App Issues with Samsung TV

[kamikaze_worm86 3]

Hi,

I reported another issue with sound last week but i noticed another problem. 

Since the lastest and last update for my samsung TV, when I use Emby it works for about an hour. After sometime whatever I am watching will start to lag. The TV is unresponsive. Menu Volume everything. Only way to fix it is to power it off at mains and then it once back on it will work again for the same ammount of time. I tested the same on other apps on the same TV and it does not do this. I have reset the entire TV but same issue persisits.

 

Firmware Version of TV is 2740.1

Can I get some help on this one?

Thanks

Edited Sunday at 08:34 PM by kamikaze_worm86
Missed Info

[FrostByte 5549]

Can you provide the server and any transcode logs to assist the devs?

[kamikaze_worm86 3]

@FrostByte- Sorry for the radio silence. Had some non emby bits going on 

 

Attached is the embylogs. This is the only log with the current date and time where the issue just occured. Incidently I left some eppisodes running on the TV while I did other things and it was working fine when I came back around 22:40 noticed it had done it again. In the Emby logs there is an error at 22:27. I left the TV working last around 22:22. Could be unrelated but thought I would flag. 

To add other notes I have tested the samsung TV with another streaming app and it does not cause this issue. Samsung could find no issues with the TV too. 

If you need anything else let me know.

Thanks

embyserver.txt

[SamES 1119]

If you're not using it, you can disable/remove the Port Mapper plugin from the server. I don't know if that will fix your issue. It's possible that you have a network issue which could be causing both the playback and Port Mapper issues (although the later is not uncommon)

How is the TV connected to the network?  Wired or wireless? 2.4GHz or 5GHz wifi? Does it have a good and reliable connection?

[kamikaze_worm86 3]

Hi @SamES

Not sure what it used for but I do have remote access setup (if that's what it used for).

It's on WiFi 6 and the router is literally through the very thin wall. I have a other Samsung TV upstairs thats also on WiFi and further away which does not get this issue. 

 

Thanks 

[SamES 1119]

It’s used to automatically open and forward ports on your router for remote access using uPnP. It depends on whether you are using this to configure your remote connection, or if you are doing this manually in your router. 
 

Just make sure that the TV is connected to the correct wifi band. I’ve seen some drop back to 2.4GHz and cause issues. 

[kamikaze_worm86 3]

Defintley on 5Ghz and as said it doesn't do this on the other Samsung TV. 

Very strange. It might be that I have to buy a streaming stick and do it that way as its just not usuable via the samsung emby app.

[SamES 1119]

Is it happening with all files/media types?

I would try the next server and client release.

You could also try fully uninstalling the app from the TV (don't just remove it from the home screen), then turn off the TV for a few minutes then reinstall.  That will make sure it's not related to a bad install.

[kamikaze_worm86 3]

@SamES - Let me do some more testing on files but I think it is. I will confirm later / tomorrow.

I did remove the app and even reset the TV to factory settings.

 

Appreciate your help on this!

[kamikaze_worm86 3]

Hi @SamES

Did some more testing and tried to work out a pattern. Below is a clean update on the problem and tests.

Symptoms

• Playback starts normally.
• After a period of time (often after multiple episodes), video becomes increasingly sluggish, eventually dropping to what looks like less than 1 FPS.
• The TV itself becomes slow to respond.
• Pause/stop commands often do not respond.
• On a couple of occasions the screen has gone black and the TV has ended up back on live TV.
• A full power cycle at the mains restores normal operation.

Server-side observations

• Emby server logs appear clean.
• Playback sessions continue to report progress normally.
• I have not found any transcoding errors, ffmpeg failures, media read errors, storage errors, or network-related playback failures in the logs.
• All affected playback is Direct Play.

Additional testing

• I initially suspected the downstairs Samsung TV itself, but I have now tested the same problematic files on a second Samsung TV:
• Different Samsung model
• Different firmware version
• Same Emby server

Patterns

It is not locked to MKV files (some don't do this from other TV programs), Below is the info from media info. I found two different programs doing it both with exact same Video file DNA. 

• MKV
• H.264/AVC
• High@L5
• 1920×1080
• 23.976 fps
• AAC-LC stereo
• 5 reference frames
• WS Matroska Muxer

To me it feels like a memory leak given it completley breaks the TV and thr only way to bring it out of this to power cycle the TV.

 

[SamES 1119]

3 hours ago, kamikaze_worm86 said:

Additional testing

• I initially suspected the downstairs Samsung TV itself, but I have now tested the same problematic files on a second Samsung TV:
• Different Samsung model
• Different firmware version
• Same Emby server

Thanks for the detailed testing and summary. So just confirming that the same problem occurs with both TV's? What models are they?

How long do you have to watch something before the problems start?

Do you think that it is time based? For example, watching 3x30min episodes one after the other or matching 90 minutes of a movie causes the same problem, or do you think it is about switching episodes, ie: 3x10 minutes episodes has the same issues as 3x30min episodes?

The problem is that if I can't easily reproduce this, it's going to be very hard to diagnose.

Can you suggest the best way for me to reproduce this, and how long do I have to be watching to experience the problem?

Are you enabling any subtitles?

Can you please send me a PM with a link to download those two files that you can reproduce the issue on?  At least with those I can be confident that I should see the issue.

Thanks

[kamikaze_worm86 3]

@SamES

Information requested

Model TVs are

• qe55q80 running 2740.1
• Samsung The Frame from 2022 running same firmware.

 

Usualy its between the end of eppisode 1 and the end of 2 with all of the files being around 45 mins. Yep understand your position. Today I have done a lot more testing and I think I have found the cause or pattern. 

Its this

WS Matroska Muxer

I had some files that were 720p for the same TV series so I ran that test this morning. No issues 5 eppisodes in. This is because I already watched season 1 and 2 and then i upgraded the rest to 1080p files but one thing all the crashed files have is they use WS Matroska Muxer. To confirm this I went and found some new files that used this to encode (Forgive me if my undestanding is off). Completely different show, different drive and yet same result. I  will send you some files as you requested. 

 

[SamES 1119]

7 hours ago, kamikaze_worm86 said:

@SamES

Information requested

Model TVs are

• qe55q80 running 2740.1
• Samsung The Frame from 2022 running same firmware.

 

Usualy its between the end of eppisode 1 and the end of 2 with all of the files being around 45 mins. Yep understand your position. Today I have done a lot more testing and I think I have found the cause or pattern. 

Its this

WS Matroska Muxer

I had some files that were 720p for the same TV series so I ran that test this morning. No issues 5 eppisodes in. This is because I already watched season 1 and 2 and then i upgraded the rest to 1080p files but one thing all the crashed files have is they use WS Matroska Muxer. To confirm this I went and found some new files that used this to encode (Forgive me if my undestanding is off). Completely different show, different drive and yet same result. I  will send you some files as you requested. 

 

Thanks, I'll take a quick look at the files, but I suspect you may have found a cause. That is the sort of thing that can cause these weird issues and I've seen similar in the past.

When it's DirectPlay, the actual playback is handled directly by the Samsung AV Player, we just give it a url to the original source. In this sense, if there is a memory leak in the player related to a specific type of encoding then there is not much that we can do about it.  If everything else plays fine, then the file encoding sounds like the culprit.  Generally, the TV based players (vs VLC, etc) are mose sensitive to bad codings

[kamikaze_worm86 3]

Hi @SamES

Don't worry about the files. I will try and find others that are encoded differently. A pain but no more than that.

I really do appreciate the help on this one.

Dave