Playback problem on Chromecast

[hyftar 1]

Ever since I bought Emby Premium, whenever I try to stream to my Chromecast, the video and audio freeze every couple seconds which makes the content unwatchable. I tried adjusting some of the server settings but I wasn't able to get smooth playback on my Chromecast. I watched the same video a few weeks ago (before purchasing premium) without any problem.

Here are my server logs, the timeframe at which I started the playback is at 21:44 UTC (16:44 local time).

Thanks for your help.

embyserver.txt ffmpeg-remux-71ef380f-2546-42dc-a540-557bfb26a04a_1.txt ffmpeg-transcode-60dd040b-3cbb-4a27-a5e2-2f9b9fbdfacc_1.txt ffmpeg-transcode-abccf363-adc0-4853-8ccf-f60f9908cec1_1.txt ffmpeg-transcode-d840e3bf-aed9-4e32-8f27-b9f631dcb065_1.txt

[Abobader 3464]

Hello hyftar,

** 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

[GrimReaper 4740]

Quote

>>>>>>  FindVideoEncoder - MediaType: h264, UseHardwareCodecs: True, HWA-Mode: Disabled
Info    Checking: 'x264 Software Encoder'
Info    Check successful - selecting 'x264 Software Encoder'

>>>>>>  FindVideoDecoder - MediaType: h264, UseHardwareCodecs: True, HWA-Mode: Disabled
Info    Checking: 'Automatic software decoder'
Info    Check successful - selecting 'Automatic software decoder'

Is there particular reason you're keeping HWA disabled? That's actually one of the advantages Premiere subscription gives you. 

 

[hyftar 1]

My server doesn't have a dedicated graphics card, I tried turning HWA off amongst other things to try and fix the problem.

[GrimReaper 4740]

In that case I'd suggest getting rid of that large number of excess subtitles or obtain external srt subs and see how does that compare? 

Edit: Also, if you lower Chromecast streaming quality in your app, does freezing still occur?

Edited March 6, 2023 by GrimReaper
Append

[hyftar 1]

How can I get rid of the excess embedded subtitles using Emby?

Video files without embedded subtitles indeed perform a lot better on my Chromecast.

[GrimReaper 4740]

3 minutes ago, hyftar said:

How can I get rid of the excess embedded subtitles using Emby?

Using Emby - SUB-Killer plugin is the only way I'm aware of. 

 

Outside Emby - number of tools available, MKVToolNix would do. 

[Luke 42079]

Hang on here, I don't believe the number of subtitle tracks is relevant to this.

What model Chromecast is this?

[hyftar 1]

2 minutes ago, Luke said:

Hang on here, I don't believe the number of subtitle tracks is relevant to this.

What model Chromecast is this?

This is the device information. Otherwise it's a Chromecast ultra connected via ethernet.

[hyftar 1]

30 minutes ago, GrimReaper said:

Also, if you lower Chromecast streaming quality in your app, does freezing still occur?

It performs better, yes, but ideally I'd like to keep the streaming quality as high as possible. It was working flawlessly when I first watched that same episode when it first aired.

[hyftar 1]

1 hour ago, Luke said:

I don't believe the number of subtitle tracks is relevant to this

The stream to my Chromecast performs a lot better now that I trimmed all the excess subtitles.

Also, If I read the logs correctly, I noticed that it was creating 29 extra streams just for the subtitles.

[Happy2Play 9781]

@Luke@softworkz are all of these subtitle streams causing a memory issue with this exit code?

Process exited with code 137 - Failed

 

[softworkz 5068]

1 hour ago, hyftar said:

2 hours ago, Luke said:

I don't believe the number of subtitle tracks is relevant to this

The stream to my Chromecast performs a lot better now that I trimmed all the excess subtitles.

Also, If I read the logs correctly, I noticed that it was creating 29 extra streams just for the subtitles.

Yes, doing so without limit was not the best idea, but it was done at a time before many videos started to come with such large amounts of subtitle streams. The current beta doesn't do this anymore.

When you suspect that it might be due to the generated HLS subs, you can use the Diagnostics Plugin to disable HLS subs altogether when transcoding - that way it's easy to prove whether those subtitle streams are the culprit or not.

Edited March 6, 2023 by softworkz

[hyftar 1]

ffmpeg-remux-27a918cf-9606-4839-bc83-8a09294e9535_1.txt

10 minutes ago, softworkz said:

When you suspect that it might be due to the generated HLS subs, you can use the Diagnostics Plugin to disable HLS subs altogether when transcoding

I added the diagnostics options but it still generated a lot of subtitle streams and the video was freezing a lot. Did I do something wrong or was it not the culprit?

[Luke 42079]

This isn't using HLS so I'm surprised that removing the subtitles made a difference.

[Luke 42079]

Just now, hyftar said:

ffmpeg-remux-27a918cf-9606-4839-bc83-8a09294e9535_1.txt 42.95 kB · 0 downloads

I added the diagnostics options but it still generated a lot of subtitle streams and the video was freezing a lot. Did I do something wrong or was it not the culprit?

The setting you toggled actually has no effect on this playback session.

[hyftar 1]

2 minutes ago, Luke said:

This isn't using HLS so I'm surprised that removing the subtitles made a difference.

This could be either placebo effect or the software I used to remove the subtitles.

[Happy2Play 9781]

6 minutes ago, hyftar said:

ffmpeg-remux-27a918cf-9606-4839-bc83-8a09294e9535_1.txt 42.95 kB · 1 download

I added the diagnostics options but it still generated a lot of subtitle streams and the video was freezing a lot. Did I do something wrong or was it not the culprit?

Your file has the streams but they are not utilized per the options.

TranscodeReasons=AudioCodecNotSupported

>>>>>>  DIAGNOSTIC OPTIONS ACTIVE !!!
Warning TranscodingOptions.DisableHlsSubtitles: Original: False Actual: True
Warning TranscodingOptions.DisableStreamSubtitles: Original: False Actual: True

03:25:37.607 Stream mapping:
03:25:37.607   Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (copy)
03:25:37.607   Stream #0:1 -> #0:1 (eac3 (native) -> aac (native))

But don't really know why it would still be freezing.

Edited March 6, 2023 by Happy2Play

[softworkz 5068]

@Luke and @Happy2Play are right. My answer was based on yours saying:

1 hour ago, hyftar said:

Also, If I read the logs correctly, I noticed that it was creating 29 extra streams just for the subtitles.

But it's just that your file has those streams but they aren't used, like the others said.

[Happy2Play 9781]

2 minutes ago, softworkz said:

@Luke and @Happy2Play are right. My answer was based on yours saying:

But it's just that your file has those streams but they aren't used, like the others said.

Wasn't really sure what was being used here with subtitles:default from first logs throwing the exit code137 but was guessing all.

21:44:56.622 Stream mapping:
21:44:56.622   Stream #0:0 (h264) -> subtitles:default (graph 0)
21:44:56.622   subtitles:default (graph 0) -> Stream #0:0 (libx264)
21:44:56.622   Stream #0:1 -> #0:1 (eac3 (native) -> aac (native))

 

[hyftar 1]

Are there any premium settings that might slow down the server? The server I'm running Emby on is very old and the freezes were never as bad before upgrading as it currently is.

[Luke 42079]

@hyftar are you still having an issue with this?

[hyftar 1]

2 minutes ago, Luke said:

@hyftar are you still having an issue with this?

I haven't encountered the issue since then. It might've been an issue with my network.

Thanks for the follow-up!