Playback Error

[jackthedoc 12]

When I attempted to play a movie today using the Emby server software, I received the following message:

No compatible streams are currently available. Please try again later or contact your system administrator for details.

The file is in an mkv format, as are most of my movies.

I re-scanned the HD file collection.  Then I removed the file and its subfolders from the Movie collection, rescanned the collection (the file in question disappeared from the Emby listed movies) then I reintroduced the folder to my movie collection and rescanned. The movie reappeared in my collection. I attempted to play this again using Emby server but received the same error message as above.

I remuxed the file into a new mkv file using MKVToolNix.  Again, would not play.

I should add that I tested the file's integrity at each stage of the above by playing the file directly from within windows file explorer using VLC media player and each attempt was successful. Am I correct in thinking that this meant that the file was not corrupted in any real sense?

I have not been able to find any other files in my collection that behave in this way.

The strange thing is that I can play the file without issue if I use the Emby Theatre app on my iPad or Microsoft Surface laptop.

Can anyone offer a solution? And I guess, in view of the fact that I can view the movie on a peripheral device, does it really matter?

Thanks in advance

John Norris

 

 

[Gilgamesh_48 1240]

The first thing to make note of is that MKV is a container, it is what is inside that matters.

The other thing is that there are many codecs that play on some devices that will not play in the web interface. Using VLC also gives no clue as to what is wrong. See the section at the top of these forums about "How to report a problem" and follow that. At a minimum the people here that can help will need to see logs including the fmpeg log and the media info for any file that is giving you problems.

But it sounds to me that the file is simply either too high a bitrate or in one of the codecs that Emby does not support. 

[Luke 42078]

Quote

When I attempted to play a movie today using the Emby server software, I received the following message:

No compatible streams are currently available. Please try again later or contact your system administrator for details.

 

Hi there, let's look at an example. Please attach the information requested in how to report a media playback issue. Thanks!

 

[pwhodges 2012]

13 hours ago, jackthedoc said:

The strange thing is that I can play the file without issue if I use the Emby Theatre app on my iPad or Microsoft Surface laptop.

Can anyone offer a solution? And I guess, in view of the fact that I can view the movie on a peripheral device, does it really matter?

If it plays on some clients, the file is probably fine.  Not playing on others means that it uses a codec that is not supported by that client.  Emby's default solution to this is to transcode the file as necessary so that it can send the client a file that it understands.

This can fail if you have transcoding disabled, which is controlled in the Playback section of each user profile - so that's the place to look.

Does it matter?  Well, that's up to you - if you're not actually going to try to view it on the failing device, then I suppose it doesn't.  But if you have a restrictive setting like that, it could catch you out in a different scenario in the future when you've forgotten about it!

Paul