Chromecast Exceptionally Flaky in 7100

[wyznerd 0]

Previously chromecast support was flawless.  Now I have nothing but issues with it since updating to 7100 (7200 now).

 

1.  Connections to CC don't always seem to succeed.  The CC background shows the generic emby logo, not any kind of coverart.  Going into a season / episode doesn't show the synopsis.

 

2.  Playing to CC sometimes works and sometimes doesn't.  If nothing plays, you have to disconnect and reconnect and start playing again.

 

3.  Sometimes audio starts playing for about a solid minute before video.

 

4.  On subsequent videos, the title overlay doesn't go away. 

 

This is happening on both gigabit wired connections and AC.  I'd be happy to provide whatever logs are necessary to get this figured out as it's making it incredibly frustrating to watch anything on Emby as I've pretty much standardized on CC.

[Luke 42077]

Hi, it sounds like their is a network connectivity issue with your chromecast device. You're saying connections don't always succeed, but Emby doesn't have any control over that. What we do is tell the Google Cast framework to open the Chromecast picker, and then it takes it from there in terms of establishing the connection.

[wyznerd 0]

That's what I thought too, but literally the only thing that changed was updating emby.  I watched epsiode 3 of something perfectly fine, updated emby, and then the problems started with every subsequent episode.  Two TVs with builtin CC have the issue on gigabit as does a CC on Wifi (connected N on an AC AP).

 

As for the connections not always succeeding, that's not accurate.  The CC always launches emby, but it seems as if emby doesn't fully connect to the CC.  I get the "Ready to cast Select your media in emby and play it here" screen with the emby logo, but no cover art or anything.  Pressing play on something does nothing.  Disconnecting from the CC and reconnecting makes it work for a single episode before the other weirdness starts.

Edited September 18, 2016 by wyznerd

[wyznerd 0]

I setup a quick plex install to test that out.  It doesn't have any of the issues that emby does.

 

Is there anything I can do to gather more information?  I really want to stick with emby, but it's essentially unusable with the current issues I'm having.

[Luke 42077]

I can't reproduce the problem. Emby is really not involved in the connectivity aspect. Since you opened this topic I immediately started testing and I'm already on my 3rd 30-minute episode with no issues. Only thing I can think of is check the ip address displayed on the front page of the server dashboard. that is the address the app will pass to the CC receiver to try and connect to the server with.

[wyznerd 0]

I appreciate you looking into it.

I've done everything I can to narrow down what the issue is.  

 

1.  Other apps (youtube, Plex, Playon) all work nicely with CC.  Videos load near instantaneously and continuous viewing works fine.

2.  A fresh install in a docker container exhibits the exact same issue after scanning in the same video library.

3.  Wireless or wired, the issue remains.

4. After a restart of emby, the first video works flawlessly and on the first try.  Subsequent videos do not.

 

Is it possible to roll back to a previous version for testing?  It looks like you guys remove previous versions from the repo, so it doesn't appear possible to go back to 6400.  Is there a .deb or something somewhere that I could grab to test?

 

One thing that I have noticed from my logs is that the Kodi Sync plugin complains about database locking and a library scan will not complete if the sync plugin is enabled.   It also appears that the sync plugin is incapable of doing its cleanup thing because of the same locking.  Is it possible that DB locks are causing some sort of issue?  That would, seemingly, explain number 4 above.   I haven't figured out yet if the queue sync plugin is causing the db locks or if something else is causing the locks and the plugin is the canary.

[Luke 42077]

Well you could try removing all plugins and seeing if the issue persists with the core server. Also also please provide a server log when it happens, thanks.

 

https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/739-how-to-report-a-problem/

[wyznerd 0]

I actually just found the 6400 deb in the apt archives and rolled back (should have looked there...duh).  Initial testing of things that have broken CC are working now--for example, in 7100 after stopping a video, I would have to disconnect, reconnect, then start the next video otherwise it wouldn't actually play.  Also verified that continuous play is working (started a video, FF to 1 min before end and let it play through).  Looks like the issues I've had in 7100/7200 are gone with the rollback.

 

I'll test a bit more to verify that things are working as I would expect then update to 7200 again.  I'll post logs as soon as I upgrade again.