Playback sometimes does not start

[getack 4]

Hello, 

Sometimes when I try to play back a movie or TV show, things remain stuck on the loading screen, where a green spinner spins indefinitely. 

I'm finding it difficult to identify exactly what is causing the issue, but 9/10 times when I go outside of Emby, and access the media file via a samba share, it plays back perfectly with VLC.

This happens both on the Windows player and the web player for me.

When looking at the network tab in inspect element, I think it's actually streaming the show, or at least downloading it, but nothing is playing.

See the below screenshot, take note of the data transferred so far, and the ongoing `stream.mp4` call, that I guess is responsible for the actual streaming here:

This particular movie is 2.9GB in size, so when I leave it to actually transfer the full movie's data across, then it starts playing.

Is this the fault of the media file type or codec or something, and it's not possible to stream? I had to wait 8 minutes for this video to load before it could play. How long am I going to wait for a 40GB 4K video? 

See the stats for the video file information:

 

 

Thank!

[Luke 42081]

Hi there, can you please attach the emby server log from when this happened? thanks.

[getack 4]

Hello Luke,

 

Please find attached as requested. I started the playback at 08h55 and the video actually started playing at 09h07

Culprit movie is "Alien 3"

 

I replicated the problem twice in this log file, the first one started at 08h41, but the movie never started playing, it just went back to the video landing page with a spinner still overlaid. This was on the Windows app, and the log starting at 08h55 was via the web player.

 

Thanks!

embyserver_streamingissue.txt

[Luke 42081]

Where is the media located?

[getack 4]

Hi Luke, 

The media and the server itself is hosted on a NAS on my local network.

I have not tested over an internet connection, but this issue definitely occurs via my local network, all devices linked via Gigabit ethernet.

[Luke 42081]

Was the NAS offline or asleep when you tried to play? The errors in your log file are generally indicative of either corrupt files or just an inability to reach the file.

[getack 4]

Hi Luke, the media and the server software are hosted on the same box: an HP Proliant server. I doubt it was asleep before playing the media, because I am literally browsing to the media before playing it. This issue also happens when playing something else and then attempting to play the affected file. The machine is running Ubuntu Server with Emby installed in a Docker container. There is nothing related to sleep configured on this machine.

Thanks for the tip on corrupted media, I will see if I can figure out if these files are corrupted in any way. VLC starts playing them immediately over the network though.

It's important to note that playback does eventually start, it spins/loads just really long, and it does not do this for other movies/shows. When looking at the debug console in a browser it appears as if the entire file is sent to the browser first before playback starts (2.9GB transferred before playback starts). Could this be related to a file format / codec that does not work with streaming over the network?

Lastly, can you point the log entry that alludes to this possible corruption or unavailability? Maybe I can use this to pinpoint the issue. Media is spread across multiple disks on the machine, and possibly I have a bum disk installed.

Thanks!

[Luke 42081]

2021-10-01 05:40:46.886 Error App: Error in ffprobe
	*** Error Report ***
	Version: 4.6.4.0
	Command line: /system/EmbyServer.dll -programdata /config -ffdetect /bin/ffdetect -ffmpeg /bin/ffmpeg -ffprobe /bin/ffprobe -restartexitcode 3
	Operating system: Linux version 5.4.0-86-generic (buildd@lgw01-amd64-041) (gcc version 9.3.0 (Ubuntu 9.3.0-17ubuntu1~20.04)) #97-Ubuntu SMP Fri Sep 17 19:19:40 UTC 2021
	Framework: .NET Core 3.1.13
	OS/Process: x64/x64
	Runtime: system/System.Private.CoreLib.dll
	Processor count: 2
	Data path: /config
	Application path: /system
	System.Exception: System.Exception: ffprobe failed for file:"/mnt/datastore/tv/Family Guy/Season 04/Family Guy - S04E26 - Petergeist.avi" - streams and format are both null: 
	{
	
	}
	
	
	ffprobe version 4.3.0-emby_2021_02_27 Copyright (c) 2007-2021 the FFmpeg developers and softworkz for Emby LLC
	  built with gcc 8.3.0 (crosstool-NG 1.24.0)
	[avi @ 0x24e3180] Format avi detected only with low score of 1, misdetection possible!
	file:/mnt/datastore/tv/Family Guy/Season 04/Family Guy - S04E26 - Petergeist.avi: Invalid data found when processing input
	
	
	   at Emby.Server.MediaEncoding.Probing.MediaProbeManager.GetMediaInfoInternal(String inputPath, String primaryPath, MediaProtocol protocol, String userAgent, Boolean extractChapters, String probeSizeArgument, Boolean isAudio, Boolean forceEnableLogging, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
	   at MediaBrowser.Providers.MediaInfo.FFProbeVideoInfo.ProbeVideo[T](MetadataResult`1 metadataResult, MetadataRefreshOptions options, LibraryOptions libraryOptions, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
	   at MediaBrowser.Providers.Manager.MetadataService`2.RunCustomProvider(ICustomMetadataProvider`1 provider, MetadataResult`1 itemResult, String logName, MetadataRefreshOptions options, LibraryOptions libraryOptions, RefreshResult refreshResult, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
	Source: Emby.Server.MediaEncoding

See the line about invalid data found when processing input. From experience I would say it is probably more likely that the files are unreachable than corrupt, but it could be either.

[getack 4]

Hi Luke,

I see the errors now. For the specific files that these errors are complaining about (/mnt/datastore/tv/Family Guy/Season 04/Family Guy - S04E26 - Petergeist.avi in your example), I can confirm that the files are indeed corrupt. Even when downloading the file to my local machine and playing it does not work.

But for the original culprit file, Alien 3, there are no errors like the one you posted in my log file, and I am able to play the file with VLC via the network and I am able download and play it locally.

I will try and find more example files like Alien 3.

[Luke 42081]

@getack is this the only file having that problem?

[getack 4]

@Luke no it's not. I have experienced similar issues with other files. I will try and find some time to identify more with this issue.

 

It's definitely not size that has an effect here, direct play 4k files will start playing immediately, but then a 250MB episode will buffer for a while.

 

In all cases I've confirmed that it's not waiting for transcoding to catch up. I try to force direct play where I can.

[getack 4]

I suspect it's my reverse proxy that is messing things up for me.

 

As per the other thread that we are engaged in, if I connect to the server via it's local IP then I have no issues. It seems like this issue is caused by the fact that I connect to my server via a domain that is then routed by NGINX.

 

Something is off in my config.

 

[Luke 42081]

Ok I would suggest comparing your nginx config to that of @pir8radio

[getack 4]

Thanks @Luke, will do that this weekend, and then mark this thread as resolved.

[Luke 42081]

Let us know how you get on. Thanks.

[getack 4]

Hello everyone,

Seems like this problem and the one I raised in another thread were related, and caused by a bad NGINX config. 

I have implemented the solution in that thread and all seems to be working fine now. 

Upon further testing it seemed like this issue was caused by MP4 files, which are impacted by a bad proxy config.

[Luke 42081]

Thanks for the feedback.