tomleitner 0 Posted November 19, 2020 Share Posted November 19, 2020 Hi, I'm running the latest Emby Server 4.5.2.0 on a QNAP TS 470-PRO running firmware 4.3.6.1446. I have a large collection of photos, and some folders have 1000+ photos. The problem is: When browsing through a folder with some 1000 photos, the image thumbnails show up very very slow and it also takes ages to open an single image. I see the CPU load on the QNAP to go up to 100% while images are loaded .... "top" says that the EmbyServer Process is taking all the CPU load. I have played with all sorts of Thumbnail settings but not improvement. My questions are: Are thumbnail files created only for videos? Does Emby create thumbnail files for photos too? Reason I'm asking: I see BIF files created only for video files and I cannot see any thumbnail files located anywhere. If there are not thumbnails for photos? Why not? Is there anything I'm missing? In any case: Emby for photo browsing is currently almost useless for me ... it all just takes too long. BTW: I connected my Windows PC to the QNAP Multimedia share and when I browse the photos using the normal Windows file browser/explorer, the images show up pretty fast... So network or hardware cannot be the problem. Thanks // Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PenkethBoy 2063 Posted November 19, 2020 Share Posted November 19, 2020 there could be a few factors at play 1. what client are you viewing the photos from? 2. has the library scan completed at least once - Fully? 3. If you let the photos load for a library - then go back to it - do they load quicker? 4. the images you see in the library view - i.e. home page of photo library are smaller processed versions which are cached in your metadata folder - these are generated the first time when you go to the page they show on - so initial loading can be slow especially if the images are large as the server resizes them etc to give small images that are cached for better performance (second time viewing) - this is probably what you are seeing as slow loading. 5. how quick the cached images show up on second viewing is down to how fast your disk(s) are in the NAS - all sorts of factors could slow that down 6. You have created the library as a Home Video & Photos library? 7. The library help text is quite clear its for Video No need to create thumbnails for photos as they are done on demand (as they are done for things like movie posters etc) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomleitner 0 Posted November 19, 2020 Author Share Posted November 19, 2020 Thanks for your reply: > 1. what client are you viewing the photos from? Tried both, the Emby client on an iPad and a web browser on my desktop PC. Both with a fast connection to the QNAP ... > 2. has the library scan completed at least once - Fully? Yes, it was running a couple of hours ago and took about 1 minute to run ... > 3. If you let the photos load for a library - then go back to it - do they load quicker? Yes. Much quicker .... But I want it to be quick the first time I open a library ! >4. the images you see in the library view - i.e. home page of photo library are smaller processed versions which are cached in your metadata folder - these >are generated the first time when you go to the page they show on - so initial loading can be slow especially if the images are large as the server resizes >them etc to give small images that are cached for better performance (second time viewing) - this is probably what you are seeing as slow loading. Yes, but it's terribly slow .... The CPU load goes up to 100% until I see all the images in the browser. When I continue scrolling down to images which were apparently not cached yet, it again goes up to 100% and everything takes ages until the thumbnail images show up .... This is not usable really ... > 5. how quick the cached images show up on second viewing is down to how fast your disk(s) are in the NAS - all sorts of factors could slow that down This is fast enough for the second viewing ... but again, I want it to be fast at the first viewing ... > 6. You have created the library as a Home Video & Photos library? Yes! > 7. The library help text is quite clear its for Video Understood .... But considering the problems above, I really think Emby should also pre-create thumbnail images for pictures. And as I've noted in my original posting: When browsing the media folders with the standard windows file explorer, the thumbnail images show up pretty quick ... even for previously uncached folders ... OK, my PC is a bit faster than the QNAP, but the Core i3-3220 CPU running at 3,3 GHz should be sufficient for that ... Thanks again for your reply ... Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PenkethBoy 2063 Posted November 19, 2020 Share Posted November 19, 2020 ok i will try to let you down gently 1 Your wish to have the photos appear quickly the first time - is not going to be realistic - as your i3 is not that powerful and resizing 1000's of photos takes time. How much will depend on the size of the photos - i.e their resolution - the higher that is - the longer to resize - and as you have folders with 1000s of photos - if they take 1 second each then to view them all..... Now you could split the folders into smaller amounts so the individual number is smaller etc as one way to mitigate the initial slowness. 2. Why are the photos resized - because most if not all clients will be ground to their knees very quickly trying to deal with full size images. 3 fast connection helps a small amount but its disk speed in providing lots of images that is key - slow disks in any way will have a huge effect - its why most people use SSD's for the metadata cache - although this is generally not always an option with a NAS which should be in a Raid config anyway. 4. the cpu load going to 100% is expected - the resizing is done as quick as possible - but your i3 is obviously struggling with the load of resizing and then doing it 1000s of time as you browse your library. Not much can be done other than having smaller images/faster processor/fast disks etc etc - all come with a cost and are probably not practical in most cases. 5 i have 500k photos on my 853A which has a slower CPU than yours and i get ok performance from it - now my expectations were not as high as yours - but it worked ok for me. So what is your raid setup and what disks (type/model no) do you have in your array as for using file explorer to view files - sorry this is an apples and banana comparison - not the same thing - although it looks like it to you. Your i3 has a passmark score of 2000+ which is fine for a file server - but this image processing task is a non trivial task and cpu grunt is one of the key factors in how long it takes. Plus as all the work is done on the nas - file access to read and save takes cpu as well. My desktop 6700k which is approx 8 times faster still chugs a bit on occasion if i have a lot of images to view that have expired (cache expires after 30 days) Sorry its not the answers you want but it is what it is and emby may not be the best at photo management app currently but its other features out way my photo requirements - your mileage may vary Have Fun Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy222 0 Posted January 1, 2021 Share Posted January 1, 2021 (edited) I also would like emby to create thumbnails for all my photos in advance. Why can't it just keep doing that until all the photos have thumbnails, rather than waiting for "on demand"? It takes a long time of course which is fine, but why can't the server keep doing it until it is done without waiting for me to open each folder and scroll down?? Edited January 1, 2021 by Jeremy222 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke 37050 Posted January 4, 2021 Share Posted January 4, 2021 Hi, we are looking into improving this. Thanks for the feedback. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike3821 61 Posted May 22, 2021 Share Posted May 22, 2021 Same complaint... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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