4K HVEC mkv not playing anymore

[NIIcK 9]

Hello,

Starting a few days back now I am having problems playing 4k HVEC mkv movies. 

It used to work just fine but now it has the same behavior as in this post: 

 the exception being that, in my case, both "Allow subtitle extraction on the fly" and Allow subtitle font extraction on the fly" are turned on.

I am attaching the latest server log and ffmpeg transcode log.

Thank you very much, in advance, for your help!

***Later edit***

It would seem that it fails to play only on certain 4K movies... please let me know should you need more details regarding the mkv file itself.

ffmpeg-transcode-8d6eeff9-db62-43aa-9350-aee5ad8de10a_1.txt embyserver.txt

Edited November 9, 2025 by NIIcK

[Luke 42077]

Hi, what exactly happens?

[NIIcK 9]

Hi Luke,

I hit play, I get the spinner then the player starts playing for a second then it stopps, spinner again; it does this several times then if fails with "No compatible streams are currently available".

I only have this issue when playing in the browser (Chromium based). I can play these 4K films on Android (mobile and TV) as well as on the Linux/Windows apps with no problem.

Thank you in advance!

Edited November 13, 2025 by NIIcK

[GrimReaper 4739]

On 11/9/2025 at 10:27 PM, NIIcK said:

***Later edit***

It would seem that it fails to play only on certain 4K movies... please let me know should you need more details regarding the mkv file itself.

ffmpeg-transcode-8d6eeff9-db62-43aa-9350-aee5ad8de10a_1.txt 92.88 kB · 4 downloads

You're trying to play an item with unsupported audio (E-AC3):

Quote

"Codec":"eac3","Language":"eng","TimeBase":"1/1000","DisplayTitle":"English EAC3 6 ch (Default)"

which causes transcoding:

Quote

&TranscodeReasons=AudioCodecNotSupported,DirectPlayError&allowVideoStreamCopy=false&allowAudioStreamCopy=false

and I'd guess that excessive number of subs (40+):

Quote

Stream #0:43(chi): Subtitle: subrip

is choking your machine:

Quote

speed=0.0201x

Try playback in this browser (which is the only one I'm aware of that'd play E-AC3 natively) so you'd possibly get DirectPlay or get rid of all of those unnecessarily subtitles, see how does that compare. 

FYI: MS Edge natively supports AC3 but not E-AC3, Chrome doesn't support either. You can always check what does your browser support here (check under Video/Audio/Streaming sections). 

Edited November 14, 2025 by GrimReaper
Link

[Luke 42077]

Also have you updated to Emby Server 4.9.1.90? has that helped?

[NIIcK 9]

Thank you both, @GrimReaperand @Luke.

@Luke, I have upgraded to the latest server version but it still doesn't play. It must be the audio codec as GrimReaper said.

@GrimReaper, Thorium doesn't play it either but thank you for the time looking into this. Good to know where to look for errors in the future

 

[GrimReaper 4739]

5 minutes ago, NIIcK said:

Thorium doesn't play it either but thank you for the time looking into this.

Well, it should, as far as only audio is concerned - but there might be some other issue now audio is out of the way. Was there an ffmpeg log written for Thorium playback session? Was transcoding attempted or was it DirectPlayed?

[NIIcK 9]

I got 3 logs (1 remux and 2 transcoding) for the same video; I tried playing it with Thorium.

I am attaching them here.

ffmpeg-remux-56c29920-1333-4c0c-b081-5c6cabae5577_1.txt ffmpeg-transcode-1226f125-d5b3-4f26-b38c-b5fb3d378626_1.txt ffmpeg-transcode-a09517eb-10e3-40d5-9b91-3b27e73c88ad_1.txt embyserver-log.txt

Edited November 14, 2025 by NIIcK
Re-attaching the logs

[GrimReaper 4739]

I cannot download your attachments, could you re-attach them by clicking Add Files in the edit window? 

[GrimReaper 4739]

Thanks. Something is amiss here. Could you go here in Thorium browser and attach Audio section results screenshot? 

[Neminem 1518]

@NIIcKare you using the new experimental HEVC encoding.

Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (hevc (hevc_qsv) -> hevc (hevc_qsv))

Try without.

Its still experimental.

[NIIcK 9]

21 minutes ago, GrimReaper said:

Thanks. Something is amiss here. Could you go here in Thorium browser and attach Audio section results screenshot? 

These are the audio results for Thorium:

[NIIcK 9]

17 minutes ago, Neminem said:

@NIIcKare you using the new experimental HEVC encoding.

Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (hevc (hevc_qsv) -> hevc (hevc_qsv))

Try without.

Its still experimental.

Hi @Neminem, thank you for your suggestion. 

I've already had the HEVC experimental transcoding on:

[Neminem 1518]

23 minutes ago, Neminem said:

Try without.

Its still experimental.

 

[GrimReaper 4739]

54 minutes ago, NIIcK said:

These are the audio results for Thorium:

Hm. Could you download this version, unzip to any location of your choice and run thorium.exe from BIN folder (before running, close other Chromium instances, if any)? Once running, which version is listed under browser Settings>About? On html5test, you should see something similar to this:

Edited November 14, 2025 by GrimReaper
Edited link

[NIIcK 9]

8 minutes ago, GrimReaper said:

Hm. Could you download this version, unzip to any location of your choice and run thorium.exe from BIN folder? Once running, which version is listed under browser Settings>About? 

Audio results with Thorium_AVX2_130.0.6723.174

Thorium Settings/About version:

HTML5 test site audio results:

[GrimReaper 4739]

It's redirecting you to v130. Close all running instances from Task Manager and run exe file from extracted folder only. Or simply uninstall v130 if you've run installer. 

Edited November 14, 2025 by GrimReaper

[NIIcK 9]

20 minutes ago, GrimReaper said:

Hm. Could you download this version, unzip to any location of your choice and run thorium.exe from BIN folder (before running, close other Chromium instances, if any)? Once running, which version is listed under browser Settings>About? On html5test, you should see something similar to this:

 

 

The browser is the same version as the one suggested by you to download above: 

With this version, dolby digital is not enabled:

 

[GrimReaper 4739]

4 minutes ago, NIIcK said:

The browser is the same version as the one suggested by you to download above: 

With this version, dolby digital is not enabled:

 

Guess I copied wrong link or it was automatically converted, sorry about that. 

Here's full link:

https://github.com/Alex313031/Thorium-Win/releases/download/M128.0.6613.189/Thorium_AVX2_128.0.6613.189.zip

Edit: You are correct, it was v130 link indeed that I've pasted.

Edited November 14, 2025 by GrimReaper
Append

[NIIcK 9]

4 minutes ago, GrimReaper said:

Guess I copied wrong link or it was automatically converted, sorry about that. 

Here's full link:

https://github.com/Alex313031/Thorium-Win/releases/download/M128.0.6613.189/Thorium_AVX2_128.0.6613.189.zip

 

No need to apologize, I thank you for your help.

No luck with v.128 either:

[GrimReaper 4739]

@LukeThorium should be self-contained instance (codec support based on this), akin to VLC or other media players that come with their own codec support bundled and don't rely on underlying OS, why would it refuse to report AC3/E-AC3 support, anything comes to mind? 

@NIIcKIf you try to play that item in system media player (not VLC or GOM or Potplayer or any other 3-rd party media player), does it play? Do you get audio? 

[NIIcK 9]

@GrimReaperI believe I've solved the part where Dolby Digital was not enabled.

Microsoft removed Dolby Digital support from Windows 11: https://www.windowslatest.com/2024/05/29/microsoft-confirms-windows-11-24h2-ditches-ac-3-codec-dolby-digital/; it is not even available from MS Store anymore. 

I have installed this version from here (MS Store apps): https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/dolby_ac_3ac_4_installer.html and now I get: 

Thorium:

Edge:

however the video is still not playing in neither Thorium nor Edge. I am attaching the latest log.

ffmpeg-transcode-a97247ce-bfba-43f8-b065-6e69a7fd71a9_1.txt

Edited November 14, 2025 by NIIcK

[GrimReaper 4739]

5 minutes ago, NIIcK said:

I believe I've solved the part where Dolby Digital was not enabled.

Microsoft removed Dolby Digital support from Windows 11: https://www.windowslatest.com/2024/05/29/microsoft-confirms-windows-11-24h2-ditches-ac-3-codec-dolby-digital/; it is not even available from MS Store anymore. 

I have installed this version from here (MS Store apps): https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/dolby_ac_3ac_4_installer.html and now I get: 

Thorium:

Edge:

Well done.

5 minutes ago, NIIcK said:

however the video is still not playing in neither Thorium nor Edge. I am attaching the latest log.

Now it's no more about audio - you have quality/bandwidth restriction in force:

Quote

&TranscodeReasons=ContainerBitrateExceedsLimit,DirectPlayError&allowVideoStreamCopy=false&allowAudioStreamCopy=false

Quote

>>>>>>  Video Processing Steps for [0:0]: H.265 (HEVC)
        Step                    HW-Context   Format       SW-Format           Size   Next
        HEVC_QSV             >> QSV          qsv          nv12           3840x1600 >> vpp_qsv
        vpp_qsv              >> QSV          qsv          nv12             640x266 >> 

Increase in-app quality (OSD cog menu). 

 

Edited November 14, 2025 by GrimReaper

[Neminem 1518]

And the media file has 44 streams, 41-42 subtitle streams.

I would make a copy of file and remove all subs not needed, using MKVToolNix.

Then try with that.

 

 

[GrimReaper 4739]

1 minute ago, Neminem said:

And the media file has 44 streams, 41-42 subtitle streams.

I would make a copy of file and remove all subs not needed, using MKVToolNix.

Then try with that.

Suggested already, although for DirectPlay it shouldn't matter - that's what we're after. 

11 hours ago, GrimReaper said:

and I'd guess that excessive number of subs (40+):

Quote

Stream #0:43(chi): Subtitle: subrip

is choking your machine:

 

11 hours ago, GrimReaper said:

get rid of all of those unnecessarily subtitles, see how does that compare.