Docker, Synology, Path Substitution and Transcoding

[JohnyB 0]

I'm running a Synology DS1515+ and I've started using Emby inside a Docker container having become so fed up with Plex, but I'm struggling with a couple of issues. I've tried searching on these issues but I'm not having much luck. Playback is mainly through an Amazon Fire TV and the Emby app, or through Safari.

 

Transcoding

 

Transcoding appears to happen permanently instead of directly playing, I've configured the path substitution to move /media/TV -> smb://ipaddress/Media/TV. I've also checked to see that the path shown in Emby in the web browser is correct:

 

smb://192.168.0.1/Media/TV/Series A/Season 5/Episode Name HDTV-720p.mkv

 

This is only a problem really because occasionally I get stuttering on the video as I watch it, high CPU utilisation and can make it entirely unwatchable.

 

Local IP Address

 

The IP address reported by Emby is a 172.x.x.x address, that comes from the Docker container, and it changes on every launch. This appears to cause issues with the Amazon Fire TV app and utterly prevents connection if https is enabled.

 

I can't change or force the IP address as it seems to be a limitation on how Synology have implemented it, e.g. the --net switch is not allowed in the Docker run command.

 

Domain Name with HTTPS

 

A similar issue occurs if https is enabled and the external WAN address has a domain name in it. In this case the webpage just refuses to respond.

 

Any help would be appreciated.

[Luke 42077]

The second one isn't a major problem. You can workaround that by manually entering your local ip address within the fire app.

 

As far as transcoding in the browser, yes that's going to happen because browsers have limited format support. If something is transcoding that you think should be direct playing, please provide a more detailed example.

 

As far as the domain name, you can enter a custom external address under the Advanced section. What page exactly doesn't respond?

[JohnyB 0]

Hi Luke,

 

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly! Transcoding appears to be happening with the Fire TV app too, I'm struggling to understand if I have the path redirect setup correctly or not. I've attached the transcoding log for something I was just watching, it started fine but after pausing and resuming it began to skip heavily. Log.txt

 

I've also attached the server log in case that helps too? Server Log.txt

 

HTTPS/FQDN issue

 

With the WAN address set, I can attempt to browse to either http or https with that as the domain name and it simply hangs, in the sense that it never gets to a page. DNS is set correctly for the LAN and the fqdn resolves to the real LAN ip address of the Emby server (192.x.x.x instead of 172.x.x.x). This works for other apps like SABnzbd.

 

With Report https as external address enabled browsing to the http://<<ipaddress>>:8096 works fine, browsing to https://<<ipaddress>>, is also fine but https://<<fqdn>>:8920  does not respond, it responds

 

"Safari can't open the page https://<<fqdn>>:8920 because Safari cannot establish a secure connection..."

 

Also with Report set to on the Fire TV cannot find the Emby server.

 

Does that help?

[Luke 42077]

what kind of ssl cert are you using? are you using the server's built-in cert? the built-in cert is self signed and we still need to update some apps to work with self-signed (untrusted) certs. if it's your own cert, then of course browsing should only work using the address the cert is tied to.

[JohnyB 0]

what kind of ssl cert are you using? are you using the server's built-in cert? the built-in cert is self signed and we still need to update some apps to work with self-signed (untrusted) certs. if it's your own cert, then of course browsing should only work using the address the cert is tied to.

Its the self signed certificate, I would have expected it to work in the browser though?

[Luke 42077]

yes it should work in the browser, but it is tied to the address so it is only going to work using the external wan address that is displayed on the server dashboard. that is why you should change that if you need to. Looking at the configuration page, we'll need to add some help text for that.

[JohnyB 0]

yes it should work in the browser, but it is tied to the address so it is only going to work using the external wan address that is displayed on the server dashboard. that is why you should change that if you need to. Looking at the configuration page, we'll need to add some help text for that.

Ok they are set correctly, the FQDN is the same as the WAN address.

[JohnyB 0]

yes it should work in the browser, but it is tied to the address so it is only going to work using the external wan address that is displayed on the server dashboard. that is why you should change that if you need to. Looking at the configuration page, we'll need to add some help text for that.

It works with the IP address and the secure port, but not when using the domain name over https and I know DNS is correctly pointing to the IP address.