Emby Server extremely slow to load

[kenanoff 3]

Emby is not loading at all (about half of the cases) or is extremely slow to load (talking minutes!) initial screen. Once (if) it loads initially - it's fast later.

The server runs on Intel NUC, which I know is not the most powerful thing around, but emby should not be outperformed by the pathetic Synology Photos on the NAS, running on ARM.

 

First and foremost I use emby almost exclusively for images. I've never ever watched a movie there, but there are libraries for movies and TV.

The usual use case for me is - I try to show a picture or two to a friend. Load Apple TV app or the iOS/iPad app. Then WAIT... ... ... ... Munutes! Restart app sometimes, sometimes load the server settings. Sometimes (rarely) that helps. Even (more rarely) sometimes, albums load right away. But most often they don't.

What usually helps is loading the interface in a browser (which in itself takes time to load) - that sometimes "wakes" the whole thing up. Then the apps DO work (and fast). Once awaken all is fine. Server restart also help.

I also scheduled nightly restarts of the server (no real help)

See the issue on a video (try and sit through >4mins (!) of waiting for nothing) and understand that Emby is completely unusable for my use case, which is to show a photo to another (impatient) person, not to watch a 3 hour movie (when few minutes wait may be tolerated)

First video (RPReplay_Final1672779306) is waiting 4 minutes for nothing. Clicking around doesn't help, but after some wait (around 1:20-1:30) the server details load - so Emby server is not dead and is connected. Content never loads though.

Then there is a log file from then - embyserver.txt

Then (on the side) I loaded the web interface in vnc -  to get the log files. Interface loads - not immediately, but at least loads. That DID help also on the app, but not perfectly.

Second video RPReplay_Final1672779986 is from that time. As you can see - content is there now (and navigation is fast), BUT - home screen is still missing and takes a long time to load (another minute).

After that I got another log file and attach that one as well - embyserver_after-GUI.

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Everything that I display here in the iOS app at the same in iPad and on AppleTV.

I don't have use case for emby in browser so that path is useless for me.

embyserver-63808314300.txt embyserver.txt embyserver_after-GUI.txt

Edited January 4, 2023 by kenanoff

[Abobader 3464]

Hello kenanoff,

** This is an auto reply **

Please wait for someone from staff support or our members to reply to you.

It's recommended to provide more info, as it explain in this thread:

Thank you.

Emby Team

[rbjtech 5284]

In server > database - raise  the db cache to double what it currently is - or even higher if you have lots of spare memory in your NUC.  Also tick 'vacuum' db on next startup.

Do a full library scan (in advanced > scheduled tasks > Scan media Library)

You have the trakt plugin installed - which has errors - so if you don't use this, remove the plugin, if you do - then check the login credentials.

Then do an emby restart and report back if that has improved things.

Quote

2023-01-03 15:14:27.823 Info HttpClient: POST https://api.trakt.tv/sync/history
2023-01-03 15:18:01.708 Info Server: http/1.1 POST http://emby_remote_ip:9096/InfuseSync/Checkpoint/96edf1beec314c089775cf8b2bb242f8/StartSync. UserAgent: Infuse/7.4.4329 CFNetwork/1402.0.8 Darwin/22.2.0
 

Infuse and trakt look to be the issues here - if you can temporarily disable them, that would be my first thing to look at.

Edited January 4, 2023 by rbjtech

[kenanoff 3]

First and foremost - Thanks for the very fast reply!

I have 16 GB of memory on that NUC, so have lots to spare. I increased to 5960MB (60 times over). Clicked "Vacuum", restarted, unchecked "vacuum" again, as I have a nightly restart.

Also scanned media library as advised

I do use infuse and trackt - With that I can use Infuse client from outside my home (at home my library is FTP). But I activated that only about two weeks ago (when I was traveling) while Emby had this issue from the very start (about three month ago I bought it)

As for Trakt, I'd prefer to keep it long-term, but temporary will delete that plugin for now. They had apparently some issues on their end. I already replaced credentials several times.

Restarted again after all above was done.

So far - positive - first load with the iOS app loaded everything very fast. I attach the last log after the last restart and first load.

I'll report back in about two days after some time to observe if there is improvement.

embyserver.txt

[rbjtech 5284]

1 hour ago, kenanoff said:

First and foremost - Thanks for the very fast reply!

I have 16 GB of memory on that NUC, so have lots to spare. I increased to 5960MB (60 times over). Clicked "Vacuum", restarted, unchecked "vacuum" again, as I have a nightly restart.

Also scanned media library as advised

I do use infuse and trackt - With that I can use Infuse client from outside my home (at home my library is FTP). But I activated that only about two weeks ago (when I was traveling) while Emby had this issue from the very start (about three month ago I bought it)

As for Trakt, I'd prefer to keep it long-term, but temporary will delete that plugin for now. They had apparently some issues on their end. I already replaced credentials several times.

Restarted again after all above was done.

So far - positive - first load with the iOS app loaded everything very fast. I attach the last log after the last restart and first load.

I'll report back in about two days after some time to observe if there is improvement.

embyserver.txt 34.34 kB · 0 downloads

That sounds positive   - 6GB Cache is a little on the large side haha - 1-2GB is plenty even for a huge library. 

Log looks very clean now - no errors - so fingers crossed.   Trakt may be ok to put back but as you say, run for a while without it to get a baseline and then add it back.

[kenanoff 3]

Well, my library is big on number of items, due to the pictures. I use Emby almost exclusively for image gallery and have 54.4 thousand so far in 630+ folders (and counting).

What would be the appropriate cache size?

I noticed that on the 6GB setting the Emby process was using all my memory (12GB in total available to it) and froze. Now I have reduced to 2056 MB and will continue to test.

[rbjtech 5284]

2 minutes ago, kenanoff said:

Well, my library is big on number of items, due to the pictures. I use Emby almost exclusively for image gallery and have 54.4 thousand so far in 630+ folders (and counting).

What would be the appropriate cache size?

I noticed that on the 6GB setting the Emby process was using all my memory (12GB in total available to it) and froze. Now I have reduced to 2056 MB and will continue to test.

Look for library.db - in your emby folder\programdata\data - that is the db filesize on disk - so to get 100% of it in memory, then use that as the cache size - ideally double it as there are also temp db logs that work better in memory cache.

It's a bit of trial and error I'm afraid - but I think 2GB should be a good start

[kenanoff 3]

Library file is 740 MB so I have over twice that currently. Let's see how it behaves the next days

[kenanoff 3]

After a few days of usage, I'm glad to report that there is a significant improvement. Actually the problem is all but gone now. Home page loads in about 3-5 seconds, then the photo pages - instantly.

I'd say that the management of the memory must be improved, as there is huge impact of increasing the allocation.

Especially the recommendation of 2x the DB size and potentially adding the comparison (DB size/allocation) on the page itself, also removing the warning not to touch the size "These are advanced options and should generally be left at defaults unless you have a reason to change them."

I'll now re-enable the Trakt plugin and will see if it is an issue.