Roku stuck on retrieving...again (updated)

[speechles 1917]

@@Movies32

 

Yep, good 'ol BNN had the default audio, live tv audio, and unknown audio options. You chose MP3/AAC/AC3 flavor for these. That was specifically to also allow the "Force Surround" option to always keep AC3.

 

Now in the official app this could be confusing to users so the logic is still there it is just hidden. But you are right the app will always prefer AAC over MP3 when dealing with 2 channel audio. This can be adjusted to make use of MP3 if transcoding must happen. But once again we are swimming in moving water. The Roku firmware is always changing good/bad so having an option like BNN is likely the best solution long term. I can discuss this with the team.

 

Also your issue is not a dead end. There is just movement in other areas that needed attention too. We have many areas/issues that need tending. Your issue might be due to hardware transcoding if it only happens with that enabled. I have noticed that watching LiveTV on Emby using my GTX 1050 Ti will crap out direct streaming mpeg2 because of signal quality. The only solution is back out and restart the stream. The Roku isn't smart enough to pick back up. The damn thing hangs. But mine is directly related to signal quality. The HD Homerun app suffers same problem without Emby even involved so my issue is just that.

 

In your ffmpeg log:   Stream #0:1 -> #0:1 (eac3 (native) -> aac (native))

 

You TV is only stereo? It looks like it by the capabilities. This is where an option to prefer AAC vs MP3 can help. We will keep tracking this issue. I just cannot see where the problem would be in your logs. There is something causing hiccups and perhaps the video player logic is falling back through this and gets hung. There are many wheels in motion. @@ebr will need to look at the in-app logs you sent to see what is causing havoc.

Edited February 12, 2019 by speechles

[Movies32 0]

@speechles

 

Yes, my TV only has stereo output via HDMI.  At the moment I've been plugging my computer in to the HDMI port of my TV and watching my shows that way when Emby decides to not work.  I wonder if I converted the files to another format before watching them would help with anything, then again that would be a lot of converting and take a lot of time.  For now I will have to make it work.  I thank you and the whole team for working on this and for everything that you do.

[Ocracoke Island 0]

Is this NCIS on ION TV? About two updates back this station started having problems, it would load start to play, load gain and hang. I replaced Ffmpeg with the most current version and that station now plays live. This oddly was the only station with the problem, ION Life had no problems. Oh, to add to the strange, recorded shows from ION would play OK.

[speechles 1917]

Is this NCIS on ION TV? About two updates back this station started having problems, it would load start to play, load gain and hang. I replaced Ffmpeg with the most current version and that station now plays live. This oddly was the only station with the problem, ION Life had no problems. Oh, to add to the strange, recorded shows from ION would play OK.

 

The app has no real way to know when the error occurs if it can recover or not. This is a courtesy it tries again. But time can change things. Now it works different than it did before. The Roku video player behavior has changed with more recent firmwares. It used to timeout on its own and kick you out and close the video player. This likely caused complaints for Roku. Now it will just stay on retrieving forever. 

 

We want to be able to work through the errors. Just seamlessly fallback to the next play method and try again. But when the item is already transcoding this is where it gets tricky with the Roku. We get no signal from Emby server in the Emby app about why ffmpeg decided to just stop sending us data. We rely on that data in the app and we actively want to keep getting it. We try again with automatic playback recovery. We hang.

 

If there was some way for the app to request from the Emby server why the ffmpeg session was terminated. Then the app could decide if this is worth even trying again and we could move past this.

 

@@Luke Have you ever thought of an API endpoint that lets an app query about the last failed ffmpeg session and why it failed? If the app could make this query after the video player reports an error this would help to tell the fallback logic not to attempt playback recovery. This would avoid the problem I am having in when to fallback, when not. When to be or not to be falling back. That is the question. Having an API endpoint to query after playback failure would slow down the playback recovery. There would be a more noticeable pause before playback resumed but it would save the cost of possibly being stuck in this hang. Thanks for your consideration.

Edited April 1, 2019 by speechles

[kevinatc 0]

i am having the same problem with Emby 

when i try to play some episodes or movies on my server it says its retrieving and then gets stuck at 90% done .  i have watched  some of these before without any problems and have not made any changes .  please help .

[ebr 14905]

i am having the same problem with Emby 

when i try to play some episodes or movies on my server it says its retrieving and then gets stuck at 90% done .  i have watched  some of these before without any problems and have not made any changes .  please help .

 

Hi.  Please see: How to Report a Problem so we can offer some guidance.

 

Thanks.