Photo display issue in Library view on Linux (thumbnails OK, click → black screen)

[marcsorbier 2]

Hello,

I’m experiencing an issue with Emby Server on openSUSE (tumbleweed), version 6.18.7-1-default
 

Symptoms:

• In the photo library, thumbnails display correctly.

• When I click on certain photos from the library view, I get a black screen.

• If I search for the same photo using the search function, the thumbnail displays and clicking opens the image correctly.

• The issue occurs on multiple browsers.

• The problem persists even after clearing cache, deleting metadata, and rebuilding the library.

• Image size is not a factor: some affected photos are less than 1 MB.

• Stripping EXIF/profiles from images using magick -strip does not fix the issue.

Actions already taken:

• Checked the database integrity (PRAGMA integrity_check) → OK

• Cleared cache and metadata (/var/lib/emby/cache and /var/lib/emby/metadata)

• Restarted Emby server

• Tested on multiple browsers

• Tested after stripping EXIF and ICC profiles

Additional observations:

• The issue only occurs in the library view.

• Search always works correctly.

• Logs sometimes show Interrupt query due to cancellation for certain paginated requests.

Questions / Request:

• Is this a known bug on Emby Server Linux affecting library view?

• Is there a workaround so that all photos display correctly from the normal library navigation?

• Should I consider a specific update or server-side fix?

Thank you in advance for your help.

Edited February 10 by marcsorbier

[marcsorbier 2]

Hello,

I did some additional testing:

• I changed the sort order in the library and refreshed the metadata.

• After that, one of the photos that previously didn’t display now works, but some others that were working before now show a black screen.

This confirms that the issue is intermittent and seems tied to the library rendering / pagination engine, rather than the files themselves.

• Search still works perfectly for all photos.

• The problem appears to depend on the sort order and metadata refresh, which suggests a server-side bug in the library view.

I hope this helps to reproduce the issue.

---

[visproduction 315]

Marc, 

Check and see if the images not appearing are large and possibly .png files.  I think I noticed this happen and I went through and changed the thumbnails to no larger than two times the largest thumbmnail size and made sure jpeg compression was at 24.  I think this made images no larger than 640 height and file sizes were under 60K.  Once I did that, all thumbnails appear all the time on a Windows 10 server.  I wonder if Linux is even more sensititve with time outs with large low compressed jpg or .png.  Consider you are requesting the app opens perhaps 60 images at once.  If they are mostly full res .png compared to nicely compressed jpg, you are probably requesting maybe 100 times the images sizes all at once.  Some large .png can be 3 MB compared to 60K.

Hope that helps.

[marcsorbier 2]

Thanks for the suggestion.

I also suspected image size / compression / format at first, so I went quite far in validating that angle.

I actually wrote and ran a custom cleanup / normalization script on the photo library before continuing the tests.
High-level workflow:

Validation before any modification (strict):

• If jpegtran reports the JPEG as invalid → SKIP (no modification)

• If identify fails → SKIP (no modification)

If the file is valid:

• Lossless JPEG rotation using jpegtran

• EXIF orientation cleanup

• JPEG re-encapsulation for better compatibility (Emby-friendly)

• PNG / HEIC: orientation cleanup only

Fix mode (--fix-broken

• Only processes explicitly listed files

• Automatic temporary backups (cleaned even on crash)

• Validation before and after repair

• ImageMagick recompression only as a last resort

Additional guarantees:

• No modification at all on broken files (detected before touching them)

• Atomic operations (temp files + mv)

• Script is fully re-runnable and safe

Even after this cleanup:

• The issue still occurs with small JPEG files (example ~578 KB)

• Thumbnails always load correctly

• The same image can work or fail depending on sort order or metadata refresh

• Search always opens the images correctly

Because the problem changes when sorting or refreshing metadata, and affects already normalized images, it doesn’t seem related to image size, compression, or format, but rather to the library rendering / pagination path on the server side.

Hopefully this helps narrow things down.

[Neminem 1518]

@visproductiondon't fight the AI

[marcsorbier 2]

Haha, true I’m an IT specialist, so I tend to give very detailed technical explanations—maybe a bit too verbose sometimes, but I like to make sure all the information is there for debugging!

[Luke 42077]

Hi there, please attach the Emby server log from when the problem occurred:

How to Report a Problem

Thanks!

 

[marcsorbier 2]

Hi,

Here is the log. I clicked on several photos that previously showed a black screen in the library while reproducing the issue, so there should hopefully be some traces related to the problem in this log.

Let me know if you need anything else.

thanks .

embyserver-63906423203.txt.mostly_anonymized

[Neminem 1518]

Guess you uploaded the wrong log.

The log lastes 1 min, and does not show much.

[marcsorbier 2]

Hi,

The previous short log I uploaded is post-update (from today’s server reboot). I had reproduced the black screen issue before retrieving and uploading it, so it should (but i doubt since it s really short) contain relevant traces, though it’s quite short.

This new log is from before the update. It’s much larger and covers a longer period, so it may contain more traces of the black screen issue.

Hope this helps, and let me know if you need me to capture a live log while reproducing the problem.

PS : Please ignore any access permission errors related to the media library files — those were from tests, and all file permissions are correctly set.

embyserver-63906350847.txt.anonymized

Edited February 11 by marcsorbier

[Neminem 1518]

Guess Dev's will have to answer, as I can't really make out the issue from the logs.

Sorry about not being of more help.

[marcsorbier 2]

No worries, I understand. Thanks for taking a look anyway. I hope the devs can pinpoint the issue — it seems related to the library rendering/pagination.

[Luke 42077]

Hi, are you able to update to emby server 4.9.3?

[marcsorbier 2]

did it (it's the shortest log) , but did not fix the issue.

[marcsorbier 2]

Hi,

I did some additional debugging using the browser console (F12).

After clearing the console, I clicked on a photo that results in a black screen. I then close the viewer and the following error shows in the console:

TypeError: can't access property "status", response is undefined
(emby-apiclient/apiclient.js → reportPlaybackStopped → playbackmanager.js → photoplayer/plugin.js → slideshow.js)

This seems to indicate a client-side issue in the Web player, possibly related to slideshow/playback state handling rather than a file or permission problem.

Let me know if you need the full console trace.

Edited February 11 by marcsorbier