Can't stream from Android TV or mobile device

[SlayerXT 1]

So, lately I've ran into some problems with Emby and hopefully someone could help me out here.

Ever since my Android TV streamer just updated itself to version 9, Emby hasn't been working properly for me.
The app works but pretty slow, it takes always a few seconds when I press anything when I choose a show in the menu or when
I'm actually pressing the Play button in a movie or a show I want to watch.
The biggest problem is when it starts playing (and it takes a while now before it starts), It's working for around 10 to 30 seconds
and then it just freezes, and after a few seconds again it works for a few more seconds and then freezes again, and this happens with
every file, no matter what.

I thought this is a problem that's related to the Android TV update I just had because it seems like it started after this, but then I
tried watching from the app on my Samsung phone and it has the same problem,  as well as on my laptop. The only place Emby works
fine is on my desktop PC which is essentially the server when all the files are located, hence making me think I have a problem with
the streaming from Emby not working properly, doesn't matter what device it is.

Anyone encountered anything like this with Emby and has a solution?
Been using Emby for months and now I feel really stuck without it.

Thanks in advance

Edited June 29, 2021 by SlayerXT

[ebr 14913]

Hi.  Did anything on your network change?  This sounds like a network throughput issue possibly.

[SlayerXT 1]

No, that's the weird part.

Changed nothing in my network settings or connection and was sure it is a problem with Android TV,
until I tried to use the phone app which I haven't used for a few weeks and had the same issue.

Though the internet works fine and there is no any problem with any other apps I have.

Can't seem to find what's wrong.

[Carlo 4330]

What is your speed like if you use the web app?

[Luke 37064]

Can we please look at the specifics of an example?

 

Thanks.

[SlayerXT 1]

On 6/30/2021 at 12:40 AM, cayars said:

What is your speed like if you use the web app?

I'm getting around 52Mbps lately which isn't great, but usually I get
around 70-75Mbps (for an Internet package of up to 100Mbps so it's decent).

Thing is, I'm not experiencing a problem with streaming with any other app or on
any other device I have, if it's Netflix or Amazon Prime or any other app installed,
but I also haven't changed anything in the home network settings so I don't know why
streaming from my desktop PC would suddenly stop working.

[Carlo 4330]

Hi, We need to see the info Luke asked for.

[SlayerXT 1]

So I went to the link Luke posted and tried to get the logs out of my Android TV app and I just can't seem to find anything about
logs in the settings of the Android TV app. I also turned on the logs option in the settings of the Android phone app settings and still
can't see anything in the TV app.

What I have access to right now are the logs that I access from Emby in my desktop PC (which is also the PC used as the server).


I don't know if any of those can help so I can post them here, but the problem I'm having are coming from the remote devices I try to stream from
like the TV and the phone.

The weird thing is that I tried to use the phone app yesterday and it worked just fine and then I tried the Android TV app and for a few plays that
I tried, I froze frame every 5 seconds but then It just started working and I managed to stream two episodes of a show.
Then again, I'm trying today and I have the same frame freezing problem that It just freezes for like 10 seconds, then works again
for like a 5 seconds and then freezes again for 10 more, but on my phone today it works just fine it did yesterday.

I'm pointing out that I have changed nothing in my network or internet settings in the last few days so I don't know how all of this is possible.

[SlayerXT 1]

So it's been randomally working for me yesterday, and I managed to like watch 5 minutes of a show before it got back to freezing-playing every 10 seconds, though on my Android phone it all works fine now, even when it got bad again on the Android TV.

 

I'm adding a video for you to see what this problem I have looks like.

 

A help would be much appreciated!

[Carlo 4330]

Hi, you should send an in app log from the Android TV so a dev can take a look at it.  You can find directions for doing that in this post.

 

[ebr 14913]

Hi.  This sounds a lot like a bad network connection.  Wifi?

As Cayars said, instructions for sending a log from the app are in that topic Luke originally linked.

Thanks.

[SlayerXT 1]

On 7/5/2021 at 4:49 PM, ebr said:

Hi.  This sounds a lot like a bad network connection.  Wifi?

As Cayars said, instructions for sending a log from the app are in that topic Luke originally linked.

Thanks.

The first thing I suspected was bad network connection, but my Android TV streamer is connected right to the router through cable so it's the most
reliable connection, plus I'm having no trouble at all streaming from other apps such as Netflix, Amazon, etc. or using any other app that I need internet for,
so it's really weird.

I just sent the log through the Android TV app.

I was trying again to watch some of the TV shows I have on there - first the show Black Monday - S03E01, then Workaholics S01E03 (though this problem kept happening before with every other movie or TV show I have there), and encountered the same exact problem, that every 5 to 10 seconds that the
show is working, it also freezes for around 10-15 seconds, and then it again works for 5-10 seconds and then again freezes, and while I always think
It might be a connection problem and in a minute it will be back to playing smoothly, it never does and just keeps freezing every few seconds, sometimes it
works for a few more seconds than I mentioned.

I sent the log at the time of 13:48 UTC (here in Israel's timezone its UTC -3)
And my Emby server username is PhilipXT (server name is Philip-PC).

Thanks in advance! Hopefully there will be a solution for this.

 

Edited July 6, 2021 by SlayerXT

[ebr 14913]

Definitely looks like a network issue of some sort:

07-06 16:43:47.353 11950 11950 E EventLogger:   Caused by: java.net.SocketTimeoutException: timeout

 

[Luke 37064]

Can you please attach the corresponding emby server log as well? Thanks.

[SlayerXT 1]

3 hours ago, Luke said:

Can you please attach the corresponding emby server log as well? Thanks.

How do I do that?

Do you mean the to export the logs from the emby on my desktop PC which serves as the server?

[SlayerXT 1]

embyserver.txtThat's the only file that I saw in the logs of the emby on my desktop PC, with today's date.
Hopefully that's the log you asked for

[Luke 37064]

On 7/6/2021 at 3:23 PM, SlayerXT said:

embyserver.txtThat's the only file that I saw in the logs of the emby on my desktop PC, with today's date.
Hopefully that's the log you asked for

Thanks, we're looking into it.

[ebr 14913]

On 7/6/2021 at 9:54 AM, SlayerXT said:

The first thing I suspected was bad network connection, ...plus I'm having no trouble at all streaming from other apps such as Netflix, Amazon, etc

But none of those other apps will be trying to get content from your server on your network.

[ebr 14913]

Any VPNs, proxies or anti-malware in play here by any chance?

Okay, scratch that.  We may have discovered something that leads us to believe it is related to the structure of the media.  Can we get a sample that has this problem and/or can you try remuxing one of them with a tool like mkvtoolnix and see if it behaves differently?

[Luke 37064]

HI, as a test, would you mind trying to sideload our standard Android app on the same device, and see if you're able to play the same file with that?

https://emby.media/emby-for-android.html

Thanks !

[SlayerXT 1]

On 7/9/2021 at 12:06 AM, Luke said:

HI, as a test, would you mind trying to sideload our standard Android app on the same device, and see if you're able to play the same file with that?

https://emby.media/emby-for-android.html

Thanks !

So I just tried installing the app from this page on my Android TV device, entering the direct link to the APK into an app I use there called VDownloader,
to download outside apps.

Even though It it didn't really work cause it always gave me a message that I need to do an Emby Premiere account or sign in to use it, it still gave me
an option to try it for a minute, so I tried watching the same Black Monday S03E01 episode I lately had trouble with and I had the same exact problem of freezing frame
every 5 seconds, then going back to working then freezing again, until really fast here it just kinda crashes and goes back to the show's episode menu.
I used of course the link to download the APK of the ARM version cause my Android TV device has an ARM processor.

On 7/8/2021 at 11:43 PM, ebr said:

Any VPNs, proxies or anti-malware in play here by any chance?

Okay, scratch that.  We may have discovered something that leads us to believe it is related to the structure of the media.  Can we get a sample that has this problem and/or can you try remuxing one of them with a tool like mkvtoolnix and see if it behaves differently?

When I come to think about it, the first time I encountered this problem, it happened during an episode Workaholics, which worked fine until like 7-8 minutes in, then the whole app kinda crashed and restarted. When I just pressed continue watching from the main menu to continue this episode, It started wit the freezing problem. The weird part is in the few times that I wrote here that everything just worked properly randomly, without me changing anything, I also tried playing that same episode from the begging and it just started freezing at the same time it crashed that one time before, so that's kinda weird, but the thing is that with this problem I'm having, it basically freezes in every media file I'm trying, cause I wanted to check if the problem in a problematic file, so I tried playing random episodes from random shows I have or movies and I experienced this problem with all of the stuff I tried playing, so it doesn't seem like it's a problem with a specific file.

Never used mkvtoolnix, so I don't quite know what's remuxing the file means.

Do you want me to upload you one of the episodes I'm having problems with, for you to check? or cut a sample out of this episode and upload it?
I can try it maybe with the problematic Workaholics episode that I had that problem with, but currently it's happening in every media I'm having on Emby.

 

On 7/8/2021 at 11:36 PM, ebr said:

But none of those other apps will be trying to get content from your server on your network.

Oh,  I get what you're saying, but then it's still weird how on my Android phone it all streams just fine by wi-fi (on the Android TV streamer it's via LAN cable). Then again, in the beginning I had the exact same problem on my Android phone as well, but then on the phone it just started magically working.

BTW, just wanted to say sorry for the delay it took me to answer you guys here this time, and I really really appreciate you helping me out like this
and trying to figure out what's the problem and to get to the bottom of this. Hopefully we'll be able to find the problem and I could be going back
to enjoying Emby daily. Thank you!

Edited July 10, 2021 by SlayerXT

[ebr 14913]

No worries.  Yes, if you can get us the original file that started the problems we can see if we can reproduce.  Anything like a dropbox or Google drive link will work and you can PM it to me and @cayars.

Thanks.

[SlayerXT 1]

So I just sent you guys the link to the original video file of the Workaholics episode that started the problems, from my Google Drive account.

Hopefully it helps to understand something, although like I said before I'm having this error with every file - TV show or movie that i'm trying to
play from my Emby server, so it's not exclusive to this show or episode, though here it had this weird thing of dying in the same exact frame and even crashing the app back then.

BTW, what's the thing you wanted me to do with the mkvtoolnix? If it's necessary and you can explain to me what exactly to do there, I can do that
if it'll help us in solving the problem here.

Thanks.

[ebr 14913]

Now that we have your example, if we can reproduce, then Cayars can try a remux to see if it discovers the problem.

Thanks.

[SlayerXT 1]

Ok, cool. I sent Cayars the link to the file in a private message also.

Hopefully you guys will find something there, and we'll have a solution to all of this.
Waiting for your update.

Thanks.