Hardware Advice / Slow performance / Recording issues

[JanS48 2]

Greetings everyone - Rookie here 

I've been working with (on) emby for over a month now and seem to be making headway but I still don't have a system working well enough to cut the Cable Cord.

Performance is an issue : I often get this message:  There was an error processing the request. Please try again later.  <Got it>
Often when I get this if I count to 10 and try hitting the play button again the channel will play.
I have two types of channels: an HDHR 4k OTA 4 channel tuner, and an IPTV service. I can get the above message when attempting to tune either of these but is more prevalent on the IPTV service. Overall it seems to take too long before playback starts. 

Hardware:  AMD Phenom 4 core w) 8g of DDR3 ram,  C drive is 240 SSD, OS is Win11 Pro, Gig ethernet from Verizon Fios, storage drive  D is 3tb mechanical. 
Video:  NVidia GeForce GT 710 - 2g of memory
I looked around but did not see a document for performance tuning emby.

IPTV provider - I've tried several, the one I'm using now allows me to make 5 simultaneous connections, this does allow me to make 2 simultaneous (streamed) recordings and view another from either the server box or an Android client. If only it didn't time out on starting...   Just an FYI - using a different account with this provider I'm able to make flawless simultaneous recording in an Amazon FireStick 4k using TiviMate - it's a shame it does not have a scheduler.

I have a number of questions:
1 - is it possible to get emby to reliably do scheduled recordings from an IPTV provider?

2 - If I pad a recording with 30 minutes of time, it never records that interval - this happens for both OTA and streams. Is there a setting for this somewhere ?

3 - I have several extra 120 G  SSD's. Can these be used to aid in performance by setting one or more up for temp files or caching ?

4 - Is there a way to make playback start faster ? I suspect that on some failed recordings emby timed out so the recording was skipped.  (my guess)

5 - EPG - I scheduled my emby server to download the EPG from the IPTV provider at 4am using curl  I then trigger emby to update the EPG at 4:15  the problem is I never get more than 14 hrs of schedules - I'm guessing that is an issue with my IPTV provider.  Can anyone recommend a good EPG ?

6 - PlayLists - I've edited out thousands of entries I'll never use from the IPTV's provided playlist, however I also used the Advanced feature in emby to hide thousands more - after reading some of the posts here I should re-edit the playlists and actually remove them - or - does that not make a difference?

7 - I also see this message:  It is strongly recommended that http service be used to stream line video to Emby-server, see 'Http Service Tab'  Where do I set this exactly - and what would an example look like?

8 - ServerWMC - I installed this device but without it would emby still see my HDHR tuners?  What does this buy me ?

9 - NextPVR - I used this years ago but see it referenced in quite a few threads here  - what does it do better than emby ?

10 - Hardware - If you tell me that emby will only function well with an i7 w 16 g of ram - so  be it if that is the only way. 

11 - Linux - Is emby more reliable and faster running on a Linux machine?  Will an emby server on Linux still support emby Android clients?  Linux Ubuntu Ok ?

I know this a a ton of stuff but I really need to get this working or put up with the outrageous cost of cable.

Thanks in Advance
Jan
 

[Luke 42077]

Quote

I often get this message:  There was an error processing the request. Please try again later.

 

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

 

[JanS48 2]

Greetings everyone

Since this post I have upgraded the emby server A LOT - it is now on a older but good working Phenom 6 core w 16 g of ram running Win11 Pro - additionally added two additional SSD drives, one assigned to cache and the other for temp files in watching task mgr while empy is being accessed the only drive I've added getting hit is the one for Temp files. The GPU seems to get hit heavily 'sometimes' . 

All in all the machine 'should' perform well but it does not. It seems it's taking longer and longer to play an IPTV channel and is even slow to tune an OTA channel.

In looking at the log I see timeouts but not sure where/how to fix.
Any advice would be much appreciated.
Thanks in advance
Jan

 

embyserver.txt

[Luke 42077]

1 hour ago, JanS48 said:

Greetings everyone

Since this post I have upgraded the emby server A LOT - it is now on a older but good working Phenom 6 core w 16 g of ram running Win11 Pro - additionally added two additional SSD drives, one assigned to cache and the other for temp files in watching task mgr while empy is being accessed the only drive I've added getting hit is the one for Temp files. The GPU seems to get hit heavily 'sometimes' . 

All in all the machine 'should' perform well but it does not. It seems it's taking longer and longer to play an IPTV channel and is even slow to tune an OTA channel.

In looking at the log I see timeouts but not sure where/how to fix.
Any advice would be much appreciated.
Thanks in advance
Jan

 

embyserver.txt 744.39 kB · 1 download

Hi, what type of drive is your f drive?

[JanS48 2]

Greeting the F: drive is a 120 SSD, G: also

 

[Luke 42077]

@JanS48are you still having an issue with this?

[Apotropaic 41]

On 02/05/2025 at 06:56, JanS48 said:

5 - EPG - I scheduled my emby server to download the EPG from the IPTV provider at 4am using curl  I then trigger emby to update the EPG at 4:15  the problem is I never get more than 14 hrs of schedules - I'm guessing that is an issue with my IPTV provider.  Can anyone recommend a good EPG ?

6 - PlayLists - I've edited out thousands of entries I'll never use from the IPTV's provided playlist, however I also used the Advanced feature in emby to hide thousands more - after reading some of the posts here I should re-edit the playlists and actually remove them - or - does that not make a difference?

11 - Linux - Is emby more reliable and faster running on a Linux machine?  Will an emby server on Linux still support emby Android clients?  Linux Ubuntu Ok ?

 

Hi, I can't answer everything but hopefully I can provide some direction.

5. are you setting up the EPG through the 'Live TV - Guide Data Sources' setting? (you mentioning curl threw me off). If you go to the advanced tab the default is to set the EPG download to auto but you can manually specify how many days but it will ultimately depend on your provider. The Emby Provided EPG data can be up to 14 days but you may need to manually map your channels if they aren't automatically mapped.

6. I would recommend using a playlist editor, one where you can set and automate the process. There's a 'M3U to strm' plugin which will download your playlist on a schedule, filter out groups/channels you don't want and then export a new playlist to a storage location which you can configure emby to pickup and use.

I'm not sure curating your playlist this way will improve recording stability etc. but it certainly makes its easier to manage especially if you have to rebuild your setup. What may help is installing something like Threadfin, at a basic level it enables filtering of your channels and re-ordering which can be fed into emby. It can also function as a stream buffer which could help with disconnections etc, but you may want to use a stream proxy such as HLS-Proxy which also allows you to fine tune settings which can improve the startup times but it's a complicated topic. This post may help - 

 

[bruor 43]

IPTV providers that use HLS are likely to cause issues with Emby due to the nature of the way providers disperse and authenticate connections to the streams, if there are any issues with playback ffmpeg dies and doesn't restart.  This impacts both playback and recording.