Emby clients all of a sudden started limiting video bitrate to 455 Kb/s

[pclausen 44]

In my living room, all my playback devices started rate limiting anything I play from my Emby server.

In addition to it being limited on the Emby app on the TV, I'm also seeing the limit on my SHIELD as well as my HTPC.  It even happens from a browser on the HTPC.

I have attached a screenshot showing what I'm talking about.  The left image is what I see from the App on SHIELD, the center screenshot is when playing back from a browser on my HTPC.  The right image when I playback via a browser from a different computer.  No issue there.

I'm at a loss why every device I attempt to playback Emby content on in my living room is now being severely limited.  Prime and Netflix continues to work just fine, so its not a network issues (all devices in the living room are 1Gbps Ethernet connections, no WiFi).

 I don't have any rate limits defined anywhere on the server.  And as mentioned above, I can play back content just fine from a browser on another computer using the same account.

Any ideas where the 455 Kb/s max bitrate setting is coming from?

Edited December 22, 2025 by pclausen

[ebr 16169]

7 minutes ago, pclausen said:

Any ideas where the 455 Kb/s max bitrate setting is coming from?

Do you use the beta server?

[pclausen 44]

Yes.  Docker container on TrueNAS:

Edited December 22, 2025 by pclausen

[ebr 16169]

Make sure you haven't entered something in any of the user fields that can limit or set a default bitrate.

[pclausen 44]

They are all blank or set to 4k 200 Mbps (on the client side).  Don't see anything on the server side that is not blank.

As I mentioned above, if I go to another room/device, I don't see this rate limiting issue.  In all my years of using Emby, I have never seen anything like this.

I was on 1.3.48 when I first noticed the issue and updated to 1.3.49, but it did nothing to correct the issue.  Again, issue is only in the living room across all these devices:

• Emby app on TV (TCL)
• Shield Emby App
• Shield Kodi with Emby
• HTPC running Emby
• HTPC using browser

I go to a computer in another room using a browser, no issue at all.  So I don't see how it could be a server side issue?  But then I don't see how all my clients in the living room would all be impacted by this either, which would point to the server being the only thing they have in common.

 

Edited December 22, 2025 by pclausen

[pclausen 44]

On the server I have the following:

• Emby Web Settings/Playback, Home streaming (and Chromecast)  quality is set to 4k - 200 Mbps.
• Emby Server/Network/Max simultaneous video streams - Unlimited
• Emby Server/Network/Internet streaming bitrate limit (Mbps) - Blank
• Emby Server/Transcoding/Max transcoding resolution - No limit

So where is this limit being defined?

Thanks!

[Luke 42077]

1 hour ago, pclausen said:

On the server I have the following:

• Emby Web Settings/Playback, Home streaming (and Chromecast)  quality is set to 4k - 200 Mbps.
• Emby Server/Network/Max simultaneous video streams - Unlimited
• Emby Server/Network/Internet streaming bitrate limit (Mbps) - Blank
• Emby Server/Transcoding/Max transcoding resolution - No limit

So where is this limit being defined?

Thanks!

HI, I would check the settings in the Emby android app that you're playing with and see if that helps.

[Neminem 1518]

In your user config on the server, there is this new feature.

I know it says Auto Remote, but try playing with that.

[Neminem 1518]

just testing this in lan.

And is does set the Auto to 1Mbps for my web client even on lan.

This is from transcoding logs.

"IsRemote":false,"HasMixedProtocols":false,"

ffmpeg-transcode-8cc91370-6403-480a-ad26-27e4050e5b04_1.txtembyserver.txt

Setting the settings to 10Mbps

Is this supposed to apply to local Lan also?

Edited December 22, 2025 by Neminem

[pclausen 44]

@Neminem  Thank you for the detailed response.

So my streaming devices in the living room are indeed on a different VLAN than my Emby server: (server is on the Main VLAN)

So I tried doing this initially:

Restarted Emby server, but still the same issue.  I then changed the VLAN that the HTPC is on to Main, and after rebooting the HTPC to pickup a "local" IP Address, everything started working like it should.

So just adding my IoT to the list of LAN networks by itself does not seem to be enough to solve the issue it seems?  When I get a chance, I'll try populating the "Local IP address" with that of my Emby server to see if that does the trick.

Thanks!

 

Edited December 22, 2025 by pclausen

[ebr 16169]

13 hours ago, Neminem said:

Is this supposed to apply to local Lan also?

It should only apply to remote connections.

@pclausenIf your app is set to "auto" and is being interpreted as remote then the new setting would apply and, if not filled in, then the app is doing a bitrate test.  If that's what's happening, then it would appear your living room has a really bad connection for some reason.

[pclausen 44]

@ebr The switch in the living room has a solid 1 Gbps connection to my core switch that the Emby server is connected to.  I have tested this from both the IoT and Main VLAN, and the speed is consistent.

Is the bitrate test based on the assumption that the Emby server is connected at 1 Gbps?  I ask because my server is connected to my core switch at 25 Gbps, so maybe that is throwing off the calculations?

As stated above, I was experiencing the issue using a web browser as well when on the IoT network.  I have since switched all my Emby clients all around the house to the Main VLAN and the issue is gone.  But at some point I would like to be able to be on different VLANs/subnets and not be bitrate limited.  I was not able to get it working by fiddling with the network config within Emby server, so I gave up and just put all clients on the same subnet as the server.

[ebr 16169]

1 hour ago, pclausen said:

Is the bitrate test based on the assumption that the Emby server is connected at 1 Gbps?

No, there are no assumptions at all.  The app does an actual bitrate test by downloading content.

[sa2000 674]

@pclausenDid you check what this new setting is set at for the user account? could it have been inadvertantly set to 0.5 Mbps?

@Neminemhas already confirmed that the separate local subnets added into Network Settings to be treated as local are actually not being treated as such for this new user setting.

[Neminem 1518]

1 minute ago, sa2000 said:

has already confirmed that the separate local subnets added into Network Settings to be treated as local are actually not being treated as such for this new user setting.

Hmmm I think you misunderstand

Even on local lan, anything in that setting is being used...

If blank No transcoding on lan.

If set to 1Mbps in setting, lan connection is also transcoded down to 1 Mbps.

Although the wording "Auto Remote"

Either the wording is wrong, or the setting does take lan into account.

Logs are in my previous post.

[ebr 16169]

29 minutes ago, Neminem said:

Hmmm I think you misunderstand

Even on local lan, anything in that setting is being used...

If blank No transcoding on lan.

If set to 1Mbps in setting, lan connection is also transcoded down to 1 Mbps.

Although the wording "Auto Remote"

Either the wording is wrong, or the setting does take lan into account.

Logs are in my previous post.

Not sure if you have the beta of the Android TV app but that one is properly respecting local vs remote, no?

[Neminem 1518]

Ups

Edited December 23, 2025 by Neminem

[Neminem 1518]

9 minutes ago, ebr said:

Not sure if you have the beta of the Android TV app but that one is properly respecting local vs remote, no?

Well I tested on the webui that is comes with 4.9.4.1, should that not be a viable test?

Besides that.

If I were to use the old stable client without the implementation, should it not ignore the setting?

[Neminem 1518]

Sorry guys, pleas read all information before answering.

@ebrIf you had look at the supplied logs you would have known this.

App: Emby Web 4.9.4.1
Edge Windows
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/143.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 Edg/143.0.0.0

[Neminem 1518]

Further more this is in the logs

"IsRemote":false,"HasMixedProtocols":false,"

If that's true, and it is, then the setting is faulty.

See my logs from this post.

 

[ebr 16169]

I understand you've identified that issue.  I was just asking if you could confirm whether or not the Android TV beta app was NOT having that issue.  If you don't have that app, then that's fine.

[sa2000 674]

1 hour ago, ebr said:

I was just asking if you could confirm whether or not the Android TV beta app was NOT having that issue.

Just tried AndroidTV Emby Beta 2.1.30 on the Shield with user setting for "Auto remote streaming quality" set to 0.5 Mbps and appears to be working ok on the local network. Just one subnet local network. I am not setup for multiple subnets so have not tested with other subnet 

[sa2000 674]

I have to repeat that test because the Stats for Nerds are not showing it. Just tried with wifi through my phone hotspot so would be remote and stats for nerds appears to be the same - but Quality is showing as 500 Kb/s. So will repear the previous test and check this instead of Stats for Nerds

 

[sa2000 674]

Repeated the local network test with the user setting at 0.5Mbps, the Quality for playback shows as 110 Mb/s. So it appears for single subnet LAN the 2.1.30 Android TV Beta is ok

[Neminem 1518]

Testing the Android TV Beta 2.1.30 does respect the in lan and remote connection.

With the setting set to 0.5Mbps.