Linux | Docker | 4060Ti - Emby Premiere - GPU not used for transcoding

[mrjay42 5]

  

  

Hi Everyone,

I am well aware that this is a common issue. 

I have read some topics on the forum:

The documentation of course:

https://emby.media/support/articles/Hardware-Acceleration-Overview.html?q=nvidia

 

Problem

I think I failed to have Emby Premiere to accelerate my transcoding operations on Linux, using the available RTX4060Ti.

 

 

Emby Setup

My Emby is installed using Portainer and Docker.

My current setup is the following

version: "2.3"

services:
  emby:
    image: emby/embyserver
    container_name: embyserver2
    runtime: nvidia                   # Use NVIDIA GPU acceleration
    networks:
      - private_secured_network       # Connect to your existing external network
    environment:
      - UID=1000                      # User ID
      - GID=1000                      # Group ID
      - GIDLIST=1000                  # Additional groups if needed
      - NVIDIA_VISIBLE_DEVICES=all
      - NVIDIA_DRIVER_CAPABILITIES=compute,utility,video
    volumes:
      - /home/mrjay/Desktop/apps/emby2:/config
      - /home/mrjay/Desktop/data/Downloads/transmission/completed:/mnt/share1
    ports:
      - "8097:8096"                   # Host 8097 → Container 8096 (HTTP)
      - "8921:8920"                   # Optional HTTPS
    devices:
      - /dev/dri:/dev/dri             # Hardware acceleration
    restart: on-failure

networks:
  private_secured_network:
    external: true

I tried to follow things from the documentation and also from some stuff I read here and there on the forum, to no success so far.

 

 

 

How do I detect whether my GPU is being used

So what I do is pretty simple:

1. I start a terminal on Linux, I run: watch -n 0.1 nvidia-smi
2. I open Emby
3. I start a movie
4. And I transcode it to whatever resolution feels 'fun'
5. Keep an eye on nvidia-smi -> if we're at a strict 0% I deduce that my GPU is not being used

Random Observation

It doesn't seem that I have much options there.

I've seen on the forum screenshots of people's Embys which looks kinda different with some more options there? (am I cray-cray?)

Operating system

$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Debian
Description:    Debian GNU/Linux forky/sid
Release:        n/a
Codename:       forky

$ uname -a
Linux minibip 6.16.8+deb14-amd64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Debian 6.16.8-1 (2025-09-21) x86_64 GNU/Linux

 

Installed Drivers

Here I'm trying to provide as much information as possible

$ nvidia-smi
Mon Oct  6 00:38:45 2025
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 550.163.01             Driver Version: 550.163.01     CUDA Version: 12.4     |
|-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name                 Persistence-M | Bus-Id          Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp   Perf          Pwr:Usage/Cap |           Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|                                         |                        |               MIG M. |
|=========================================+========================+======================|
|   0  NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti     Off |   00000000:02:00.0 Off |                  N/A |
|  0%   32C    P8              1W /  165W |      19MiB /  16380MiB |      0%      Default |
|                                         |                        |                  N/A |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                                              |
|  GPU   GI   CI        PID   Type   Process name                              GPU Memory |
|        ID   ID                                                               Usage      |
|=========================================================================================|
|    0   N/A  N/A      2677      G   /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg                              9MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A      2742      G   /usr/bin/gnome-shell                            2MiB |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

I have attached a file called "nvidia-smi-detailed.txt" that contains the results of the following command: nvidia-smi -q

 

 

In terms of installed packages I have the following:

$ dpkg -l | grep nvidia
ii  firmware-nvidia-graphics               20250808-1                      all          Binary firmware for Nvidia GPU chips
ii  firmware-nvidia-gsp                    550.163.01-3                    amd64        NVIDIA GSP firmware
ii  glx-alternative-nvidia                 1.2.2                           amd64        allows the selection of NVIDIA as GLX provider
ii  libegl-nvidia0:amd64                   550.163.01-3                    amd64        NVIDIA binary EGL library
ii  libgl1-nvidia-glvnd-glx:amd64          550.163.01-3                    amd64        NVIDIA binary OpenGL/GLX library (GLVND variant)
ii  libgles-nvidia1:amd64                  550.163.01-3                    amd64        NVIDIA binary OpenGL|ES 1.x library
ii  libgles-nvidia2:amd64                  550.163.01-3                    amd64        NVIDIA binary OpenGL|ES 2.x library
ii  libglx-nvidia0:amd64                   550.163.01-3                    amd64        NVIDIA binary GLX library
ii  libnvidia-allocator1:amd64             550.163.01-3                    amd64        NVIDIA allocator runtime library
ii  libnvidia-cfg1:amd64                   550.163.01-3                    amd64        NVIDIA binary OpenGL/GLX configuration library
ii  libnvidia-container-tools              1.18.0~rc.5-1                   amd64        NVIDIA container runtime library (command-line tools)
ii  libnvidia-container1:amd64             1.18.0~rc.5-1                   amd64        NVIDIA container runtime library
ii  libnvidia-egl-gbm1:amd64               1.1.2.1-1                       amd64        GBM EGL external platform library for NVIDIA
ii  libnvidia-egl-wayland1:amd64           1:1.1.18-1                      amd64        Wayland EGL External Platform library -- shared library
ii  libnvidia-eglcore:amd64                550.163.01-3                    amd64        NVIDIA binary EGL core libraries
ii  libnvidia-encode1:amd64                550.163.01-3                    amd64        NVENC Video Encoding runtime library
ii  libnvidia-glcore:amd64                 550.163.01-3                    amd64        NVIDIA binary OpenGL/GLX core libraries
ii  libnvidia-glvkspirv:amd64              550.163.01-3                    amd64        NVIDIA binary Vulkan Spir-V compiler library
ii  libnvidia-gpucomp:amd64                550.163.01-3                    amd64        NVIDIA binary GPU compiler library
ii  libnvidia-ml1:amd64                    550.163.01-3                    amd64        NVIDIA Management Library (NVML) runtime library
ii  libnvidia-pkcs11-openssl3:amd64        550.163.01-3                    amd64        NVIDIA PKCS #11 Library (OpenSSL 3)
ii  libnvidia-ptxjitcompiler1:amd64        550.163.01-3                    amd64        NVIDIA PTX JIT Compiler library
ii  libnvidia-rtcore:amd64                 550.163.01-3                    amd64        NVIDIA binary Vulkan ray tracing (rtcore) library
ii  nvidia-alternative                     550.163.01-3                    amd64        allows the selection of NVIDIA as GLX provider
ii  nvidia-container-toolkit               1.18.0~rc.5-1                   amd64        NVIDIA Container toolkit
ii  nvidia-container-toolkit-base          1.18.0~rc.5-1                   amd64        NVIDIA Container Toolkit Base
ii  nvidia-docker2                         2.14.0-1                        all          NVIDIA Container Toolkit meta-package
ii  nvidia-driver                          550.163.01-3                    amd64        NVIDIA metapackage
ii  nvidia-driver-bin                      550.163.01-3                    amd64        NVIDIA driver support binaries
ii  nvidia-driver-libs:amd64               550.163.01-3                    amd64        NVIDIA metapackage (OpenGL/GLX/EGL/GLES libraries)
ii  nvidia-egl-common                      550.163.01-3                    amd64        NVIDIA binary EGL driver - common files
ii  nvidia-egl-icd:amd64                   550.163.01-3                    amd64        NVIDIA EGL installable client driver (ICD)
ii  nvidia-installer-cleanup               20240109+1                      amd64        cleanup after driver installation with the nvidia-installer
ii  nvidia-kernel-common                   20240109+1                      amd64        NVIDIA binary kernel module support files
ii  nvidia-kernel-dkms                     550.163.01-3                    amd64        NVIDIA binary kernel module DKMS source
ii  nvidia-kernel-support                  550.163.01-3                    amd64        NVIDIA binary kernel module support files
ii  nvidia-legacy-check                    550.163.01-3                    amd64        check for NVIDIA GPUs requiring a legacy driver
ii  nvidia-modprobe                        570.133.07-1                    amd64        utility to load NVIDIA kernel modules and create device nodes
ii  nvidia-persistenced                    550.163.01-1                    amd64        daemon to maintain persistent software state in the NVIDIA driver
ii  nvidia-settings                        550.163.01-1                    amd64        tool for configuring the NVIDIA graphics driver
ii  nvidia-smi                             550.163.01-3                    amd64        NVIDIA System Management Interface
ii  nvidia-support                         20240109+1                      amd64        NVIDIA binary graphics driver support files
ii  nvidia-suspend-common                  550.163.01-3                    amd64        NVIDIA driver - systemd power management scripts
ii  nvidia-vdpau-driver:amd64              550.163.01-3                    amd64        Video Decode and Presentation API for Unix - NVIDIA driver
ii  nvidia-vulkan-common                   550.163.01-3                    amd64        NVIDIA Vulkan driver - common files
ii  nvidia-vulkan-icd:amd64                550.163.01-3                    amd64        NVIDIA Vulkan installable client driver (ICD)
ii  xserver-xorg-video-nvidia              550.163.01-3                    amd64        NVIDIA binary Xorg driver

You can see that I have nvidia-docker2 installed ^^

----

Alright, I hope I provided the right amount of info about this matter.

I feel kinda guilty for asking about this, because I can see that this is a pretty common topic. But by gathering info and trying things on my side, I didn't manage to make my GPU transcode anything with Emby

Thank you in advance for your help

 

nvidia-smi-detailed.txt

[mrjay42 5]

Oh actually, I opened the "advanced" option in the select menu in the "transcoding" menu in the settings of Emby and I have this:

 

I'm relatively confident that it means that no hardware option is available

[mrjay42 5]

UPDATE

I managed to have the transcoding options visible as in the screenshot below (I clicked all the options available, not knowing what's best)

 

And the GPU 'seems' to be used by Emby for transcoding.

BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT -> now all my media crash when I try to play them with transcoding

They crash like this:

 

 

I have included the logs from Emby and ffmpeg, corresponding to the time/date of when I'm doing my tests.

...help?

 

 

EDIT:
I forgot to say that I managed to have the transcoding options and the GPU to be "hit" by Emby by adding the following to my docker compose yml in Portainer :
 

    deploy:
      resources:
        reservations:
          devices:
            - driver: nvidia
              count: all
              capabilities: [gpu]

So the complete file looks like this:
 

version: "3.9"   # must be 3.x, deploy is ignored in 2.x

services:
  emby:
    image: emby/embyserver
    container_name: embyserver2
    networks:
      - private_secured_network
    environment:
      - UID=1000
      - GID=1000
      - GIDLIST=1000
      - NVIDIA_VISIBLE_DEVICES=all
      - NVIDIA_DRIVER_CAPABILITIES=compute,utility,video
    volumes:
      - /home/mrjay/Desktop/apps/emby2:/config
      - /home/mrjay/Desktop/data/Downloads/transmission/completed:/mnt/share1
    ports:
      - "8097:8096"
      - "8921:8920"
    deploy:
      resources:
        reservations:
          devices:
            - driver: nvidia
              count: all
              capabilities: [gpu]
    restart: on-failure

networks:
  private_secured_network:
    external: true

ffmpeg-transcode-05fc98cf-be40-45af-adc2-62c8cc591d21_1.txt ffmpeg-transcode-5d98f451-f201-4394-a061-b179ce92a540_1.txt ffmpeg-transcode-38db3eb0-fc78-4279-bea5-c69ea3a50127_1.txt ffmpeg-transcode-41010e05-a14b-4d2e-9efc-0ba0c67a1306_1.txt ffmpeg-transcode-aea280da-cea3-42d6-a715-8348787d1fee_1.txt ffmpeg-transcode-b56efd52-83a5-4711-b608-28d716a19663_1.txt embyserver.txt

Edited October 6, 2025 by mrjay42
adding yml docker compose info

[mrjay42 5]

Oh well, after a reboot.

I discovered that my nvidia drivers had been disabled

Probably because I'm running a Debian testing on my server and the headers were not 'easily' available with that newest Kernel, and as a consequence NVidia drivers had trouble being installed/enabled.

So this is what I did

Fix “NVIDIA-SMI has failed because it couldn’t communicate with the NVIDIA driver” on Debian (kernel 6.16+)

 

Problem

After a reboot, you run:

nvidia-smi

and get:

NVIDIA-SMI has failed because it couldn't communicate with the NVIDIA driver.
Make sure that the latest NVIDIA driver is installed and running.

This usually happens right after a kernel update, when the NVIDIA kernel module wasn’t rebuilt for the new kernel.

---

Step-by-step fix

Check if the NVIDIA module is loaded

lsmod | grep nvidia

If there’s no output, try loading it:

sudo modprobe nvidia

If you get:

modprobe: FATAL: Module nvidia-current not found in directory /lib/modules/6.x.x

→ it means the kernel module isn’t built for your new kernel.

---

Check your NVIDIA driver installation

dpkg -l | grep nvidia-driver

You should see something like:

ii  nvidia-driver  550.163.01-3  amd64  NVIDIA metapackage

If it’s missing, install or update it:

sudo apt install nvidia-driver

---

Identify your current kernel

uname -r

Example:

6.16.9+deb14-amd64

---

Install the matching kernel headers

Without headers, DKMS (which builds the NVIDIA module) can’t compile anything.

sudo apt install linux-headers-$(uname -r)

If that fails with “Unable to locate package”, update your sources and retry:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install linux-headers-$(uname -r)

should see packages like:

linux-headers-6.16.9+deb14-amd64
linux-headers-6.16.9+deb14-common
linux-kbuild-6.16.9+deb14

---

Rebuild the NVIDIA DKMS module

Once headers are installed:

sudo dkms autoinstall

You should see:

Building for 6.16.9+deb14-amd64
DKMS: install completed.

This compiles and installs:

/lib/modules/$(uname -r)/updates/dkms/nvidia-current.ko.xz

---

Load the driver manually (to test)

sudo modprobe nvidia
nvidia-smi

If you see your GPU table — success!

---

Reboot and verify

Finally, reboot once:

sudo reboot

After booting:

nvidia-smi

If it still works right away, your system is fully fixed — DKMS will automatically rebuild the module on future kernel updates.

---

Quick Recap

Command	Purpose
`lsmod	grep nvidia`
sudo modprobe nvidia	Try to load module manually
sudo apt install linux-headers-$(uname -r)	Install kernel headers
sudo dkms autoinstall	Rebuild NVIDIA kernel module
sudo modprobe nvidia && nvidia-smi	Test driver
sudo reboot	Verify persistence after restart

---

Tested environment

• Debian Trixie/Sid

• Kernel: 6.16.9+deb14-amd64

• Driver: nvidia-driver 550.163.01-3

• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Ti

---

 

 

Now, with this correction and the aforementioned (in the first post on this topic) packages and the correct docker compose yml code (in the previous post just before this one) -> everything works

Edited October 6, 2025 by mrjay42
small correction

[Neminem 1518]

Thanks for sharing the solution