High CPU Usage

[Jonathan1683 29]

Hello, I have noticed my server having very high cpu usage just on lan my server was completely unstable with just me and 2 other users on it earlier. Not sure if this is a new issue since I have not seen it before. Check out this attachment. The regular "converting to compatible container" uses 25-30% cpu and the "subtitles burning to the screen" take another 50%. Is this normal? My cpu is pretty old, but I think it should be able to handle this a little better. 

i5-4690 (Haswell) LGA 1150
Asrock H81M-ITX
G.SKILL F3-14900CL9S-4GBXL 4GBX2
GTX 1070

[GrimReaper 4749]

5 minutes ago, Jonathan1683 said:

The regular "converting to compatible container" uses 25-30% cpu

Yes, container swap or audio remux (Direct Streaming) is light CPU task. 

Quote

Direct Stream

Also known as transmuxing. The Media file is altered in real-time while being delivered to the client. This happens when the video codec is correct but something else needs converting like the streaming type (package), audio or subtitle track.

In this case the server extracts the video track from the file as well as other tracks it can use. Emby may convert the audio or subtitle tracks on the fly during a Direct Stream.

Direct Streaming does not touch the video tracks in anyway so there is no loss of video quality. Direct Streaming is not very CPU intensive.

https://emby.media/support/articles/DirectPlay-Stream-Transcoding.html

10 minutes ago, Jonathan1683 said:

the "subtitles burning to the screen" take another 50%. Is this normal?

Yes, burning-in - especially graphical - subs is a CPU-expensive process, even for modern CPUs, let alone 'pretty old' ones so usage increase you've encountering - I'd assume to be quite expected scenario. 

[rbjtech 5284]

To add, if using a browser, then text based subtitles (.srt) would be preferable as these are likely to get converted to web player subtitles (.vtt) which should allow direct play.  If they are not available from the source, then maybe try the built in subtitle fetchers within Emby to get them as external subs.

Edited May 10, 2023 by rbjtech

[Jonathan1683 29]

Hello 

Is this a new feature it's using? I have had this setup over five years and have not encounted the server behaving like this before and i have never seen it say "burning subtitles". Is there way to throttle this behavior so it doesn't crash the server?

I was watching it do it's thing and it finished in about 5 mins so it seems this process priority is way too high. I found a throttle option in in trancoding options, which kind of helps, but all it really does is red line for a few seconds and stops and starts over again which doesn't seem like the best way to handle this. Maybe if this process went on over 30 mins it would make more sense at like 20% utilization. EG it sees the cpu usage and dials down to keep it less than 90% capacity while also using it's full potential based on everyones total usage. Right now I am using 100% cpu while everyone else us crusing using nothing with nvenc, but everyone gets kicked off because the server is unstable just from my one server request.

Regarding subtitles thanks for the heads up, I do have subtitle download enabled and I have a premium subscription to opensubs, so not sure why it wouldn't be downloading them. I have had issues like this for a long time and I assume that if I get that working correctly I won't run into this anymore. I will have to check when I get home if they are not downloaded for this specific show, maybe that is why I don't encounter it often. I just thought it was odd this happned twice in one day that my server crashed. At one point ffmpg was still running with no streams so it may be bugging out with the cpu usage so high as well.

 

Thanks for the assistance!

[Luke 42083]

3 minutes ago, Jonathan1683 said:

Hello 

Is this a new feature it's using? I have had this setup over five years and have not encounted the server behaving like this before and i have never seen it say "burning subtitles". Is there way to throttle this behavior so it doesn't crash the server?

I was watching it do it's thing and it finished in about 5 mins so it seems this process priority is way too high. I found a throttle option in in trancoding options, which kind of helps, but all it really does is red line for a few seconds and stops and starts over again which doesn't seem like the best way to handle this. Maybe if this process went on over 30 mins it would make more sense at like 20% utilization. EG it sees the cpu usage and dials down to keep it less than 90% capacity while also using it's full potential based on everyones total usage. Right now I am using 100% cpu while everyone else us crusing using nothing with nvenc, but everyone gets kicked off because the server is unstable just from my one server request.

Regarding subtitles thanks for the heads up, I do have subtitle download enabled and I have a premium subscription to opensubs, so not sure why it wouldn't be downloading them. I have had issues like this for a long time and I assume that if I get that working correctly I won't run into this anymore. I will have to check when I get home if they are not downloaded for this specific show, maybe that is why I don't encounter it often. I just thought it was odd this happned twice in one day that my server crashed. At one point ffmpg was still running with no streams so it may be bugging out with the cpu usage so high as well.

 

Thanks for the assistance!

Hi, burning in subtitles is not a new feature, and it's a very intensive process even for powerful machines. Some tips to avoid it:

• Turn off the subtitles prior to playback
• Use external text subtitles instead, such as .srt files
• Play using an Emby app that can direct play more formats without transcoding, such as Emby Theater for Windows: https://emby.media/emby-theater.html

Please let us know if this helps. Thanks.