Issue with movie file playback / some files not playing

May 12, 2025

Hi, I'm new to Emby, migrating from Plex, and getting acquainted with the new platform. I have a home library on my Synology DS918+ NAS that I'm playing locally to my Roku devices. As usual with Roku, and I had issues with this on Plex too, subtitles are the bane of my existence. Specifically forced subs.

I'm going through file by file to address issues where forced subs won't show up, and am running into some (not all) files that have subs simply not playing. These are not all forced subs, some are just general sub tracks, but the file playback issue is the same. The video feed will lock up. I've run into this on mp4 files (with separate .srt sub files) and .mkv files (with subs embedded w/ the video file).

I was wondering if others have had this issue and if there may be some settings I can adjust to make the files play. I attached a log specific to a Ghost in the Shell .mkv video. What's interesting about this specific file is that Emby can't play it, but Plex can. I'm trying to play it with the sub track on.

Thanks in advance for any help!

ffmpeg-transcode-c7a1f7e5-1f4c-4228-aa05-8a367075dac0_1.txt

May 12, 2025

I'm replying to myself to update a more recent logs and add some extra detail. Hoping I'm reporting this correctly.

This morning I just tried playing 2 files, Ghost in the Shell (1995).mkv, and then Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014).mkv.

The GITS file starts ok, but if I fast forward it locked up and restarted. Or it would play but stutter playback. When I say lock up, I mean either try reloading the file, showing a % on screen, or it would do that and go to black but not play or do anything.

The DOTPOTA file again would start ok at first, but if I tried to fast forward it would completely lock up. There was a moment it would stutter but then it would just go back to showing the % of the file trying to reload, and then totally lock up and not do anything.

May 13, 2025

Hi, I'm new to Emby, migrating from Plex, and getting acquainted with the new platform. I posted this already under the Synology forum but thought it may get more traction here as I think it may be a Roku issue:

I have a home library on my Synology DS918+ NAS that I'm playing locally to my Roku devices. As usual with Roku, and I had issues with this on Plex too at times, subtitles are the bane of my existence. Specifically forced subs.

I'm going through file by file to address issues where forced subs won't show up, and am running into some (not all) files that have subs simply not playing. These are not all forced subs, some are just general sub tracks, but the file playback issue is the same. The video feed will lock up. I've run into this on mp4 files (with separate .srt sub files) and .mkv files (with subs embedded w/ the video file). It appears the issue is worst when there are multiple sub files tied to an mp4 file, or multiple tracks within an mkv file (e.g. English, SDH, Forced).

Yesterday morning, I tried playing 2 files, Ghost in the Shell (1995).mkv, and then Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014).mkv.

The GITS file starts ok, but if I fast forward it locked up and restarted. Or it would play but stutter playback. When I say lock up, I mean either try reloading the file, showing a % on screen, or it would do that and go to black but not play or do anything. Interesting side note about this specific file is that Emby can't play it, but Plex can (I still need to select the forced track though, it won't auto-play it which is annoying).

The DOTPOTA file again would start ok at first, but if I tried to fast forward it would completely lock up. There was a moment it would stutter but then it would just go back to showing the % of the file trying to reload, and then totally lock up and not do anything.

I attached logs for my playback attempts with these 2 files, hopefully I'm reporting this correctly.

Thanks in advance for any help!

May 13, 2025

09:32:29.641 [matroska,webm @ 0x132dcc0] Could not find codec parameters for stream 3 (Subtitle: hdmv_pgs_subtitle (pgssub)): unspecified size
Consider increasing the value for the 'analyzeduration' (0) and 'probesize' (5000000) options
09:32:29.641 [matroska,webm @ 0x132dcc0] Could not find codec parameters for stream 4 (Subtitle: hdmv_pgs_subtitle (pgssub)): unspecified size
Consider increasing the value for the 'analyzeduration' (0) and 'probesize' (5000000) options

It is the fact you are using PGSSUB as your subtitle. The Roku cannot display these when direct playing. The Roku must ask the server to then burn these into the video stream. But as you can see below since ffmpeg cannot find the codec parameters for the subtitle stream it cannot determine the EOF timestamp to sync. Since it isn't reliable it isn't worth generating any output. This will produce no segments. The Roku might get stuck waiting on segments that will never arrive.

09:32:32.262 [subfeed @ 0x1f74fc0] EOF timestamp not reliable
09:32:32.262 Finishing stream 0:0 without any data written to it.
09:32:32.262 [libx264 @ 0x17379c0] using SAR=1/1
09:32:32.263 [libx264 @ 0x17379c0] using cpu capabilities: MMX2 SSE2Fast SSSE3 SSE4.2
09:32:32.266 [libx264 @ 0x17379c0] profile High, level 4.0, 4:2:0, 8-bit
09:32:32.266 [libx264 @ 0x17379c0] 264 - core 163 r3060 5db6aa6 - H.264/MPEG-4 AVC codec - Copyleft 2003-2021 - http://www.videolan.org/x264.html - options: cabac=1 ref=1 deblock=1:0:0 analyse=0x3:0 me=hex subme=0 psy=1 psy_rd=1.00:0.00 mixed_ref=0 me_range=4 chroma_me=1 trellis=0 8x8dct=1 cqm=0 deadzone=21,11 fast_pskip=1 chroma_qp_offset=0 threads=6 lookahead_threads=1 sliced_threads=0 nr=0 decimate=1 interlaced=0 bluray_compat=0 constrained_intra=0 bframes=3 b_pyramid=2 b_adapt=1 b_bias=0 direct=1 weightb=1 open_gop=0 weightp=1 keyint=72 keyint_min=37 scenecut=0 intra_refresh=0 rc_lookahead=10 rc=crf mbtree=1 crf=23.0 qcomp=0.60 qpmin=0 qpmax=69 qpstep=4 vbv_maxrate=10218 vbv_bufsize=20437 crf_max=0.0 nal_hrd=none filler=0 ip_ratio=1.40 aq=1:1.00
09:32:32.266 Could not write header for output file #0 (incorrect codec parameters ?): No such file or directory
09:32:32.266 Error initializing output stream 0:0 -- 
09:32:32.288 Conversion failed!
09:32:32.288 EXIT

If you download SRT subtitles for this item and choose those subtitles from the items detail screen before playback it will not need to use ffmpeg and it all should be handled directly by your Roku.

https://mkvtoolnix.download/downloads.html

Alternatively, if you run this through MKVToolNix GUI and simply remux the file without changes it might fix the issue. MKVToolNix will optimize the file for streaming and correct the MKV header if it is using non-standard parameters. The corrected file should then play without issue and might also allow transcoding. But it also may not. The best advice is to use external SRT subtitles with the Roku.

@softworkz-updatepackage emby-server-synology72_{version}_x86_64.spk

This might be something you could better explain seeing as this is linux server the problem is happening on with his Roku.

Edited May 13, 2025 by speechles

May 13, 2025

@speechles thanks for your reply, that's interesting and I"m going to try your suggestion to run the files thru MKVToolNix.

When doing that, I've read issues when sub tracks are marked as default, enabled, and/or forced; issues, meaning, that Roku gets confused if multiple are marked default, etc. Is there a standard way I should tag a sub track in MKVToolnix to avoid issues in that regard? Similarly, if there are multiple sub tracks, I assume only 1 should get marked as default? So for example if I have a file that will have SDH subs and then a separate forced sub track, probably best to just tag the forced track as default/enabled/forced, and leave the SDH track just as enabled?

May 14, 2025

6 hours ago, speechles said:

@softworkz-updatepackage emby-server-synology72_{version}_x86_64.spk

This might be something you could better explain seeing as this is linux server the problem is happening on with his Roku.

I'm not sure - but the actual error message here:

6 hours ago, speechles said:

09:32:32.266 Could not write header for output file #0 (incorrect codec parameters ?): No such file or directory

is "No such file or directory"

I would check whether /var/packages/EmbyServer/var/transcoding-temp exists and the emby user has write permission to it.

May 30, 2025

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