Frequent artifacts when viewing media

[fillidill 175]

I do not know when it started to happen but I've begun to see an increasingly amount of artifacts (only last for 1-3 seconds) on movies/episodes. A couple of versions back this never seemed to happen. Today I lucked out being able to take screens and logs exactly when it occurred. Hopefully this makes it easier to troubleshoot.

What is weird is that when closing the episode (clicking played and then unplayed) and then starting again the same thing doesnt happen at that exact time stamp. 

Any help is appreciated!

 

embyserver.txt ffmpeg-remux-de111246-0822-41db-b52c-e46d6a938ba1_1.txt

[fillidill 175]

@Luke any idea what can be the cause? and is this a known problem or only for me?

[Luke 42077]

Hi, is it only with certain videos?

[Happy2Play 9780]

Does this only happen on items with excessive amounts of embedded subtitles?

[fillidill 175]

2 hours ago, Luke said:

Hi, is it only with certain videos?

 

1 hour ago, Happy2Play said:

Does this only happen on items with excessive amounts of embedded subtitles?

It seems to happen both with old and new movies/TV shows. 

Most of my media only have srt and subrip subtitles, and it's very uncommon for me to have media with more subs than 2 in total. 

[Luke 42077]

Hi, @softworkz will take a look at this. Thanks.

[softworkz 5065]

On 9/14/2022 at 10:24 PM, fillidill said:

and it's very uncommon for me to have media with more subs than 2 in total. 

The video in the log you posted has 34 subtitle streams!

It's not your fault, though - it's ours because we must not create an ffmpeg command that includes processing so many subtitle streams at once. It's a known issue for quite a while.

@Luke will answer the questions that you probably have now..

[Happy2Play 9780]

@fillidill if this is happening on items with a couple subtitles can you provide another example.

[fillidill 175]

@Happy2Play

It happened again, this time with a video with 3 subtitles.

 

embyserver.txt

[Luke 42077]

@fillidill if it's happening when direct playing then it's an issue in the browser video player. There's not much we can do about that.

You may want to check the browser settings to see if hardware acceleration is enabled and try toggling that on or off, but understanding that doing so may cause other side effects.

[Luke 42077]

@fillidill has this helped you?

[fillidill 175]

@Luke I am afraid not. I am a bit puzzled what to try next.

To clarify. I am using the web app in Chrome/Edge and streaming from my DS920+.

Did what you asked without any different results and also changed to Quicksync instead of VAAPI as that is the only thing I remember I've changed. If I am the only one reporting this I guess it must be a local problem It happens quite a lot and in a lot of different kind of videos which makes me believe it has nothing to do with the media itself.

 

[Luke 42077]

On 10/19/2022 at 3:00 AM, fillidill said:

@Luke I am afraid not. I am a bit puzzled what to try next.

To clarify. I am using the web app in Chrome/Edge and streaming from my DS920+.

Did what you asked without any different results and also changed to Quicksync instead of VAAPI as that is the only thing I remember I've changed. If I am the only one reporting this I guess it must be a local problem It happens quite a lot and in a lot of different kind of videos which makes me believe it has nothing to do with the media itself.

 

@fillidill have you updated to Emby Server 4.7.8? Has the latest version of Chrome helped?

[fillidill 175]

2 hours ago, Luke said:

@fillidill have you updated to Emby Server 4.7.8? Has the latest version of Chrome helped?

Yes, but no difference
I have Emby server v.4.7.8.0 and Chrome version 106.0.5249.119 (Official Build) (64-bit). I also for the sake of it tried running with Disable HLS Subtitles & Disable Subtitle Streams checked in the diagnostics plugin but still happens. 

Will try to use the emby beta and see if that acts any different.

[fillidill 175]

I have now for a while been using Emby beta for a while and without luck. It is the same problem there. When watching a movie it is quite common I get graphical artifacts maybe 3-6 times and sometimes it even freezes all together and I have to restart the browser. I've tried lowering the quality (even though most of my media direct plays) and that makes no difference either.

Additionally I even tried using the Windows app Emby Theater but even this one gave me graphical artifacts.

I hate to say it but I may have to go back to plex if there is no way to solve this as it kind of destroys the whole purpose if I cant see my media, no matter how much I love emby and everything it offers  

[Luke 42077]

On 12/2/2022 at 2:06 PM, fillidill said:

I have now for a while been using Emby beta for a while and without luck. It is the same problem there. When watching a movie it is quite common I get graphical artifacts maybe 3-6 times and sometimes it even freezes all together and I have to restart the browser. I've tried lowering the quality (even though most of my media direct plays) and that makes no difference either.

Additionally I even tried using the Windows app Emby Theater but even this one gave me graphical artifacts.

I hate to say it but I may have to go back to plex if there is no way to solve this as it kind of destroys the whole purpose if I cant see my media, no matter how much I love emby and everything it offers  

I guess you don't believe me when I say that if it is direct playing, then the artifacts are caused by the browser video player and there's nothing Emby can do about that other than just force it to transcode  Am I right? Because if you did believe me then you'd know that it wouldn't matter what software you'd play with,  you'd see the same thing (unless that other software transcodes).

Quote

I've tried lowering the quality

If you forced it to transcode and you still see the issue, then can we please look at an example? 

How to Report a Problem

Thanks.

[Happy2Play 9780]

Assuming the item direct plays (like your mp4 example) you should be able to drag and drop in the browser and watch it play without Emby and if you get different results then we could potentially troubleshoot more.

[softworkz 5065]

@fillidill - you can also try to disable hw acceleration in Chrome:  chrome://flags/#disable-accelerated-video-decode

 

[fillidill 175]

Sorry for the late response but I was away from home a week and have since tested a looooot, including your suggestions.

Embarrassingly I've found the cause! It was as simple as to update the drivers for my wifi. After I did this I have not have artifacts or playback being stopped even once in several days. I am very sorry to have taken up your time but I am grateful for your help and very happy to keep using Emby.

 

On 04/12/2022 at 04:33, softworkz said:

@fillidill - you can also try to disable hw acceleration in Chrome:  chrome://flags/#disable-accelerated-video-decode

 

This actually helped with another problem I had with certain media that seemed to jump back and forth so thanks for that!

[lyxw 0]

Hello, 

I have found this topic regarding the artifacts issue. Currently I am having this problem in videos with many subtitles embedded (is this the correct term?). The videos are working with older media files, but not with the new ones. 

To solve this issue I have to transcode it?

embyserver.txt ffmpeg-remux-e34e6e14-6521-407b-877e-b5f07ea13a75_1.txt

[Luke 42077]

On 7/26/2025 at 4:06 PM, lyxw said:

Hello, 

I have found this topic regarding the artifacts issue. Currently I am having this problem in videos with many subtitles embedded (is this the correct term?). The videos are working with older media files, but not with the new ones. 

To solve this issue I have to transcode it?

embyserver.txt 6.12 MB · 0 downloads ffmpeg-remux-e34e6e14-6521-407b-877e-b5f07ea13a75_1.txt 685.93 kB · 1 download

@lyxw

Hi, we are looking into it. Thanks.