Emby shutdown and restart behavior, plus I cant upgrade anymore

[Lyfesaver 64]

Our story begins on a dark and stormy night. There I was, alone at my computer as the rain pelted the tin roof of my tiny house. Though completely random, the rainfall seemed to beat out a rhythm that is unknown, yet comfortably familiar. On this evening my favorite website, MyLittlePonyPlaysMetallica.com, was behaving particularly poorly, so it was easy for me to notice the notification that popped up in the bottom right-hand corner of my screen.

 

"A new version of Emby server!", I exclaimed aloud.

 

The new version had already downloaded and installed itself, so Emby was just waiting for a restart. At that moment a huge thunderclap occurred, shortly followed by a blot of lightening that seemed to light the sky clear across Texas.  I should have taken that as a sign. I should have stood up from my chair, hand fisted and raised high in the air while I shouted "In what world does sound travel faster than light?". I deftly navigated from my TV guide where I had been scheduling some recordings earlier back to the dashboard. I clicked the "Restart Emby" button and wait.

 

At that moment, aliens attacked!! 

 

Or so I had thought. It turns out it was just my sister dropping off some beef stew she made the night before but could not finish. I spend 20 minutes or so trying to convince myself that this is my sister and not an alien before I see her to her car and I gravitate back towards my PCs. Once I sit down, I realize that Emby has not restarted. It shut down, but never came back up!! While this is the hopeful behavior when you eat your aunt's peanut butter frosted fruit cake, you actually want Emby to come back up when you restart it.

 

Once I tell Emby to start again, I log back into the dashboard only to be asked to "Please restart Emby" as a new version (the same new version I just downloaded and installed) was updated and Emby needs a restart. I rinse and repeat several times to verify the issue and pull all my hair out. Now, my dog hates me, the mailman wont come up to the house, and all the milk has gone sour (never mind it is over a month old). I feel so alone, scared and extra ticklish between my toes.

 

Can anyone help me??

 

 

TLDR - 

 

When I tell Emby to restart it takes a good 2-3 minutes to shut all the way down and never comes back up until I launch it again. While this issue has been around since day one, I never said anything until now as the issue of it not actually updating is new and they might be tied together some how.

 

Logs atached

logs.zip

Edited October 2, 2016 by Lyfesaver

[Luke 37251]

You can always install the update from the website. Also try removing all plugins and seeing if the issue persists with the core server. thanks.

[Happy2Play 8356]

2016-10-02 10:21:42.2378 Info Main: Found a duplicate process. Giving it time to exit.
2016-10-02 10:22:02.2384 Info Main: The duplicate proc
2016-10-02 10:22:02.2384 Info Maess did not exit.in: Shutting down because another instance of Emby Server is already running.

There are dozens of topics on this and the issue is random across the board.  For some reason some machine don't release the server process and the update fails.  It could be another browser process holding the server folders or ffmpeg process running or stranded or other unknown factors.

 

When this happens it usually means you will have to update manually, either self extraction to the zipped update or reinstalling from website with server shut down.

[Lyfesaver 64]

Well, one of the two issues are fixed. Thanks so much for the heads up as to what was going on. I found out that Emby was not starting properly in the services due to the fact that i changed the location of the emby server software from one user account to another. Even after reinstalling Emby it did not change the location of where Emby server was in the services. It was trying to run it from the old location. I had to edit the registry manually, but that issue is solved and it updates properly now.

 

I do still have the issue (as I always have) of Emby not restarting itself. And it takes 2-3 minutes for Emby to shut down.

[ebr 14959]

I do still have the issue (as I always have) of Emby not restarting itself. And it takes 2-3 minutes for Emby to shut down.

 

Those two are the same issue.  It cannot restart because it is taking so long for it to shut down.

 

So, finding out what is causing the hold-up on shut down will solve the restart issue.

 

Now, you mentioned running as a service.  Does the problem occur if you run as a normal app?

[Lyfesaver 64]

I just tried it. First I ran the installer again just to make sure everything is right. I made sure the service was off and ran the program.

 

I look in task manager and there it is.

 

I tell Emby to restart and immediately a 2nd process of Emby is in my task manager. After about 15 seconds one closes and the other takes about 3 minutes to go away. Then I can run the program manually again.

[Lyfesaver 64]

Okay, so it seems the issue was as Luke said as to why it would not restart, it was one, or more, of my plugins. The failure to update properly was due to me moving the sever location a couple weeks back. All solved. Thanks!

[Luke 37251]

What plugins were installed?

[Lyfesaver 64]

Auto box covers, genre cleaner and rottentomatoes

[ebr 14959]

Auto box covers, genre cleaner and rottentomatoes

 

Would you mind installing each one one at a time to see if we can narrow down the culprit?

 

My first attempt would be with the rotten tomatoes one, then box sets.

 

Thanks.

[Lyfesaver 64]

You bet, will do that today

[Lyfesaver 64]

Sorry it took so long to respond, but it looks like Rotten Tomatoes is the culprit 

[Lyfesaver 64]

No, RT was not the problem. SO let's break it down:

I had 4 plugins. RT, Auto Box Covers, Genre Cleaner and ServerWMC. I uninstalled the first three and Emby restarted nicely. I then add RT back and it wont restart properly. I post RT is the problem and then, just to make sure, uninstall RT and try another restart. Still has issues. So now, as it stands I only have ServerWMC installed. I really dont want to uninstall it unless you guys think it might be the problem.

[FrostByte 5061]

I'm going to follow this thread to see if it's maybe related to my issue.  I can't get mine to always restart the service from the webclient after a server update.  The manual restart button after an update has probably only worked twice I think since it was added to beta and during the short time the auto restart after update was implemented it never worked for me and always left my service in a down status.  Now after clicking the restart button mine shuts down the service, but never brings it back up and I have to start the service other ways

 

Plugins Auto Box, RT, Backup, Trailers

Edited October 6, 2016 by FrostByte

[Lyfesaver 64]

Okay, so here it is. I install plugins (ANY plugin) and it wont restart. I remove a plugin (ANY plugin) and it will restart..... once! After that the behavior goes back to not restarting. I remove another plugin and Emby will restart... but again, only once.

 

Rinse and repeat.

[jfarre20 3]

I've noticed something pretty close to your issue, Emby auto-restarts once successfully, then the next time it just exits. 

 

I've had to manually re-launch Emby almost every day this week. Last time this happened was due to my hyperV Vswitch, which I had removed from windows. . 

 

I wish there was an Emby watchdog process which would auto-launch if it ever stops. Its getting annoying to try to watch something and find out the server process has died. 

 

Currently on beta branch. Version 3.1.181.0 beta as of this message.

Edited October 8, 2016 by jfarre20