media Browser for windows, all play smoothly without issues so we can rule out corrupted sources files.

 

Any suggestions?

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jluce50

I get this almost every time any file finishes playing. It's doesn't stop prematurely, but when it's done I just get "Loading..." instead of returning to the info screen or previous section.

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ginjaninja

I get this almost every time any file finishes playing. It's doesn't stop prematurely, but when it's done I just get "Loading..." instead of returning to the info screen or previous section.

me too...at then end fairly regularly..very rarely in the middle (hasnt for weeks)...

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saitoh183

I get this almost every time any file finishes playing. It's doesn't stop prematurely, but when it's done I just get "Loading..." instead of returning to the info screen or previous section.

 

Yup i get this after every movie as well

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saitoh183

I think this is continuous play. next time don't try to stop it, just let it go and see what happens.

 

Did that, it stayed like that for over an hour. I checked in MB server and i saw that the same episode was showing as still playing. I will try it again and see if it changes eps

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  • 2 weeks later...
mbguy

Thanks all for the reply and sorry for the delay in getting back. This problem has not gone away for me. But just to emphasize, this doesn't happen just at the END of a show/movie. It happens RANDOMLY during the show. Before there were only one or two episodes affected, now it's like the infection spreading, more and more shows especially movies can't play to completion anymore.

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Bluebull32

Thanks all for the reply and sorry for the delay in getting back. This problem has not gone away for me. But just to emphasize, this doesn't happen just at the END of a show/movie. It happens RANDOMLY during the show. Before there were only one or two episodes affected, now it's like the infection spreading, more and more shows especially movies can't play to completion anymore.

 

Are these transcoded, or direct play, or does it happen on both?

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mbguy

As far as I know, these are transcoded, I can see transcode logs generated. I didn't know there is something called direct play so I will find out now

 

Are these transcoded, or direct play, or does it happen on both?

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dnicks

i get this also, same as mbguy.  randomly, in the middle of a show it will go to the loading screen.  it has happened on .avi's which are transcoded.

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mbguy

After troubleshooting for a couple of days, I found that inconsistently some movies and TV shows would be stuck at "Retrieving..." when attempting to Play. I am guessing that some of the movies have a specific codec that is not compatible with Roku even after transcoding... how do I verify this?

 

I have tried setting the Roku bit rates at 30Mbps, 25, 20, 15, 10, none of these would made a difference until 3.2Mbps (default) then these problematic files finally start to play. But of course the quality is bad. The same problematic files play fine on MPC-HC or Media Brower Client just not on Roku.

 

Attached is one transcoding log stuck at "retrieving..."transcode-5e17b053-a444-4d1e-a0e5-95cbdb89fc9b.txt

Edited by mbguy
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Bluebull32

After troubleshooting for a couple of days, I found that inconsistently some movies and TV shows would be stuck at "Retrieving..." when attempting to Play. I am guessing that some of the movies have a specific codec that is not compatible with Roku even after transcoding... how do I verify this?

 

I have tried setting the Roku bit rates at 30Mbps, 25, 20, 15, 10, none of these would made a difference until 3.2Mbps (default) then these problematic files finally start to play. But of course the quality is bad. The same problematic files play fine on MPC-HC or Media Brower Client just not on Roku.

 

Attached is one transcoding log stuck at "retrieving..."attachicon.giftranscode-5e17b053-a444-4d1e-a0e5-95cbdb89fc9b.txt

 

So, I think in this situation, you have an .mkv that can direct play on Roku, but either the network connection or the particular Roku model can't keep up with > 10Mbps.  When you have the setting that high, it is attempting to direct play, and cannot.  When you crank the bitrate down to 3.2, the video will transcode, because the video is encoded at a higher rate than what you have allowed it to accept for direct play.

 

It appears that you should keep the default bitrate for now, and let the high bitrate files just transcode.  Also, you can convert any video to direct play on roku with handbrake.  The conversion is sometimes lossy, but you won't have to deal with the transcoding stuff.

 

There is a problem with transcoded videos "hanging" at the end of playback, that's getting fixed soon.   The hanging at the beginning or the middle of a transcoded playback may be something else entirely.

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  • 4 weeks later...
mbguy

So, I think in this situation, you have an .mkv that can direct play on Roku, but either the network connection or the particular Roku model can't keep up with > 10Mbps.  When you have the setting that high, it is attempting to direct play, and cannot.  When you crank the bitrate down to 3.2, the video will transcode, because the video is encoded at a higher rate than what you have allowed it to accept for direct play.

 

It appears that you should keep the default bitrate for now, and let the high bitrate files just transcode.  Also, you can convert any video to direct play on roku with handbrake.  The conversion is sometimes lossy, but you won't have to deal with the transcoding stuff.

 

Thanks for the feedback, but I don't think it's my network problem since it's all wired and file transfer speed on this 1Gbps network is quite fast (~90MB/s). I also have the latest Roku 3 with the latest firmware so I'm not sure if it's an issue with my model.

 

When I have my bit rate set to 30Mbps, most tv shows (web-dl) and movies play just fine at this speed. It's just when it comes to certain source files, especially TV shows that are transcoded from Bluray with big file size,  then this problem occurs.

 

I know leaving it at 3.2Mbps default solves the problem, but now all other shows that play fine will start to pixelate with blockiness which doesn't look good. I'm really hoping there is a way to transcode specific problematic titles only while leaving the rest of the bit rate to MAX (30Mbps).

Edited by mbguy
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Bluebull32

I'm looking at the log you posted, and it seems like you are in the same boat with some of the users over here: http://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/19362-loading-please-wait-at-the-end-of-playback/&do=findComment&comment=194277 .  Your problem might be related to the "audio only" transcoding.  It would explain why only some of your videos are giving you trouble.  It would also explain why turning down your bitrate allows the video to play.  With a high bitrate setting, the video can be streamed the directly, but the audio is still not in a compatible format, so you'll get an "Audio only" transcoding, which is currently an issue.  With a low bitrate setting, the video and audio both require transcoding, so a full transcode occurs which plays fine.

 

If you are ripping these Blu-rays yourself, maybe you can adjust the settings for audio track output, until this issue gets resolved?

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