What is ffdetect do any why are there so many threads?

[benze 1]

I have noticed recently that Emby is sometimes consuming 100% of my 1+ CPUs.  When I look at the offending process, I see that it is:

/system/EmbyServer -programdata /config -ffdetect /bin/ffdetect -ffmpeg /bin/ffmpeg -ffprobe /bin/ffprobe -restartexitcode 3

When I look further at my process list, I see that there are ~20 PIDs that are showing the same process information.  What is this process doing, why does it consume 100% of my CPU and why are there so many of them?

  
 

I am running Emby 4.7.14.10 in a docker container.

Thanks,

Eric

 

[Luke 42077]

Hi, it's our home grown application to detect hardware acceleration capabilities, but it looks like that's not what's running. It looks like you've somehow managed to get 20 instances of emby server running. is that correct?

[SamES 1056]

6 hours ago, benze said:

I have noticed recently that Emby is sometimes consuming 100% of my 1+ CPUs.  When I look at the offending process, I see that it is:

/system/EmbyServer -programdata /config -ffdetect /bin/ffdetect -ffmpeg /bin/ffmpeg -ffprobe /bin/ffprobe -restartexitcode 3

When I look further at my process list, I see that there are ~20 PIDs that are showing the same process information.  What is this process doing, why does it consume 100% of my CPU and why are there so many of them?

  
 

I am running Emby 4.7.14.10 in a docker container.

Thanks,

Eric

 

That's normal, they are child processes.  Press F5 (assuming that is htop) and you can see they are children.

BTW, ffdetect that you are seeing is a command line argument to the main process - it's not an ffdetect process

 

 

[benze 1]

4 hours ago, SamES said:

That's normal, they are child processes.  Press F5 (assuming that is htop) and you can see they are children.

BTW, ffdetect that you are seeing is a command line argument to the main process - it's not an ffdetect process

Thanks for the tip - I didn't realize that htop was showing me child threads.

 

@LukeIt is a single EmbyServer process which is running in a single docker container.  As SamES pointed out, they are child threads from the main server thread. 

There were no active connections to the server (I had just launched the server), and yet it is consuming 100% CPU.  Any way to identify what/where is happening for so much CPU power?  I have to manually restart the container for the CPU usage to drop to normal levels.

Thanks,

Eric

[Luke 42077]

Hi, the server log may held shed some light:

How to Report a Problem

 

[benze 1]

@LukeI saw errors trying to retrieve subtitles using the SubBuzz plugin, so I temporarily disabled the offending site and restarted the server.  The CPU usage seems to have decreased.  I will keep an eye on it and reopen the thread if the CPU begins to spike again.

I am somewhat perplexed why 5XX on subtitle retrievals should cause high CPU usage, but will report back if it rears up again.

Thanks,

Eric

 

[dalo1987 5]

I'm stuck in the same situation as threadopener. 
Any advices to that so far? 

[Luke 42077]

16 hours ago, dalo1987 said:

I'm stuck in the same situation as threadopener. 
Any advices to that so far? 

Hi there, can you please describe your issue in more detail? Thanks.

[dalo1987 5]

10 minutes ago, Luke said:

Hi there, can you please describe your issue in more detail? Thanks.

After a while started emby I noticed that in the processes the following is multiplying:

/system/EmbyServer -programdata /config -ffdetect /bin/ffdetect -ffmpeg /bin/ffmpeg -ffprobe /bin/ffprobe -restartexitcode 3

RAM ist slowly climbing up to 10 GB of RAM !
 

embyserver-63889814555.txt

[Luke 42077]

On 8/6/2025 at 2:29 AM, dalo1987 said:

After a while started emby I noticed that in the processes the following is multiplying:

/system/EmbyServer -programdata /config -ffdetect /bin/ffdetect -ffmpeg /bin/ffmpeg -ffprobe /bin/ffprobe -restartexitcode 3

RAM ist slowly climbing up to 10 GB of RAM !
 

embyserver-63889814555.txt 10.26 MB · 1 download

OK we are looking into this. Thanks.