Transcode Sessions Dropping After 60 Seconds On Pause

[Happy2Play 9780]

So far under 4 minutes gets killed after 60 seconds. 

Will look at the back side now to see it the same applies.

 

As mentioned only testing Edge browser.

[Happy2Play 9780]

Will stop here but with 10 minutes left and pause session is killed after 60 seconds.

 

So the Playback Resume variables are pretty close.

 

Front side under 4 minutes and back side with 10 minutes to the end as paused session gets killed after 60 seconds in my testing via Edge browser on beta 4.9.0.28.

[Jcheinaman 19]

36 minutes ago, Happy2Play said:

Pause at 5 minutes via browser.

Still held at 4:02 minutes.

I avoided my Unraid server and tested directly on the bare windows installation and played on the same local host machine. Here are two examples, one around 5 minutes and one around 30 minutes. Both drop after 60 seconds. I had to record from my phone and I installed none of the plugins so I don’t have access to user sessions, but I recorded the dashboard and it should achieve the same result. I apologize. I had to record my monitor using my phone. I shared the videos via iCloud links. They were too large to upload here.

https://share.icloud.com/photos/0adK59KFyI7_9K7HSJLYk1Oqw
 

https://share.icloud.com/photos/0demHyDukxUveDkbPuCjxVNMg

Edited July 27, 2024 by Jcheinaman

[Happy2Play 9780]

6 minutes ago, Jcheinaman said:

I avoided my Unraid server and tested directly on the bare windows installation and played on the same local host machine. Here are two examples, one around 5 minutes and one around 30 minutes. Both drop after 60 seconds. I had to record from my phone and I installed none of the plugins so I don’t have access to user sessions, but I recorded the dashboard and it should achieve the same result. I apologize. I had to record my monitor screen using my phone. I shared the videos via iCloud links. They were too large to upload here.

https://share.icloud.com/photos/0adK59KFyI7_9K7HSJLYk1Oqw
 

https://share.icloud.com/photos/0demHyDukxUveDkbPuCjxVNMg

 

Neither open but can only guess there is a client variable also then.

[Jcheinaman 19]

9 minutes ago, Happy2Play said:

Neither open but can only guess there is a client variable also then.

I apologize. I had a power outage overnight and had my opnsense router take a dump on me  so I'm currently connected on my cellular hotspot. I assure you it stopped at exactly 60 seconds again. I wanted to use the brand new windows emby install without any settings or other modifications to rule out the other machine. I don't know if this would matter or not, but my entire library is HEVC. I don't see how that would affect emby dropping the session, but it is worth a mention. It's always been HEVC, even prior to this issue. 

Edited July 27, 2024 by Jcheinaman

[Happy2Play 9780]

2 minutes ago, Jcheinaman said:

I don't know if this would matter or not, but my entire library is HEVC. I don't see how that would affect emby dropping the session, but it is worth a mention.

I will test on a HEVC file but don't see codecs really making a difference here.

3 minutes ago, Jcheinaman said:

I wanted to use the brand new windows emby install without any settings or other modifications to rule out the other machine.

I have multiple portables on my test system for beta and release testing just a matter of changing ports after install.

Emby Server for Windows

If you want the beta you have to get from GitHub

Releases · MediaBrowser/Emby.Releases (github.com)

[Q-Droid 989]

I can pause at any place in a 2+ hr movie and the session drops after being paused for ~60 seconds. Chromium browsers (Edge, Brave). I haven't tried on an app yet. But if this is normal behavior I don't see a problem with it because hitting the play button just continues without any hiccups. Don't have to wait for loading or anything, it just plays.

 

Quote

>> ThrottleByStreamBufferSize: PlaybackPosition: 01:00:13 - TranscodingPosition: 01:02:10 - ThrottleBuffer: 117s (Treshold: 115s)
15:26:31.943 elapsed=00:03:00.17 frame= 5208 fps= 29 q=18.0 size=N/A time=00:03:37.08 bitrate=N/A throttle=100 speed= 1.2x   
15:26:32.444 elapsed=00:03:00.67 frame= 5208 fps= 29 q=18.0 size=N/A time=00:03:37.08 bitrate=N/A throttle=100 speed= 1.2x   
15:26:32.945 elapsed=00:03:01.18 frame= 5208 fps= 29 q=18.0 size=N/A time=00:03:37.08 bitrate=N/A throttle=100 speed= 1.2x   
15:26:33.446 elapsed=00:03:01.68 frame= 5208 fps= 29 q=18.0 size=N/A time=00:03:37.08 bitrate=N/A throttle=100 speed=1.19x   
>> ThrottleByStreamBufferSize: PlaybackPosition: 01:00:13 - TranscodingPosition: 01:02:10 - ThrottleBuffer: 117s (Treshold: 115s)
15:26:33.646

[q] command received. Exiting.

[segment @ 0x20c48c0] Opening '/mnt2/Media-temp/TVHTS/emby/transcoding-temp/9B3713/9B3713.m3u8.tmp' for writing
SegmentComplete=video:0 Index=1243 Start=3729.225400 End=3730.226400 Duration=1.001000 offset_pts=0 start_pts=3729225400 Frames=24 filename=9B3713_1243.ts
elapsed=00:03:02.00 frame= 5208 fps= 29 q=18.0 Lsize=N/A time=00:03:37.15 bitrate=N/A throttle=100 speed=1.19x
video:255071kB audio:5097kB subtitle:0kB other streams:0kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead: unknown
EXIT
 

 

[Happy2Play 9780]

9 minutes ago, Q-Droid said:

I can pause at any place in a 2+ hr movie and the session drops after being paused for ~60 seconds. Chromium browsers (Edge, Brave). I haven't tried on an app yet. But if this is normal behavior I don't see a problem with it because hitting the play button just continues without any hiccups. Don't have to wait for loading or anything, it just plays.

Hmm I can't reproduce at any point but my playback resumes without issue also but again this is local testing and not a remote session.  May have to see if there is an HWA variable also.

Edited July 27, 2024 by Happy2Play
added image

[Jcheinaman 19]

I already installed the windows server yesterday (4.8.8.0) for testing. I was just pointing out that this is a fresh install without modifications of any kind. I did update to the latest beta on my Unraid server to see if that fixed the issue, but it did not. Unfortunately, until i can get my opnsense router back online, I can't test the Unraid server directly as its bare metal and I don't have a monitor or keyboard set up for it locally. I think my 12 volt connector went bad on the board. I'm gonna have to do some soldering, ugh . When it rains, it really does pour lol.

[Jcheinaman 19]

7 minutes ago, Q-Droid said:

I can pause at any place in a 2+ hr movie and the session drops after being paused for ~60 seconds. Chromium browsers (Edge, Brave). I haven't tried on an app yet. But if this is normal behavior I don't see a problem with it because hitting the play button just continues without any hiccups. Don't have to wait for loading or anything, it just plays.

 

 

I'll be honest, if you have hardware throttling turned off, the issue isn't nearly as noticeable. Sometimes its a minor glitch or hiccup in the video or audio file. Sometimes it doesn't glitch for a few minutes after resuming. My guess is that the client is playing whatever it had stored in the buffer and the glitch happens when it realizes it has to jump to a new stream. I'm not a software expert unfortunately. I don't have that much patience lol.

[Happy2Play 9780]

Actually HWA failed and was software only above and retesting software only cannot get session to be killed.

 

 

 

[Q-Droid 989]

12 minutes ago, Jcheinaman said:

I'll be honest, if you have hardware throttling turned off, the issue isn't nearly as noticeable. Sometimes its a minor glitch or hiccup in the video or audio file. Sometimes it doesn't glitch for a few minutes after resuming.

I always run and recommend throttling enabled. There is only upside to using the feature and downsides to not using it.

 

Edited July 27, 2024 by Q-Droid

[Jcheinaman 19]

4 minutes ago, Q-Droid said:

I always run and recommend throttling enabled. There is only upside to using the feature and downsides to not using it.

 

That’s how I used to run it. Until the issue with the jumping around started to happen. I do that to help conserve resources for other things. Which is why I’m baffled that the session will drop after 60 seconds and forced the transcode to start again because that uses even more resources.

Happy, I just tested on Microsoft Edge half way through and the session dropped after a minute. I have no hardware transcoding set up on the test machine. 

Edited July 27, 2024 by Jcheinaman

[Jcheinaman 19]

7 minutes ago, Happy2Play said:

Actually HWA failed and was software only above and retesting software only cannot get session to be killed.

 

 

 

Well, look at this. It looks like we’re getting somewhere. I just tested again on edge. I reduced the quality setting so it would transcode both the video and the audio. Guess what happened? It didn’t drop the stream after 60 seconds. It’s still sitting there. So apparently this is only happening when audio is transcoding and the video is direct play.

Edited July 27, 2024 by Jcheinaman

[Q-Droid 989]

2 minutes ago, Q-Droid said:

I always run and recommend throttling enabled. There is only upside to using the feature and downsides to not using it.

I'll amend this a little. There have been Emby client apps, Chromecast was one, that would not allow throttling to work properly. There used to be a way to modify the throttling method which I did change back then. In following releases the Emby dev team decided to remove the option to modify the method and haven't brought it back. Those of us who changed it were able to keep it and others on newer releases are stuck with the default. I have no idea how many Emby client apps are still around with the throttling problem or if under specific conditions it affects users on the default method while those of us on the alternative one never see a problem.

 

 

[Q-Droid 989]

This drops after being paused for a minute.

[Jcheinaman 19]

10 minutes ago, Jcheinaman said:

Well, look at this. It looks like we’re getting somewhere. I just tested again on edge. I reduced the quality setting so it would transcode both the video and the audio. Guess what happened? It didn’t drop the stream after 60 seconds. It’s still sitting there. So apparently this is only happening when audio is transcoding and the video is direct play.

Just tested the same way in Google Chrome with a full transcode by reducing the quality setting. The session does not drop. When it is direct streaming due to an audio transcode and the video is direct playing, it drops. (Apparently it happens the other way around as well. If video is transcoding and audio is direct playing). Now, if we can only figure out why it’s doing what it’s doing and get it fixed. I expect my audio to transfer code because I only have DTS HD or true HD. 

Edited July 27, 2024 by Jcheinaman

[Jcheinaman 19]

1 minute ago, Q-Droid said:

This drops after being paused for a minute.

OK, so it’s happening when there’s a direct stream. So if either video or audio are transcoding separately and one is direct playing it drops stream after 60 seconds causing my playback issue. So we’re having an issue with direct stream.

Edited July 27, 2024 by Jcheinaman

[Q-Droid 989]

Maybe @Luke can clarify for us how it's determined that a paused session is kept active or ended. As it stands if I wasn't watching the status on the server I wouldn't have known that it was stopping and restarting paused sessions. I think that's the key issue here. It should be and is unnoticeable for most but why does it cause problems for your system and users?

 

[Jcheinaman 19]

2 minutes ago, Q-Droid said:

Maybe @Luke can clarify for us how it's determined that a paused session is kept active or ended. As it stands if I wasn't watching the status on the server I wouldn't have known that it was stopping and restarting paused sessions. I think that's the key issue here. It should be and is unnoticeable for most but why does it cause problems for your system and users?

 

Probably for the same reason when I click force transcoding inside Emby diagnostics and save it, it’s still direct plays and doesn’t force transcoding. If I honestly knew I wouldn’t be here. 

[Luke 42077]

When communications go completely idle with the server for more than 60 seconds, then it is ended. Completely idle means paused and the video player is no longer sending any requests for data. So when you say it was paused but still remained active, the video player must have still been sending requests. Sometimes that takes longer than 60 seconds to stop.

[Q-Droid 989]

Full transcoding (audio and video) still drops the paused session. So in my case it's consistent with Luke's post. Resuming playback is still smooth. I haven't disabled HWA to use SW but I don't see the point of doing so either.

 

 

[Happy2Play 9780]

2 minutes ago, Q-Droid said:

Full transcoding (audio and video) still drops the paused session. So in my case it's consistent with Luke's post. Resuming playback is still smooth. I haven't disabled HWA to use SW but I don't see the point of doing so either.

 

 

No idea unless there is a codec variable as I get position variable.

[Q-Droid 989]

14 minutes ago, Happy2Play said:

No idea unless there is a codec variable as I get position variable.

Have you checked the transcoding log to see if it stops there with no updates while paused or do you see new entries while paused?

[Jcheinaman 19]

39 minutes ago, Q-Droid said:

Maybe @Luke can clarify for us how it's determined that a paused session is kept active or ended. As it stands if I wasn't watching the status on the server I wouldn't have known that it was stopping and restarting paused sessions. I think that's the key issue here. It should be and is unnoticeable for most but why does it cause problems for your system and users?

 

@Luke

 

I’m running on a separate machine, not connected to the Internet with a fresh install of Emby with one video file in the library. I was just able to re-create the playback issue after EMBY drops the stream in Safari for iOS. Not only did the video glitch back a few seconds, which you can see when I post it, but it eventually completely freezes and won’t resume playing. I have to stop the video and resume playing and it resumes fine from that state. This is not just a me issue. There’s something not right.

 

I’d also like to add that force transcoding under diagnostic options is not working. At least not for me.

 

Edited July 27, 2024 by Jcheinaman