Playback Error - No compatible streams - Invalid argument in log

[Computron 1]

I have a specific show which does this most often, but I believe it has happened across others. I play an episode and after a certain point, the stream freezes and when I leave the page and try to resume it, I get the error message:

Quote

Playback Error

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

The show then will not allow me to play from the beginning or resume without the above error showing, despite ~7 minutes having played flawlessly before this occurred (time varies but it is usually a meaningful amount).

Other episodes of the show from the same season, in the same format, and from the same source, play without issue.

I am streaming from a Debian server via a Docker container, updated to the latest version the afternoon (4.9.1.80). This has been happening for a while though, so believe not related to the update.

The media file is hosted on TrueNAS on a separate device, mounted via SMB share.

This instance occurred whilst watching in safari browser on a MacBook, but has occurred on PC via chrome browser, and Apple TV and iPhone via app.

I have played the episode via SMB share from the NAS on the MacBook directly without issue, following this, sometimes it now plays again in Emby without issue.

ffmpeg-directstream-c3801aae-7467-40b9-b514-aee9437db1a9_1.txtffmpeg-transcode-bdf2ba26-cd8b-43ec-ad73-95d0d0492a4b_1.txtffmpeg-transcode-cdf9a9c0-3d01-40b0-a9d9-84f7ab0bbb90_1.txtPermissions on the file I believe are fine (rwxrwxrwx from mount down to file) and if this was the issue I'd expect that it wouldn't load at all.

embyserver.txt

I have restarted the server many times (machine and container), and this seems to have little to no impact. I have reviewed the logs myself but can only see the "Invalid argument" exception which makes no sense to me as the file name isn't changed at any point, so why it is fine to begin with and suddenly not, I do not know.

I have queried the container and confirmed that the file is mounted at the path given in the exception message, and the permissions are all open.

Edited October 1, 2025 by Computron
Add context

[Luke 42077]

Hi, can you try refreshing the metadata on these files and see if that helps? How do the permissions compare to working files?

[Stevieb84 0]

I’ve been having issues since the new server update! Live TV, some TV shows work but for the most part I get “ there was an error processing the - invalid arguments” I’ve reset my Apple TV box and tried many different settings!! There is definitely an issue with the transcoding!! 

[Luke 42077]

Hi, have you updated to Emby Server 4.9.1.90? has that helped?

[Luke 42077]

@Computron?

[Computron 1]

Hello, I didn’t post these follow ups, but my issue seems to have stopped, albeit that I’ve not been watching the show on which it was intermittently happening, so perhaps it’s more to do with that than anything else.

I did try refreshing metadata though and I don’t think this stopped the issue. I also checked permissions and all files have the same permissions so I don’t think that was it.