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AFTV Inconsistent playback start issues


ieblj01
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ieblj01

I tried searching on this, so apologies if this topic has already been started...

 

The issue is that when I hit play (movie, TV show, etc) sometimes the media playback will start within a few seconds...other times it will sit and spin for what seems like a lifetime.  If I leave it, it seems it will eventually start.  Most of the time, I get impatient and back out to the screen where I have the option to play the item again, it seems to almost always play within a few seconds.

 

I have gigabit connectivity throughout my home network and all of my AFTV are hardwired into the network.  This issues is seen across all 4 units.  My back-end is a Synology Rackstation and the front end Emby server is an extremely overpowered Ubuntu 64-bit 18.04.2 LTS box.

 

I loaded up Kodi on an Ubuntu PC and installed the EmbyCon plug-in and play back is instantaneous.  In fact it is so fast, it will make your head spin.  Everything is the same aside from the front end client.  This would point the finger at the AFTV Emby client so I am wondering if anyone else is seeing this as well.

 

As a side note, I am also seeing the AFTV Emby client 'crash' others have noted (where you start the client, get a black screen, then it goes back to the AFTV homepage).  May or may not be related, but I wanted to throw that out there as these issues seem to have shown up around the same time.

 

Thanks!

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Hi.  In order to know what is happening, we'd have to look at specifics for one of the items that took a long time.

 

Without further information, my guess will be that it is related to subtitles on those items.

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ieblj01

Hi.  In order to know what is happening, we'd have to look at specifics for one of the items that took a long time.

 

Without further information, my guess will be that it is related to subtitles on those items.

 

I don't use or enable any subtitles, and an item that 'stalls' on AFTV plays immediately off the Kodi/EmbyCon client.  

 

I will try and reproduce the issue and get you some more specifics and gather as much info as I can.  An intriguing issue for sure!

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ieblj01

As luck would have it, I went to workout and fired up the AFTV in my home gym, picked P90X3 Triometrics and it spun and it spun and it spun and finally started.  I went over to the EmbyCon client and selected the same file and it immediately started to play.  I have attached the file info for you.  I am also more than happy to post the actual video file for you if you so desire.

 

Thanks!

 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes"?>
<movie>
  <plot />
  <outline />
  <lockdata>false</lockdata>
  <dateadded>2017-07-02 11:25:18</dateadded>
  <title>P90X Three - s01e12 - Triometrics</title>
  <runtime>42</runtime>
  <art>
    <poster>/volume1/NAS_Volume1/Workout_Videos/P90X Three/P90X Three - s01e12 - Triometrics-poster.jpg</poster>
  </art>
  <fileinfo>
    <streamdetails>
      <video>
        <codec>h264</codec>
        <micodec>h264</micodec>
        <bitrate>14975639</bitrate>
        <width>1920</width>
        <height>1080</height>
        <aspect>16:9</aspect>
        <aspectratio>16:9</aspectratio>
        <framerate>30</framerate>
        <language>eng</language>
        <scantype>progressive</scantype>
        <default>True</default>
        <forced>False</forced>
        <duration>42</duration>
        <durationinseconds>2541</durationinseconds>
      </video>
      <audio>
        <codec>aac</codec>
        <micodec>aac</micodec>
        <bitrate>165961</bitrate>
        <language>eng</language>
        <scantype>progressive</scantype>
        <channels>6</channels>
        <samplingrate>48000</samplingrate>
        <default>True</default>
        <forced>False</forced>
      </audio>
    </streamdetails>
  </fileinfo>
</movie>

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ieblj01

Hi.  ffmpeg log?

 

What is the format of this file?  AVI by any chance?

 

 It is an MP4 file as are 99.9% of my video files.  There are no ffmpeg files from today on the server.  I did attach the emberserver.txt file from today if that sheds any light.

embyserver.txt

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Hi.  Looks like possibly a network issue of some sort.  Is it possible that you have some piece of security software that is interfering here?

2019-07-25 11:08:59.104 Info HttpServer: SocketException: http://<emby_server_ip>:8096/emby/Videos/20682/stream.mp4?DeviceId=43128a8c2000fdb&MediaSourceId=ec8b95f25d2c20daae6dc9ef2c206897&Static=true&api_key=a8486ae398d14afbb8a3783727683fe7

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ieblj01

 

Hi.  Looks like possibly a network issue of some sort.  Is it possible that you have some piece of security software that is interfering here?

2019-07-25 11:08:59.104 Info HttpServer: SocketException: http://<emby_server_ip>:8096/emby/Videos/20682/stream.mp4?DeviceId=43128a8c2000fdb&MediaSourceId=ec8b95f25d2c20daae6dc9ef2c206897&Static=true&api_key=a8486ae398d14afbb8a3783727683fe7

 

 

Last login: Thu Jul 25 12:39:04 2019 from <PC>

<username>@<server>:~$ sudo ufw status

[sudo] password for <username>:

Status: inactive

<username>@<server>:~$

 

There is no FW between the devices on the local network. And the firewall on the Ubuntu server is not active.  The emby server account has full rights to the rack station shared drives...and it doesn't appear to affect other clients, just AFTV.  I installed emby on my phone (Android) and I cannot reproduce the issue there either.  It is night and day how quickly shows/movies/music starts as long as I don't use AFTV.

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ieblj01

Right now my money is on the possibility that Amazon changed something and that would explain the crash issue and why this issue cropped as well :D

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ieblj01

The root cause of this issue appears to be some sort of corrupted permissions on the Synology RS.  Today I noticed some access denied errors in the emby server logs.  That made no sense because that account on the server had full rights to the NAS shared drives and I could browse any directory/file I wished using that account (including the ones giving the access denied errors).

 

Regardless, I deleted and recreated the account on the NAS server and now everything seems to be working as expected with any end client. I still don't know why the issue seemed to manifest itself solely with the AFTV Emby client.  When it did happen though, I would see the SocketException errors in the log also.  I have not seen any errors since I made the user account changes early today.

 

If the issue returns I will update this post, but at this point, it does seem to be resolved.

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  • 3 weeks later...
ieblj01

It would appear as if this issue has returned.  I just upgraded to 4.2.1 yesterday to see if that helps...it did for a while.  I have attached the emberserver and ffmpeg log files.  Although I cannot say with 100% certainty at this point, the issue appears to go away after I restart the Emby server process on the Ubuntu server.  It also doesn't seem to impact only AFTV clients (but I am still seeing the AFTV app 'lockup' and/or crash), any client can see the problem.

 

I have also tried installing Emby directly on my NAS to try and eliminate any potential network issues (although I don't have any reason to think there is an issue there) between the front end and the shared volumes on the NAS...same issue can be seen there as well.

 

There are obviously a ton of Socket Exception errors in the logs, but I have no idea why that happens randomly.

 

Thanks!

ffmpeg.pdf

embyserver.pdf

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 months later...

Are you still running into this? Is it only with .avi files?

Hi Luke.  Yes I still experience this issue randomly.  It is random and can work perfectly one minute, exit the app, have a snack, come back restart the app, try to play a file and it just sits and spins.  if I let it sit long enough, it will eventually start or I can force a stop of the app and restart it and it works as expected again.  So I don't know if forcing stop/start actually fixes anything, or if the allotted time it takes to perform those actions is around the same time of just letting it sit.  Other times, it instantly starts playing whatever was chosen as expected. 

 

The emby server logs don't shed any light on it and have run concurrent wired sniffer captures off the Emby Ubuntu server front end, the NAS, and an AFTV all connected to the same physical gig switch and there are no errors, timeouts, etc to explain it.

 

I have just kind of learned to live with it at this point.

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Something I have not mentioned before that is really interesting is that I can have two AFTV connected to the same switch as everything else (NAS, Emby server, etc) and one AFTV will show the issue and while that AFTV is spinning, the other AFTV will start the same file immediately.  Weird right? :D

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi, are you still running into this?

yes I am.  I am out of ideas.  I have tried everything I can think of.  It is incredibly annoying, but I just do the workaround(s) and move on

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  • 1 month later...

Have you updated to Emby Server 4.3.1?

I did upgrade as soon as 4.3.1 was released.  So far things seem better.  I am still keeping an eye on it as after the last update things improved and then the issue returned.  I will keep you posted!

 

Thanks

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  • 6 months later...
  • Solution

Hopefully the final update... 

This issue did keep plaguing me over and over since I last posted.  I just put up with it.  The issue seemed to get better for a short period of time after Emby server updates, rebooting the server, rebooting the AFTVs, etc., but it always came back in a couple of hours or a day and drove me nuts with no explanation as to root cause.  A little over a week ago, I finally got off my butt and worked on the NAS to rebuild the storage pools to be 16TB or less since it is a 32-bit CPU model.  Since it was all down because of the storage pool rebuild and then restoring all the data, I took that opportunity to switch over to using NFS to access the NAS shares from the Ubuntu front end server (previously used SMB and/or CIFS over the years). 

What I can tell you is that since switching to NFS, I have yet to experience the issue.  This is the longest I can remember having gone without seeing it on any device.  I wanted to officially post that so there is a record of it in case anyone else runs into a similar issue.

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