Chrome playback stuttering

[m1stertim 2]

Hello,

I'm having a recurring problem with file playback on Chrome.  since i'm usually on my underpowered laptop, wireless, i didn't think too much of it.  but i was playing direct from the server today (via localhost:8096) and it was still occurring.  

 

Sometimes audio drops out for several seconds and video continues.  Sometimes both video and audio stop together.  It's generally between 1 and 5 second pauses.  sometimes it occurs every few minutes, sometimes it's fine for 30 minutes or more, so it can be a little difficult to reproduce on demand or catch in a screen capture.  

The issue occurred at 1759, 1803, and 1808 in the attached logs.   Source file is x265 720p.  Both computers are windows 10 and Chrome v97 64-bit.  

 

 

embyserver.txt ffmpeg-transcode-b21afe27-6e5b-483b-8a62-c9416918e922_1.txt

Edited February 1, 2022 by m1stertim

[m1stertim 2]

I switched to a different show and it's happening every 5 minutes exactly now.  and it doesn't just pause, it stops playback and won't resume until i exit the video player and re-enter.  

[m1stertim 2]

more logs from last night... issue occurred at 2142, 2148, 2153, 2158, 2203, and basically every 5 minutes after that 
 

embyserver-63779356819.txt logs.zip

[Happy2Play 9783]

As a test can you disable "hardware acceleration" in the Chrome browser? 

Have you tried a different browser?

[m1stertim 2]

13 hours ago, Happy2Play said:

As a test can you disable "hardware acceleration" in the Chrome browser? 

Have you tried a different browser?

I have not yet.  After happening so freqeuently the one night, the issue only occurred once the next night, and was completely absent last night.  

 

But you believe that it's a client-based issue given the logs?  And by 'different browser' you mean firefox, I assume?  

[Luke 42083]

Hi, yes Edge or Firefox would be a good test. Can you let us know how that compares? Thanks.

[m1stertim 2]

so for whatever reason, this issue hasn't really been recurring except when the source file is 2160p.  despite my device native resolution being 1080p, and my having both 1080p and 2160p source files available as versions, it picks the 2160p by default *even when autoplaying the next episode after i played the last episode in 1080p*

 

I thought it was pretty good at automatically selecting the correct source file to play.  I don't see any settings related to this though.  

[pwhodges 2012]

There are no settings; Emby chooses the highest quality it thinks it can play.  You can manipulate this indirectly by using the client "play" settings to specify a lower quality as the maximum.

Paul

[m1stertim 2]

so i've been able to reproduce the problem successfully in chrome across multiple versions and computers with hardware acceleration both on and off.  it appears to be related to chrome uptime.  i thought it might be related to file encoding (HEVC), but as far as i've seen i've been transcoding every time it happens, even playing back on server.  

i'm trying to play primarily in firefox now, and leaving it open to see if i can reproduce.  it smells like it might be a chrome issue though.  

[visproduction 316]

Possible reason: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/62140718/stop-chrome-tab-sleeping-hibernating-2020