Delayed Start, Stuttering Transcodes

[jhoff80 87]

So I've been having this issue for a while (it seems to coincide with when Chrome switched to Viblast/HLS but I don't know for sure), and it actually has been getting worse lately.  Basically, it takes about a minute or two to start playback (the ffmpeg process doesn't even start until that minute or two is up), and then once playback starts, there's a lot of stuttering.  I thought maybe it was a setting on the server end that got messed up over time, but I just finished wiping out all of my settings/database, reinstalling, and rebuilding the library which didn't help at all.

 

I'm on 3.0.5781.  Subtitles are disabled in user settings and this was confirmed to be turned off in the playback controls once playback started up.  It doesn't seem like a matter of internet connection, because it's dropped down to 480p and that still doesn't help.  The server is a i7-4770 with 32GB of RAM, and it's not maxing out the CPU, so it doesn't really seem to be transcoding performance either.  Also tried pausing playback for a while to let the transcoded 'buffer' get ahead of playback, and that didn't help either.  (And for what it's worth, the 45fps section in the transcode log occurred only after pausing).  Honestly, I've been attempting to troubleshoot this on my own for a while without any success, so I'm at a loss.  I've tried changing almost every setting I can think of (including transcode throttling, QuickSync, transcode thread count, streaming bitrate limit, etc.) with no success.

 

server-63582182902.txt

transcode-96434505-2656-41ce-8b30-7ae429d9f5e2.txt

Edited November 4, 2015 by jhoff80

[Luke 37269]

are you sure those are the right logs? everything looks fine there. you're getting good fps. according to the timestamps in the logs, the first transcoded segment was transmitted to the client within 4 seconds of initiating playback:

2015-11-03 21:30:17.3483 Info - HttpServer: HTTP Response 200 to 75.76.118.44. Time: 3750ms. http://remote.joe-hoffman.com:8096/mediabrowser/videos/66ffd8946eb56bb5901cf328641159a7/hlsdynamic/main/0.ts?DeviceId=a294536cb384fed9d21010c1241d7cd21969782c&MediaSourceId=66ffd8946eb56bb5901cf328641159a7&VideoCodec=h264&AudioCodec=aac&AudioStreamIndex=1&VideoBitrate=5680000&AudioBitrate=320000&MaxAudioChannels=6&MaxHeight=480&Level=41&ClientTime=635822010108587827&Profile=high&PlaySessionId=bb679e2fd0324beb98271344ec3c6c92&api_key=cfc2d99c5f834c2c8adcea126330747a&EnableAutoStreamCopy=false

[jhoff80 87]

Positive, I deleted all the log files I had and restarted the Emby server before taking this log.

 

It actually doesn't even show up in the Server Dashboard as attempting to play back the file until a minute or two after also, if that matters at all.  (I don't see the thumbnail or anything until ffmpeg starts up and the playback actually starts).

Edited November 4, 2015 by jhoff80

[Luke 37269]

since you have already reinstalled, if you'd like to try out the dev build i just made a pretty dramatic change that i think is going to make a very positive difference. just be forewarned about the dev branch - there are some things related to library separation and parental controls that are currently not working, they will be restored over the next week or two. there are also database changes that mean you can't go back to stable by rolling back, you would need to install again.

 

normally i would say just wait, but i am suggesting this because you've just reinstalled so you're on a pretty fresh setup anyway.

[jhoff80 87]

Unfortunately, I won't have time to test it out this weekend, but I should have time the week after that if it's not released to beta by then, thanks.