Constant Freezing

[Joe Farmer 2]

Emby has been freezing constantly on Android phones and TV's. The only thing that varies is how long into a movie or episode you get before it freezes. If you go back and try to play the same video again you just get the spinning circle indefinitely, until you either close the app on your phone orturn the TV off and on again.

I have attached the latest log file from a test I did on my phone. There are a number of errors in the hardware_detection and embyserver logs attached.

I have tried all manner of settings on the server and on the Apps on my phone and TV's but nothing seems to make any difference. Nothing has changed from a hardware perspective, I am running Emby on an old Dell server with dual Intel Xeon E5520 CPU's and a Quadro NVS 295 and only started having this problem in the last month.

It has gotten to the point where you're lucky if you get 10-20 minutes into a video before it freezes and doesn't recover.

Is there anything in the logs that could point to the issue?

 ffmpeg-remux-841e0e0b-7160-4c80-a855-722744b84cb9_1.txtembyserver.txt 

hardware_detection-63780208546.txt

[BillOatman 596]

This is in the server file several times

Quote

Info SessionManager: Playback start reported by app Emby for Android 3.2.35 playing 401 Unauthorized. Started at 653768 ms

 

[Joe Farmer 2]

Thanks @BillOatman but what is that telling me?

Also strange that error is coming up during playback, I would have thought it would happen at the start and then not play at all.

 

Also, this is all on my LAN, not external devices. 

Edited February 14, 2022 by Joe Farmer

[ebr 16185]

Hi.  Do you have any sort of proxy or security watchdog software involved here?

That is a very strange message as it appears the title of the item you are playing is coming back as "401 Unauthorized".

[Joe Farmer 2]

I have a TP Link AC4000 router which does have an IMGP Proxy enabled for IPTV as per the first attached screenshot. Can't see any other Proxy settings on the router. There is no Proxy configured on the server (running Windows 10) either.

I do see Trend Micro Antivirus on the router though, as per the second attached screenshot.

Could either of those have anything to do with it?

 

 

[ebr 16185]

@cayars

[Happy2Play 9781]

Could there be an issue on the custom transcode-temp folder? 

 

2022-02-11 20:10:58.381 Info Main: Transcoding temporary files path: C:\Users\Media Server\AppData\Roaming\Emby-Server\programdata\transcoding-temp

G:\Transcoding\transcoding-temp

 

[Joe Farmer 2]

I don't think it's related to the transcode-temp folder as I changed that to another drive and tested again but it made no difference.

[Happy2Play 9781]

Is it an issue on all clients or just "Emby for Android 3.2.35"?

Does it happen on all media or just media on this drive "D:\Adults\TV"?

 

[Joe Farmer 2]

Both Android TV's seems to have version 2.0.48g. It shows 'Version: 2.0.48g Registered' when I go to settings, it freezes on both those TVs though on one it does come back after a minute or so of being frozen but the other doesn't come back at all, just the blue spinning circle indefinitely, I have to turn that tv off and on again to get it to work again for all of about 5 minutes before freezing again.

On my phone it is ""Emby for Android 3.2.35" which the log files relate to. 

It is not only "D:\Adults\TV" that has the issue, G: also has the same issue, haven't tested media from the other drives yet, do you think it's worth testing?

Interestingly I just tested on my PC on the same network as the server just using Chrome and I get the following error however I noticed that only occurred for media on D drive and: G drive. Media on other drives, two of which are external HDD's seem to be working. Testing now to see if media on those other drives freezes as well. 

[Luke 42080]

4 minutes ago, Joe Farmer said:

Both Android TV's seems to have version 2.0.48g. It shows 'Version: 2.0.48g Registered' when I go to settings, it freezes on both those TVs though on one it does come back after a minute or so of being frozen but the other doesn't come back at all, just the blue spinning circle indefinitely, I have to turn that tv off and on again to get it to work again for all of about 5 minutes before freezing again.

On my phone it is ""Emby for Android 3.2.35" which the log files relate to. 

It is not only "D:\Adults\TV" that has the issue, G: also has the same issue, haven't tested media from the other drives yet, do you think it's worth testing?

Interestingly I just tested on my PC on the same network as the server just using Chrome and I get the following error however I noticed that only occurred for media on D drive and: G drive. Media on other drives, two of which are external HDD's seem to be working. Testing now to see if media on those other drives freezes as well. 

@Joe Farmer can you please attach the emby server log from when you tried to play using the web app? Thanks !

[Carlo 4561]

This could be router related as you are getting some strange results that normally would be associated with proxies.

Do you have any ethernet based devices to test on?  Using any devices directly connected to the LAN should bypass the router allowing for a simple diagnostic without making any changes to the router.

If you have an older WIFI AP you could try plugging that into your switch (not the router) and then do a test using this "new" WIFI AP.

If you don't have any additional hardware to do anything like the above your best bet would be to backup your current router config (if it has that feature) then walk through the UI turning off any advanced feature (keeping a list).  The idea is to get it back to being as close to a "dumb" router as possible without using any advanced features like QOS, virus and/or malware checking, proxy, etc...

All three of these for example would be turned off:

You would also turn off the the IGMP proxy and multicast shown on the screen you posted above as well.

I'd then shutdown all network equipment including the devices you will check.  Wait 30 seconds then turn on your switches and router.  After the router is back up turn on your Emby Server followed by devices you wish to test.

If things now play correctly you can slowing start turning features back on one by one while testing.

Let us know how you make out.
If none of these seem to help we can do a remote support session with you to see if we can spot anything causing these issues.

Carlo

[Joe Farmer 2]

I did some more testing yesterday and last night and found that media on drives other than D and G actually play without any issue, we watched a movie last night on E drive and it worked fine, no freezing. I suspect the issue is actually with those two drives.

The TV we watched the movie on is connected by ethernet, it is also the TV that has the issue of freezing and then not coming back at all unless I turn it off and back on again.

I will do some more testing with media from all the drives to confirm that it is only D and G drive that are the issue and let you know. 

[Luke 42080]

2 hours ago, Joe Farmer said:

I did some more testing yesterday and last night and found that media on drives other than D and G actually play without any issue, we watched a movie last night on E drive and it worked fine, no freezing. I suspect the issue is actually with those two drives.

The TV we watched the movie on is connected by ethernet, it is also the TV that has the issue of freezing and then not coming back at all unless I turn it off and back on again.

I will do some more testing with media from all the drives to confirm that it is only D and G drive that are the issue and let you know. 

Let us know what you find. Thanks for the update.

[Joe Farmer 2]

Hey guys,

Good news, turns out I had one faulty drive, D drive, that for some weird reason was causing issues, not only with media from D drive, but also G drive.

Once I pulled D drive everything started playing again without issue.

Sadly I destroyed what turned out to be a perfectly good server stripping it for parts to build another server out of my old desktop but at least I found the problem!

Thanks for all the help with this.

Paul

 

 

[Luke 42080]

Thanks for the feedback.