Chromecast and Subtitles Freezing

[Charsher47 0]

Just started using emby and it's been great, thanks! I'm not sure if this is synology specific but that's what I'm running it on.

 

I have an issue when streaming files that have embedded ass subtitles to my chromecast (ultra). It takes around 30 seconds to extract, which is fine, but anywhere from 5-10 minutes later, the subtitles freeze and I lose control over the chromecast. I can't pause, stop or anything from the app or browser. The media keeps playing but the subtitles are stuck. I can only get back control by restarting my TV/chromecast. If I just let it sit, the video will eventually freeze and then the chromecast will restart itself making me think that the chromecast is not liking something. I've never seen it reboot itself using any other media player or casting anything else.

 

This happens on everything I've tried that has embedded ass subtitles whether it is direct play or transcoding. I have no issues when streaming to the web app, android app, or dlna to my TV. If I uncheck allow subtitle extract on the fly, everything woks fine but I'm trying to avoid such high utilization.

 

Not sure I see anything in the logs but I've attached them.

 

Any help would be appreciated, thanks!

emby_log.txt

Edited May 5, 2020 by Charsher47

[Luke 40079]

hi there @@Charsher47 are you still running into this?

[Charsher47 0]

Hi, yes.

 

Still can't play any files with ASS subtitles thru my chromecast and allow subtitle extraction. Looks like somethings happens and the chromecast crashes or something 5-10 min in.

[DreadMore 5]

I can attest this is happening to me as well, in almost exact environment.

I load movies remotely from server in another city.
I try to cast any movie with AAS subtitles and they load very long (on PC it is about 3 seconds, on Android is it is 3 seconds, on ChromeCast Ultra it is 4 minutes for me).
I would not mind it that much (can always pause and wait for them to load) if not for the other issues:

- movie control is lost and cannot be reacquired after some random time

- subtitles stop working/dissapear

- shortly after subtitles stop working, the movie keeps freezing playback for 5 seconds

 

Issue does not happen when I use other subtitle formats, such as subrips.

 

I'm seriously thinking of returning Chromecast Ultra cause of this 

[Luke 40079]

We're looking into it. Thanks for reporting.

[Patyboy12 0]

Hey team,

 

I still have this issue.

 

Has there been any updates / fixes / workarounds?

 

Cheers, 

Patrick

[Luke 40079]

17 hours ago, Patyboy12 said:

Hey team,

 

I still have this issue.

 

Has there been any updates / fixes / workarounds?

 

Cheers, 

Patrick

Hi there, have you tried this again recently?

[Patyboy12 0]

Hi Luke, 

 

Yes I have run into this issue a few times, the latest was yesterday.

 

Cheers, 

Patrick

[Luke 40079]

2 minutes ago, Patyboy12 said:

Hi Luke, 

 

Yes I have run into this issue a few times, the latest was yesterday.

 

Cheers, 

Patrick

Can you please go over an example ?Thanks.

[Patyboy12 0]

Loaded up a file, the subs loaded in about 30 sec in (so first 30 sec nothing showed on CC) 

 

About 10min into the video the scream flickered a few times and the subs stopped showing for 30s-60s

 

In this instance the subs did return.

 

Fresh install of emby so all settings are default.

[Luke 40079]

12 hours ago, Patyboy12 said:

Loaded up a file, the subs loaded in about 30 sec in (so first 30 sec nothing showed on CC) 

 

About 10min into the video the scream flickered a few times and the subs stopped showing for 30s-60s

 

In this instance the subs did return.

 

Fresh install of emby so all settings are default.

What format subtitles?

[Patyboy12 0]

English ASS

[Luke 40079]

On 12/31/2020 at 3:55 PM, Patyboy12 said:

English ASS

What model Chromecast do you have?

[Redmagoo 0]

I can confirm this happens to me on my Chromecast Ultra, embedded english ASS subtitles take an exceptionally long time to load and then after an arbitrary amount of playback (usually 4-8 minutes) audio cuts out, subtitles disappear, and every 5 seconds a burst of audio plays. I lose all control of the playback from the emby app, and I have to unplug the Chromecast to restart as it stops responding and even ceases to be detected by my other apps.

Edited February 13, 2021 by Redmagoo

[JasonDB 0]

I'm looking forward to progress on this as well. In the meantime, I'm burning in subtitles to work around the issue.

[Luke 40079]

1 minute ago, JasonDB said:

I'm looking forward to progress on this as well. In the meantime, I'm burning in subtitles to work around the issue.

The problem is that this is kind of the fix, although it is an undesirable one which is why I haven't' just gone ahead and done that. We try to render the ass/ssa subtitles directly on the Chromecast receiver in order to avoid the server transcoding. Most people want, but with some subtitles, and particularly on older Chromecast models, they can be very slow to render because the Chromecast receiver just doesn't have a whole lot of horsepower. 

[TalkiToaster 1]

For anyone else who finds this thread via a search engine, yes, it still happens, and the setting you need to disable is "Emby Server" -> "Transcoding" -> "Allow subtitle extraction on the fly" (I'm running 4.8.11.0).

That has the subtitle rendering happen on the server rather than the Chromecast, which really can't handle any form of complex subtle rendering without eventually crashing.

I do hope that transcoding choice is never removed, as letting the server handle it is so much smoother.

[jamesgfwd@gmail.com 1]

i am having this issue, i have made the change to the server, i will reply if this works.

[TalkiToaster 1]

Note that the setting I mentioned only applies to subtitles in a container (eg, an .mkv with an embedded .ass file).

I haven't tested external subtitle files, but I suspect they'd still be sent as text and cause issues for the Chromecast.

I would kinda want to force all subtitles to burn in for Chromecast, or at least .ass ones, as .srt seemed to work better.