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Can't see length of some videos while on mobile data


FormulaFox

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FormulaFox

Hello everyone. First time psoting so before I get to my issue, I've got to say that I'm liking Emby overall - it's more stable than Plex for my purposes, handles external media players better than Plex, and the interface is a lot more intuitive after Plex's recent changes.

 

But there's been an issue that's been bugging me since I first started using it which has prevented me from switching entirely to it, and as the updates that have come since installing Emby have not fixed it, I feel it's time I inquired about how to fix it.

 

This does not happen with ALL videos, but a great many videos will not show their length when being loaded while on mobile. This issue does not occur when I'm connected to the same wifi network as my PC, but if I'm on mobile data or connected to the internet through another wifi network to access my videos, about half my videos exhibit this issue - the issue persists whether I'm using Emby's internal player, or an external player like VLC, but some videos WILL run without the issue in the internal player. When this occurs, Emby cannot save my progress in a video, nor can I seek ahead or back.

 

Is there any kind of setting, on the server or the mobile app, that I can change to fix this? I haven't been able to figure it out, despite going over several setting in the mobile app, server, AND my external video players(I use BSPlayer, VLC, and MXPlayer - I prefer their interfaces to Emby's internal player).

 

Any and all help would be appreciated.

Edited by FormulaFox
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Hi, can you use the web app to open the detail screen for one of these titles, then click the 3-dot menu , then click refresh metadata. Do that and then try to play again from the android app.

 

If the issue remains, please attach the emby server log. You can learn how to do that here:

https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/739-how-to-report-a-problem/

 

Thanks.

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FormulaFox

Refreshing Metadata didn't seem to do anything. Just gave me a "refresh queued" message and then no indication it did anything else. No change in playback issue.

 

I closed and restarted the server, accessed a file that suffers from the problem, then also loaded a file that has NOT had the problem so you could have back-to-back info on good and bad and find it easily. Here's the resultant log: https://www.dropbox.com/s/jobdrr89gwjqqh3/embyLog.txt?dl=0

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Can you supply the previous server log from when you refreshed? i don't see that activity here. thanks.

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FormulaFox

Seems I have a lot to learn about how these logs save themselves. This'll be a trip - I've always had trouble dealing with program logs. :lol:

 

I've attached two logs here - I THINK embyLog2 is the log you requested(it has lines referring to both the file that had the problem and the one that did not), embyLogfail is, if I'm looking at the list of logs correctly, a transcoding log for the file that had the problem.

 

embyLog2: https://www.dropbox.com/s/5sjl7ces09wmbli/embyLog2.txt?dl=0

 

embyLogfail: https://www.dropbox.com/s/c9a8vhskmk9qxep/embyLogfail.txt?dl=0

Edited by FormulaFox
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What device and version of android are you using? Based on this transcoding log it looks like you might be running a very old version of our mobile app.

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FormulaFox

Asus ZenPad Z8S running Android 7.0. The app and the server are up to date so far as I can tell.

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FormulaFox

There has been a new development.

 

A friend of mine has encountered the issue on an LG G-Pad running Android 6.0 - she contacted me asking about it since I'd been using the software. Since I didn't have an answer yet, she started tinkering with settings and found a fix: Set internet streaming quality to Auto on the Android app. I had my quality set to 720p 2 Megabits due to instability of the mobile data signal where I work and most often use my tablet. Understandably I never thought to even try changing the quality setting

 

I switched the setting to Auto, and the file worked as it should. The server did not produce an ffmpeg log, which makes me think the issue may be serverside - an issue with ffmpeg itself, maybe. But since it makes sense to me to try and be sure of the core cause of the issue I ran the same file I've been using for all tests in this thread and have attached the resulting server log for examination: https://www.dropbox.com/s/57wdhl2yqfdmnaa/embyLoglatest.txt?dl=0

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What that does is help reduce transcoding, but if transcoding needs to occur for whatever reason then you may still see this happen. 

 

If you look in your server dashboard while signed in with the android app, what version of the app does it indicate?

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Are you sure the ffmpeg log provided was generated by playback from the android mobile app?

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FormulaFox

Well, it refers to the exact file I'd loaded through the Android app; "SCCA Runoffs 2017 - Formula 500.mkv" and I never loaded the file via the desktop app, so I have every reason to believe it was. Anything you'd recommend attempting to confirm things?

Edited by FormulaFox
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Oh wait I see. The conversion to mkv is probably for an external player, right? Can you go back to the internal player for right now? thanks.

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Actually looking at your original post, one of your main selling points was external players. I guess for the next release we can try switching the transcoding format when using an external player. 

 

Having said that, my suggestion is to use your external player when in your home network, because there you can play at full bandwidth. When you are away from home and need server transcoding to reduce the bitrate, i would use the internal player at that point.

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FormulaFox

I would also suggest implementing some new features to the internal player - I've never had this issue with the internal player; it's interface is the primary reason I don't like it, and if certain features were added I would be all too happy to use it. Not just for my mobile media, either, but for the stuff I keep on the device as well.

 

The reason I use the external players I use are because they have features like swipe-to-seek and either use large pause/play buttons in the middle of the screen or can be paused by double-tapping anywhere that isn't already a function. Swipe to seek I find incredibly helpful as it can be more precise than using the seek bar, particularly on longer videos - being able to seek ahead/back by three to five minutes can be incredibly helpful for finding that exact point you left off on the occasions when the system didn't save the position.

 

Whatever the case, I look forward to the next release and I hope things will improve. Your assistance has been much appreciated.

Edited by FormulaFox
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Thanks for the feedback. Yes I would agree with all of those. They are good ideas. Thanks.

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