Error playing HEVC video with AAC multi-channel conversion

[KiwiBean 4]

Hello,

I get an error stating "Playback Error, Too Many Errors, Moving On" on the Roku Premiere+ whenever I try to play a 1080P HEVC AAC 5.1 video with the "Convert Multi-channel AAC" option enabled.  This same video plays fine when that option is disabled.  Other videos in 1080p H264 AAC 5.1 play fine with the option enabled or disabled.

This behavior is consistent regardless of the server hardware I'm using.  One server is an anemic dual-core Celeron 4GB RAM Ubuntu 20.04 LTS system, while the other is a more powerful quad-core Core I7 16GB RAM OSX system.  Both are running Emby Server version 4.5.3.0.

When using the web-client, both the HEVC and H264 videos will play from both servers with the option enabled or disabled.  The only issue is that the HEVC video will stutter a bit when playing from the Ubuntu server with the option enabled.

From monitoring system tasks on both servers, I've noticed that ffmpeg never gets initiated when this error occurs (i.e. when playing the HEVC video with "convert multi-channel aac" option enabled).  I suspect this is due to the specific combination of HEVC video and AAC 5.1 on the Roku client.

Any thoughts on the cause of the issue and how to resolve?

Thanks much!

Edited December 10, 2020 by KiwiBean

[ebr 14912]

Hi.  Can we please see the logs from when this occurs?  Thanks.

 

[speechles 1917]

  

14 hours ago, KiwiBean said:

Hello,

I get an error stating "Playback Error, Too Many Errors, Moving On" on the Roku Premiere+ whenever I try to play a 1080P HEVC AAC 5.1 video with the "Convert Multi-channel AAC" option enabled.

 

Do you have an AC3 Dolby codec available on your Emby server? When the convert option is enabled this will invoke ffmpeg. Please follow the advice of @ebr shown above. We need logs. Specifically ffmpeg logs would shed some light on this. Thanks again.

Edited December 10, 2020 by speechles

[KiwiBean 4]

On 12/10/2020 at 6:58 AM, speechles said:

 Do you have an AC3 Dolby codec available on your Emby server? When the convert option is enabled this will invoke ffmpeg. Please follow the advice of @ebr shown above. We need logs. Specifically ffmpeg logs would shed some light on this. Thanks again.

I'm still looking into the AC3 Dolby codec question. I think the answer is "yes", but looking for certainty.

Attached are all the logs from a clean server session - meaning I restarted the server, reproduced the issue, played a successful video for comparison, and then shutdown the server.

The HEVC file generating the error in this case is "Once Upon a Time in America (1984).mp4", but you'll see there is no corresponding ffmpeg log for this.  The H264 file that runs successfully is "The Princess Bride (1987).mp4", and the attached ffmpeg log is for this.

 

Edited December 13, 2020 by KiwiBean

[speechles 1917]

Snippets below from Remux log above:

TranscodeReasons=AudioChannelsNotSupported

Operating System: Linux version 5.4.0-56-generic (buildd@lgw01-amd64-025) (gcc version 9.3.0 (Ubuntu 9.3.0-17ubuntu1~20.04)) #62-Ubuntu SMP Mon Nov 23 19:20:19 UTC 2020
OS/Process: x64/x64
Emby Server version: 4.5.3.0
Operating system: Unix 5.4.0.56
Command Line: /opt/emby-server/system/EmbyServer.dll -programdata /var/lib/emby -ffdetect /opt/emby-server/bin/ffdetect -ffmpeg /opt/emby-server/bin/ffmpeg -ffprobe /opt/emby-server/bin/ffprobe -restartexitcode 3 -updatepackage emby-server-deb_{version}_amd64.deb

App: Roku SG 4.0.4

 

11:56:02.120     Stream #0:0(und): Video: h264 (High) (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuv420p, 1920x1040 [SAR 1:1 DAR 24:13], 2498 kb/s, Level 41, 23.98 fps, 23.98 tbr, 11988 tbn, 47.95 tbc (default)
11:56:02.120     Stream #0:1(eng): Audio: aac (LC) (mp4a / 0x6134706D), 48000 Hz, 5.1, fltp, 224 kb/s (default)

 

11:56:02.124   Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (copy)
11:56:02.126   Stream #0:1 -> #0:1 (aac (native) -> ac3 (native))

 

Basically if this will Direct Play just fine and is not able to play at all when transcoding the audio something is wrong with ffmpeg and giving the Roku garbage. @Luke

----

The problem occurs during HEVC with AAC 5.1 -> AC3 Dolby 5.1 as well. This sounds like a problem unique to the server OS which is why we rarely get these.

Edited December 10, 2020 by speechles

[KiwiBean 4]

On 12/10/2020 at 1:51 PM, speechles said:

This sounds like a problem unique to the server OS which is why we rarely get these.

I just tried running the same test with the same files on the same Roku client, but using a different server -- and got the same results.  Logs for this are attached.  Dunno if this helps.

This other server is a Mac, so admittedly its still a Linux core.  This might be the reason the error occurs on different servers.

Also, i tried installing 'ubuntu-restricted-extras' on the original Ubuntu server having the issue, as this supposedly adds a bunch of codecs.  But that did not fix the problem.

Is there some other set of tests I can run to try and help isolate the issue futher?  I'm thinking in terms of various combination of file encoding types and roku settings and such.

 

Edited December 13, 2020 by KiwiBean

[pwhodges 1529]

1 hour ago, KiwiBean said:

This other server is a Mac, so admittedly its still a Linux core. 

O/T-ish: Mac core is Darwin, which is based on BSD, not Linux.

Paul

[KiwiBean 4]

9 minutes ago, pwhodges said:

O/T-ish: Mac core is Darwin, which is based on BSD, not Linux.

Paul

Ah, right.  Thanks for the clarification.

I'll stop pretending I know what I'm talking about, and just admit to being a sheer amateur.

[KiwiBean 4]

On 12/10/2020 at 1:51 PM, speechles said:

11:56:02.120     Stream #0:0(und): Video: h264 (High) (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuv420p, 1920x1040 [SAR 1:1 DAR 24:13], 2498 kb/s, Level 41, 23.98 fps, 23.98 tbr, 11988 tbn, 47.95 tbc (default)

11:56:02.120     Stream #0:1(eng): Audio: aac (LC) (mp4a / 0x6134706D), 48000 Hz, 5.1, fltp, 224 kb/s (default)

11:56:02.124   Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (copy)

11:56:02.126   Stream #0:1 -> #0:1 (aac (native) -> ac3 (native))

Basically if this will Direct Play just fine and is not able to play at all when transcoding the audio something is wrong with ffmpeg and giving the Roku garbage.

At the risk I caused confusion earlier, I just wanted to clarify that the above video plays perfectly.

The video throwing the error is encoded in HEVC and AAC 5.1, and it does not even get to the point of kicking-off ffmpeg at all.  That is, i can never see ffmpeg fire up as a system task and no log file is generated.  The only reference to this issue that I can find in the embyserver.txt log is several entries like the following:

2020-12-10 11:54:44.115 Info App: Profile: VideoAudioCodecProfile, DirectPlay=false. Reason=Roku SG.AudioChannels Condition: LessThanEqual. ConditionValue: 2. IsRequired: True. Path: /home/kiwibean/easystore/Movies/Once Upon a Time in America (1984)/Once Upon a Time in America (1984).mp4

 

[KiwiBean 4]

After some more testing I've been able to isolate this issue to some odd combination of subtitle settings in the Roku client app, and that particular 'Once Upon a Time in America' movie.

Before starting this set of tests I completely uninstalled and then reinstalled both the Emby Server and the Roku Emby Client App.  I kept all default settings in both cases, with the exception of selecting YES for the 'Convert Multi-channel AAC' option in the client app.  My test then consisted of the following steps:

1. Play 'Fellowship of the Ring' with Subtitle option set to '(None)' on movie page = SUCCESS
2. Play 'Fellowship of the Ring' with Subtitle option set to 'ENG' on movie page = SUCCESS
3. Play 'Once Upon a Time in America' with Subtitle option set to '(None)' on movie page = FAILED
4. Play 'Once Upon a Time in America' with Subtitle option set to 'ENG' on movie page = FAILED
5. Play 'Fellowship of the Ring' with Subtitle option set to '(None)' on movie page = SUCCESS
6. Play 'Fellowship of the Ring' with Subtitle option set to 'ENG' on movie page = FAILED

SUCCESS means the movie played with the HEVC video being direct streamed, and the AAC 5.1 audio being converted to AC3 (based on the ffmpeg logs).  FAILED means the movie did not play, did not generate an ffmpeg log file, and displayed the 'Playback Error, Too Many Errors, Moving On' message on screen.

The first odd thing is that the 'Fellowship of the Ring' played fine initially, regardless of the subtitle setting.  But then after trying to play 'Once Upon a Time in America', the 'Fellowship of the Ring' would only play with subtitles set to '(None)'.  Why the change in result for the exact same test?

The second odd thing is that the 'Once Upon a Time in America' file won't play at all.  It doesn't seem to be corrupted as it will play in the Emby web-client and players like VLC.  It's been encoded with exactly the same settings as the 'Fellowship of the Ring', with the only difference between them being duration and aspect-ratio.  Why does the Roku client not like this file?

 

Edited December 13, 2020 by KiwiBean

[KiwiBean 4]

Looks like this might be a duplicate of

In that thread we seem to have concluded the issue is triggered by a movie having 4+ hours duration and a need for ffmpeg transcoding for any reason.