Chromecast problem - video playing but no AC3 audio playing

[ipullstuffapart 0]

For the last few months I've had a problem with Emby and Chromecasting from the Emby android app.

When casting from the Emby Android app to a Chromecast Ultra or Chromecast with Google TV that is directly connected to the HDMI of my TVs, audio does not play back. The video starts but no sound is heard. The Chromecast Ultra TV is using the internal TV speakers, and the Chromecast with Google TV is using Bluetooth audio directly from the chromecast.

It seems to only affect a subset of my content, and of that, it is always AC3 audio.

For example a TV episode with 1080P h.264 AC3 5.1 does not work. However, a TV episode with 1080P h.264 EAC3 6ch does work.

On my Chromecast with Google TV, the Emby application works and audio plays properly when using the installed application directly. My personal preference is to cast and not have the app istalled. With the Chromecast Ultra, the app is not an option of course.

My Emby Server runs in a Debian 9 privileged LXC container on Proxmox. No encoding hardware passthrough. I've uninstalled two plugins that I had previously installed but issue persists.

The only thing that stands out in the Emby server log is a null reference exception, but with no line number. The crash seems to happen repeatedly during playback.
However, the error happens during playback of any content, even those with working audio.

2023-09-01 21:50:38.186 Info Server: http/1.1 POST http://REDACTED:8096/emby/Sessions/Playing/Progress?X-Emby-Client=Emby for Chromecast&X-Emby-Device-Name=Chromecast&X-Emby-Device-Id=chromecast_REDACTED&X-Emby-Client-Version=2.1.0&X-Emby-Language=en-au&reqformat=json. UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux aarch64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/90.0.4430.225 Safari/537.36 CrKey/1.56.500000 DeviceType/Chromecast
2023-09-01 21:50:38.187 Error Server: Error processing request
	*** Error Report ***
	Version: 4.6.7.0
	Command line: /opt/emby-server/system/EmbyServer.dll -programdata /var/lib/emby -ffdetect /opt/emby-server/bin/ffdetect -ffmpeg /opt/emby-server/bin/ffmpeg -ffprobe /opt/emby-server/bin/ffprobe -restartexitcode 3 -updatepackage emby-server-deb_{version}_amd64.deb
	Operating system: Linux version 6.2.16-10-pve (wolfgangb@sbuild) (gcc (Debian 12.2.0-14) 12.2.0, GNU ld (GNU Binutils for Debian) 2.40) #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC PMX 6.2.1
	Framework: .NET Core 3.1.21
	OS/Process: x64/x64
	Runtime: opt/emby-server/system/System.Private.CoreLib.dll
	Processor count: 4
	Data path: /var/lib/emby
	Application path: /opt/emby-server/system
	System.NullReferenceException: System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
	   at Emby.Server.Implementations.Session.SessionManager.UpdateNowPlayingItem(SessionInfo session, PlaybackProgressInfo info, BaseItem libraryItem, Boolean updateLastCheckInTime)
	   at Emby.Server.Implementations.Session.SessionManager.OnPlaybackProgress(PlaybackProgressInfo info, Boolean isAutomated)
	   at Emby.Server.Implementations.Services.ServiceController.GetTaskResult(Task task)
	   at Emby.Server.Implementations.Services.ServiceHandler.ProcessRequestAsync(HttpListenerHost appHost, IRequest httpReq, IResponse httpRes, RestPath restPath, String responseContentType, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
	   at Emby.Server.Implementations.HttpServer.HttpListenerHost.RequestHandler(IRequest httpReq, ReadOnlyMemory`1 urlString, ReadOnlyMemory`1 localPath, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
	Source: Emby.Server.Implementations
	TargetSite: Void MoveNext()
	
2023-09-01 21:50:38.187 Info Server: http/1.1 Response 500 to REDACTED. Time: 1ms. http://REDACTED:8096/emby/Sessions/Playing/Progress?X-Emby-Client=Emby for Chromecast&X-Emby-Device-Name=Chromecast&X-Emby-Device-Id=chromecast_REDACTED&X-Emby-Client-Version=2.1.0&X-Emby-Language=en-au&reqformat=json

 

embyserver.txt

Edited September 1, 2023 by ipullstuffapart

[ipullstuffapart 0]

Update:

I've updated to emby-server 4.7.14.0 (thought I was up to date but I was wrong).

Now playback doesn't work at all on Chromecast, even the shows that were working before. I get an error that no playback options are available. Emby server log attached.

Seems to be related to ffmpeg?

Updating emby-server changed the user that emby was running under so lost file permissions. I'll capture a new log file.

 

Edited September 1, 2023 by ipullstuffapart

[Luke 42078]

@ipullstuffapart?