Roku clients unable to play some content, get stuck at 33%

[sirhimel 1]

I have 3 users, all using Roku devices that are unable to play some content.  This started about the same time as the 4.8 update, but I don't have a specific date.  For all these users (two remote and one local) they get stuck on a loading screen with the spinning circle, it loads up to 33%, then eventually kicks them back to the home screen.  When they attempt playback, I see network traffic on my NAS hit 110 Mbps sustained (for minutes, until they back out or error out of playback), in the Emby console it will show the media as transcoding, then direct play, then transcoding, then direct play, back and forth.  On the Emby server (running on a bare metal Windows 10 machine), there will be a bunch of ffmpeg processes running at once when this happens.  It has happened with HEVC content, both 8bit and 10bit, but also with a 720p 5mbps h.264 file....in all cases playback has been from a mkv container.  Included are some of the log files when this happened most recently, with the h.264 file.

 

I reset the server and had the user try again and have attached logs, including the hardware detection log in case it matters.  HW transcoding is done via quicksync on an 8th gen i5.

embyserver.txt ffmpeg-transcode-9f711af2-20a8-425f-8d20-20de8a6af118_1.txt ffmpeg-transcode-f56b0c02-dd22-4b4d-ae28-f8bbe6a534fe_1.txt hardware_detection-63843349565.txt

[Abobader 3464]

Hello sirhimel,

** 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

[ebr 16185]

Hi.  There should be an update to the Roku app later today.  Let's re-evaluate after that just so we're working with the latest version.

Thanks.

[sirhimel 1]

Ok, I'll keep an eye out for it.

[sirhimel 1]

Roku app updated to Emby 4.1 Build 10.  Same issue.  Attached are the logs.

embyserver (1).txt ffmpeg-transcode-f4c94187-a9c2-4ad5-a060-d58a03b614c6_1.txt

[ebr 16185]

Hi.  What happens if you disable hardware accelerated transcoding?

[sirhimel 1]

Same thing.  Disabled hardware acceleration.  Emby dashboard shows direct play, but roku client stuck at 33% and not playing.

[sirhimel 1]

I got 13 new transcoding logs, I've attached a couple here.

 

embyserver.txt ffmpeg-transcode-2d1df014-1f0e-4ba0-ab98-571201eeeace_1.txt ffmpeg-transcode-488a75e3-593c-4134-83e3-ecac494e024d_1.txt ffmpeg-transcode-6894af56-f32f-4f30-81e2-0d66777a85e0_1.txt ffmpeg-transcode-cb236bbb-95ae-498a-816b-594241a09d1d_1.txt ffmpeg-transcode-f0a1a0f2-1ed6-4ffa-94a0-7a0385002736_1.txt

[sirhimel 1]

I have verified that the Nvidia Shield app, web app, iOS app, and Windows Emby Theater app are able to play correctly.

[ebr 16185]

14 hours ago, sirhimel said:

I have verified that the Nvidia Shield app, web app, iOS app, and Windows Emby Theater app are able to play correctly.

Are any of them transcoding?

What I'm seeing in your logs looks like ffmpeg is crashing on the server.

If you don't select any subtitles, does it play?

[sirhimel 1]

Shield, iOS, web, and windows app all direct play.  Roku app transcodes, but also shows direct play in the dashboard.  I'll try turning off subtitles before playing.

[sirhimel 1]

It still wouldn't play with subtitles turned off.  Then I used an editor to remove the embedded subtitles from the movie and it finally works.  Is there anything I can do to get it to work properly with the embedded subtitles like it used to?

[ebr 16185]

5 hours ago, sirhimel said:

Shield, iOS, web, and windows app all direct play

That's why they don't have a problem.  The issue appears to be with ffmpeg on your server.  You could try re-installing on top of your current install although I can't promise that will make a difference.

[sirhimel 1]

I'll give that a try, but I don't understand why the Roku is transcoding, it should direct play as it always has, unless the Roku is unable to direct play a 720p h.264 video which seems unlikely to me.

[Happy2Play 9782]

Just now, sirhimel said:

I'll give that a try, but I don't understand why the Roku is transcoding, it should direct play as it always has, unless the Roku is unable to direct play a 720p h.264 video which seems unlikely to me.

Logs show unsupported audio

&TranscodeReasons=AudioCodecNotSupported

 

[Gilgamesh_48 1240]

1 minute ago, sirhimel said:

I'll give that a try, but I don't understand why the Roku is transcoding, it should direct play as it always has, unless the Roku is unable to direct play a 720p h.264 video which seems unlikely to me.

Some of the transcoding "experts" will probably give a better or more complete answer but resolution and codec are not the only things that cause transcoding. The bit rate, audio format and other things can also cause transcoding. 

I never have a problem with files transcoding on my Rokus but I am very undemanding and very few of my files stretch the Roku's abilities at all.

I keep the files in very basic codecs and I do not use fancy audio and I only have MKV and MP4 containers with about 75% in MKV containers.

If you keep your video files small and in simple form with reasonable bitrates you will probably not have transcoding issues. 

[sirhimel 1]

20 minutes ago, Gilgamesh_48 said:

Some of the transcoding "experts" will probably give a better or more complete answer but resolution and codec are not the only things that cause transcoding. The bit rate, audio format and other things can also cause transcoding. 

I never have a problem with files transcoding on my Rokus but I am very undemanding and very few of my files stretch the Roku's abilities at all.

I keep the files in very basic codecs and I do not use fancy audio and I only have MKV and MP4 containers with about 75% in MKV containers.

If you keep your video files small and in simple form with reasonable bitrates you will probably not have transcoding issues. 

I'll have to dig, but I guess DTS seems to have shaky support on my Roku device, though it's handled every other audio codec I've ever had without issue.  The video in question is 1280x582 at 5 mbps encoded with h264...audio shows at DTS 5.1.  I guess I'm still really confused though that removed the embedded subtitles not only finally allowed the video to play, but it also direct plays now (without transcoding for audio, which makes me think that DTS *is* supported, but then why would it have given that reason in the logs before?)

[ebr 16185]

13 hours ago, sirhimel said:

but then why would it have given that reason in the logs before?

Sometimes it is a cascade of factors.  So, say a certain container requires a remux so now we have to repackage into HLS and that protocol doesn't support audio formats like DTS so, now, we also have to convert that.

[Luke 42080]

HI, please let us know if the next update to Emby for Roku helps with this. Thanks.

[Luke 42080]

@sirhimelhas this helped?

[sirhimel 1]

Seems to have fixed the issue.  Thank you!