Random playback stoppages at the end of an episode

[SHO NUT 2]

I'm having random playback stoppages at the end of an episode.

Background:  I'm building a client/server setup to shuffle an entire TV collection for a senior in the family with dementia, so she just needs to be able to turn the TV off and on and adjust the volume, and all her favourite shows will loop.  Her client setup is an old laptop attached to her TV and just shuffle her entire collection.

I've tried a number of different approaches, but they end up having the same error.  In the log, I get 'Error EncodingManager: Unable to delete temp folder' when there is a hang.  By approaches, I mean I've tried:

Adding her as a user on my own i7-14700 2.10 GHz NVIDIA 4070 server, and stream across the internet with her having a i5-3210M client.  This is the most reliable, but still has stoppages.

Less reliable (surprisingly as they are local and not dependent on internet) are:

i5-3210M or i7-3667U as a local server and client (1080p HVEC drops frames and is jittery/buffers due to running at 100% so transcoding can't keep up with playback and has stoppages)
i5-3210M as a local server with i7-3667U as the client (so 2 laptops on the local network, still has stoppages, though only the server runs at 100% during transcoding, but that's fine because it can transcode faster than the client can play, and the client machine is well under 100%)

I've attached the main log of the last setup, the hang is around 2025-04-03 12:01:15.900 Error EncodingManager: Unable to delete temp folder

I've attached the ffmpeg logs at the start of the episode it hung on and at the end.  There are tons more ffmpeg logs as it continues to fail, and the same error continues in the log.

Lots of things will restart it again, until it fails again, such as

Clicking 'next episode' on the client

Refreshing the client web page

Restarting the server

If it's stuck, I cannot manually delete the folder.  If I click 'next episode' the folder gets deleted by itself.

Any ideas?  There are other random stoppages that can happen, but this one is consistent across server builds and seems related to the server itself, so local vs. internet and wired vs. WiFi isn't an issue here.  FWIW, the servers are all wired.  The client is WiFi, 2' from the router and can pull 30+ Mbps.  I'll be adding a wired gigabit ethernet adapter to the client but I don't think this is the issue.  Neither the server or client use more than 10 Mbps.

In my opinion if the i5-3210M or i7-3667U can't handle being the client and the server due to the transcoding + playback load not being able to transcode fast enough to play, then the most reliable setup should be the 2 old laptops (1 client, 1 server) on a local network that doesn't need internet and it thus not sensitive to an internet drop that would happen using my server.  I get I could spend money on a newer machine that can do both functions, but I'm trying to use old equipment that I have laying around.

This business of needing 2 machines to handle transcoding + playback load because transcoding is required for playback is somewhat ironic because either old laptop has no trouble playing the video files directly with VLC, but I don't know how to shuffle a library with VLC instead of Emby, so here we are.  I tried turning off transcoding, but certain shows won't play and need to be transcoded.

Thanks in advance for your time.

P.S. I did purchase premium to try VirtualTV to have more control over how the shows play, but it has the same stoppages.

embyserver.txt ffmpeg-remux-117db91b-4eb0-46d5-9ec7-9736271a4fe1_1.txt ffmpeg-transcode-20f32c85-d559-4e75-8f7e-2d9336337c03_1.txt ffmpeg-transcode-e58a00fb-a456-422b-a5b6-1525a524a8f7_1.txt

[SHO NUT 2]

Oh and yes the first thing I did was to turn off 'Are you still watching'

[Luke 42078]

Hi @SHO NUTare you still having an issue with this?

[SHO NUT 2]

Sadly I gave up and learned to randomize automatic looping playlists on VLC and that has been working flawlessly using just a single machine running way less than 100%.  Has anything been done with the code to address the issue since I posted?  I'd like to get some more control over how/when the shows are played and the tools for doing that with VLC have been pretty complicated, that is to say I'd like to try VirtualTV with Emby.

[Luke 42078]

On 5/19/2025 at 12:04 PM, SHO NUT said:

Sadly I gave up and learned to randomize automatic looping playlists on VLC and that has been working flawlessly using just a single machine running way less than 100%.  Has anything been done with the code to address the issue since I posted?  I'd like to get some more control over how/when the shows are played and the tools for doing that with VLC have been pretty complicated, that is to say I'd like to try VirtualTV with Emby.

Hi, we are looking into it. Thanks !

[SHO NUT 2]

Thanks.