Emby 4.8.11.0 Crash During DirectStream - FFmpeg "No such file or directory" Error

[fahad92 7]

 

Hello @Luke

Since I have updated to 4.8.11 , I had  multiple crashes all for the same reason 

To make it short below summary generated by Ai which the Ai checked everything and found the root cause likely a bug in Emby 4.8.11.0 where the transcoding directory is deleted prematurely, possibly due to a cleanup timing issue during the 5-minute gap.

is there anything I can do? Or wait for future updates if this correct report.

Emby Version: 4.8.11.0
Operating System: Ubuntu (kernel 5.15.0-76-generic)
Setup: .NET 6.0.36, 8-core CPU, software-only transcoding (no hardware acceleration, Matrox G200EH GPU detected but failed VAAPI), 30 TB free disk space, permissions confirmed fine.

Issue Description:
Emby server crashed during DirectStream playback of “Tv show name S25E01” (MKV, 1080p H.264, AC3 5.1, 22:24 duration) on an Apple TV client (subtitles disabled with -sn). The server became unresponsive, requiring a manual restart after which playback resumed normally.

Details of the Crash:

• Two FFmpeg processes were involved:

  First at 00:05:41: Succeeded, remuxed 2:45 of the video to HLS TS segments in /config/transcoding-temp/055DB2/, exited cleanly at 00:05:42.

  Second at 00:10:43: Sought to 00:22:24.000 (file end), failed immediately with the error “Could not write header for output file #0: No such file or directory,” lasted 0.013 seconds.

• No scheduled tasks were running at the crash time (confirmed via logs).
• Disk space (30 TB free) and permissions are fine.

Analysis:
The error suggests the transcoding directory /config/transcoding-temp/055DB2/ was not found when the second FFmpeg process tried to write to it. Research indicates a potential bug in Emby 4.8.11.0 where the directory is deleted prematurely during cleanup, possibly in the 5-minute gap between the two FFmpeg processes. This aligns with:

• Emby documentation stating transcoding contents are deleted when playback stops (Transcoding | Emby Documentation).
• Forum reports of cleanup issues (how often is transcoding-temp cleaned?).
• Similar issues in Jellyfin, a fork of Emby (transcoding-temp folder not cleanup up well).
• Emby 4.8.11.0 release notes mentioning “Various fixes with transcoding disk space cleanup,” suggesting prior issues (Emby GitHub Releases).

Other possibilities like file descriptor exhaustion were considered but seem less likely given the error message. The negative segment_time_delta -00:22:24.000 in the FFmpeg command might also be a factor, as FFmpeg docs suggest it should be non-negative (FFmpeg Formats Documentation).

Steps Taken:

• Confirmed disk space and permissions are not the issue.
• Reviewed logs: No scheduled tasks ran at the crash time, and no logs were recorded between 00:10:43 and the restart at 12:54:55, indicating a crash.

 

Thank you

Edited April 11, 2025 by fahad92

[Luke 42077]

Hi there, please attach the Emby server log from when the problem occurred:

How to Report a Problem

Thanks!

 

[Luke 42077]

Hi @fahad92we are looking into this. Thanks.