Playback Error - No playable items were found. - But only for some files, and the files are definately there! and they worked before!

[Nebarik 7]

I'm pulling my hair out on this one.

Server info:
Ubuntu 20.04

Docker Emby - 4.6.3.0 (also happened in 4.6.2.0) behind a simple Nginx reverse proxy. 

Media is on Google Drive mounted via Rclone with VFS cache, mostly default settings nothing fancy.

Issue:
For the most part, the vast majority of video files play and work correctly. yay. But some refuse. There's a couple of Episodes of Guessable, and every single episode of Loki. Usually gives the below error, but sometimes just spins the loading symbol forever. Weirdly the other day some of these files played just fine, no issues. But now they're not. 

    Playback Error
    No playable items were found. Are you trying to play an empty folder?

 

Troubleshooting:
- Due to a upgrade gone awry the other week, my old server with Emby 4.5 didnt want to turn on again and neither did the backup. So I started fresh with a fresh install of 4.6.2.0. No possible legacy database issues going on here. This is a fresh install. 
- Tried both direct play and transcoding, no difference. 
- The logs literally don't mention my attempts to play these files Even with debugging on It's just a sea of thumbnail GETs.
- Done numerous metadata refreshes
- Emby does see the files, that's how they got there in the first place, thumbnails were even created correctly!
- File paths confirmed as exactly correct with copy>paste>find. 
- Permissions all correct, both in the rclone mount, and in Google Drive directly (all files owned by a single account, all read access, no difference to other files that play normally)
- Rclone is pulling the video files down correctly, I can see them show up in VFS cache. 
- Can do a cp command and download the entire folder to a local drive, no errors with rclone or Google Drive
- Completely deleted the Emby Docker image volume and container, downloaded a fresh one, upgraded to 4.6.3.0
- Completely wiped the rclone cache and started fresh again.
- Completely removed the confg/emby/cache folder to start fresh again
- Completely removed chrome's cache to start fresh again
- Can watch the whole process of Chrome requesting thumbnails, rclone grabbing the jpgs from the same folder, Emby processing them into image cache, and finally showing on my chrome. But not these videos. 
- Video files play fine in VLC
- With the Loki example in particular. I keep multiple quailties, 480p, 720p, 1080p, 4k. So that's 8 seperate files all refusing to play. Which kind of suggests the folder is at fault, except I also keep all the posters, subtitles and thumbnail files alongside, and they all work fine! I even did a lsof command to watch what emby requests out of the folder. The thumbnail bif file gets found, but not the actualy video file. 
- Tried bypassing Nginx
- Issue persists on multiple devices, Chrome, Android app, Chromecast, Xbox app. 
- Renamed one of the video files > Refresh metadata > That version dissappears from the options for a second (Emby correctly no longer sees the old filename) > Then it adds it back in under the new name (Emby sees the "new" file") > Same playback error. 
- Renamed the entire season folder "Season 1" > "Season-1". Refreshed metadata. Same story, files dissappear from Emby, then show up again as it finds them under the new folder name. Same playback error. 

- Weirdest thing, I just downloaded a brand new episode of Loki s1e01. It uploaded fine, Emby found it fine, and it played fine. Tried one of the existing files, also now playing fine. Tried Guessable, also played fine.... But then while double checking some of the other files, they all went back to not working again with the same playback error. Other shows contine to play with no issue. Why would it work for a few seconds and then not anymore. I'm so confused. 

- Enabled generate thumbnails on new files > download new file like above > refresh metadata with replace images ticked > saw embyserv and ffmpeg see the file and do it's thing. creates a bif file. It's there, Emby clearly saw it and processed it fine. Wont play still.

 

Screenshots and server log attached

(server log is in debug mode, rotated logs > searched for loki > clicked into it and hit play > got playback error > export log)

I can't work this out, can someone help me? What's going on here?

embyserver.txt

Edited June 19, 2021 by Nebarik

[Luke 37060]

Hi, so this is when pressing play on the season folder? What if you press play on the series, or an individual episode?

[Nebarik 7]

Oh very interesting, didn't know there was a difference. just tested it. 

Going into the episode details (i) button > clicking play on a individual episode = playback error pops up

Clicking the play button that's in the middle of the individual episode's thumbnail in the season level = no error but forever spinning circle, doesnt play

Clicking 'play all' or 'shuffle' on both the series or season level = plays fine. can even click 'next' while it's playing and the next episode plays fine. 

 

Edit:

Done a bunch more testing. Lots of different shows and movies that have either single or multi version episodes. 

Issue only affects multi-version episodes. Not all of them, but quite a lot. Single version episodes and multi verion movies work fine. 
Issue only shows from the episode level, pressing the button labeled "play" gives playback error popup. Pressing the play button that's inside the episode thumbnail just causes a spinning circle, no error but not playing either. 

Work around: Episode(s) will play if you press "play all" or "play next" or "shuffle" on the Series or Season level. Or "next" in the playbar while the episode is playing will play the next episode no problem. 

The main difference the work around changes that I can think of, is that it's not giving you the choice of what version to play. So maybe there's something going on in the DB that doesn't like being overridden on which version of the episode to play. 

 

Is anyone else able to replicate this error? Can someone please just dump a bunch of versions of a episode into a season folder and see if it will allow you to play them from the episode level? It would be nice to see if it's just me, or a Emby bug. Thanks. 

Edited June 24, 2021 by Nebarik

[Nebarik 7]

On 22/06/2021 at 02:11, Luke said:

Hi, so this is when pressing play on the season folder? What if you press play on the series, or an individual episode?

Holy shit I worked it out.

It's "Display missing episodes within seasons" under Settings > Display. 

Ticking the box causes the error. Unticking resolves it. It's the user level setting, not the library one. How fucking weird. 

This happens both in 4.6.3.0 and the beta 4.7.0.3

 

Marking this post as the solution, but its really a work around, the bug itself still needs to be fixed on the server level please and thanks. 

Edited June 27, 2021 by Nebarik

[Luke 37060]

Thanks for the feedback. Please refrain from profanity as this is a family friendly environment.