Some videos failed to play on the Roku that play on other devices.

[dadofhgnadn 12]

I've had quite a few videos that failed to play on our Roku devices that played perfectly well on my Android phone, fire tv and computer.  As a matter of fact I just tested. It buffers and then around 33% it just stops and disappears.  Set log...

Edited November 7, 2025 by dadofhgnadn
Forgot to mention that I sent the log

[Luke 42077]

 

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

 

[Gilgamesh_48 1240]

Rokus are not very forgiving of any file problems at all. If a file is at too high a bitrate or in the wrong format or requires transcoding or a number of other little problems that have no effect on other devices the file might not play on Roku.
In a lot of cases the server can compensate for file problems but if it is at all marginal you can have problems. 
Also, if you are using wireless, then little interference glitches can cause major issues.

I have, mostly, moved from Roku to Shield as my primary playback device but I had pretty much converted all my videos so they direct play (at least the videos) and my Roku does not glitch much at all but I am no longer able to maintain my library like I prefer so I decided, some time ago, to switch my primary playback device.

If your server is under powered or some other reason, like load, prevents full transcoding then the symptoms you describe could easily happen.

The logs and details requested earlier will help the experts diagnose the problems and verify if or if not my guess is correct.

[speechles 2055]

Roku doesn't allow the same as Android. The Roku cannot access low level information from the device like you can on Android. The Emby app on Roku only has access to abstracted aliases for each function/interface. This means it cannot transcode on the device with its own decoder/encoder implementation. On the Roku the player interprets which media can play with the bundled codec support found on the device and simply passes back some rudimentary error messages when it cannot play. We react on those messages. We cannot update that bundled codec support. Roku only have a few detection methods and we are using every single one of them. Eventually you will see the message of "Too many errors. Giving up." show on the screen in a red toast/slide-out message when we have tried every way possible to play the media back with the app changing playback methods.

Were any ffmpeg logs created in the transcode directory related to Roku playback failures? If so those would be of help too. Server logs and app logs would be. I am assume you sent app logs. Seeing server logs too would help to debug the issue fully.

Edited November 7, 2025 by speechles

[ebr 16169]

12 hours ago, dadofhgnadn said:

Set log...

There was no playback in the log.  Please send the log directly after the problem and without restarting the app.

Thanks.

[dadofhgnadn 12]

Thanks, I ditched the ROKU. As always you guys are more than helpful.

[Luke 42077]

18 hours ago, dadofhgnadn said:

Thanks, I ditched the ROKU. As always you guys are more than helpful.

Hi, in favor of what?

[dadofhgnadn 12]

I went cheap and purchased a Fire Stick. Better video and subtitle support for my old people.