Movies just blink don't play

[Heinrich 1]

I've struggled with this for three hours! Uncle!

 

A few days back my crashplan / emby server crashed and wouldn't boot. I wanted to take out the drives and uninstall Crashplan anyway, so that forced my hand. The only way I got Windows 10 to boot on that server was to go to "install but keep documents" on the advanced recovery tab. System restore, automatically diagnose just wouldn't work (but safe mode did.) I couldn't after a couple of hours figure out what application between safe mode working and not booting was the culprit.

 

Upon wiping the system, last night I installed the .10 beta that's up now. 

 

On the Kodi side, between 2 Android TVs, and 2 different Kodi Windows devices (one on 17.3 and the other 17.6 - androids 17.6 both) I just kept getting crashes when trying to log into Emby. Between changing the Emby server name, various 'reset local database' hit 'default button' and 'generate a new device ID' I eventually got past those many, many, many crashes on those devices. Yes, all those devices crashed at the same point in the same way. This has happened to me a few times before when I have done an Emby reinstall. There's something about the Kodi plugin that is buggy. But with an hour or so of persistence I can get through it (frustratingly.)

 

Finally I allowed the databases to rebuild.

 

Eventually I got everything back (including unwatched / inprogress for TV shows only) and TV shows play just fine. But on the Movies side, my unwatched / watched flags are wrong. My server is correct though using the :8096 URL. However, I can't find a movie that will actually play. On all four of those devices, all movies - .iso, folder, 3d., 4k , the screen flashes but they don't play. In :8096 in the browser they say "no compatible streams are deteced." 

 

I also downgraded back to 3.2.70.0 but it's made no difference. I just don't know what to do any more.

 

 

emby error log.txt

[Heinrich 1]

Oh - the movies play when I right click the ISO and choose 'play with PowerDVD' just fine also.

[Luke 42090]

Hi, you're saying these are iso files? These are not supported in the browser. You will need to play them from an emby app that natively supports iso.

 

I would suggest converting to mkv video files.

[Heinrich 1]

I could care less about playing in the browser. I only did it for troubleshooting. i didn't realize that it wasn't supported. Blu-ray folders aren't working in the browser either. My iso's working great on my primary device - Zidoo X9S until last night after re-install. That's what I really wan't to go back to - getting those working on the Zidoo X92 & Himedia Q5 Pro where they have been running for a year.

Edited February 4, 2018 by Heinrich

[ebr 16207]

And both of these devices are using Kodi and the Emby plug-in?

 

Sounds like probably a network access issue where you didn't re-define either the "Optional Network Path" on the libraries properly or the network access to those paths is not setup.

[Heinrich 1]

There may be some sort of bizarre network issue sure. I struggle so hard when I go through this just trying to connect. Just now, I decided perhaps to go back to the old server name. It was WHS2011 but I changed it through this process above as one troubleshooting step to "Emby Server." I just changed it back. When I go through something like that it can take me an hour to reconnect. I hit defaults. I hit "change device ID." When the banner pops up that says "welcome to Emby" and it's got a white icon I know I'm not connected. Success when green icon and then I get the DEFAULT / NATIVE paths button. But it can take an hour of fiddling and retrying in circles disabling, resetting, reinstalling to get to that part. I go back and forth between manual and Emby Connect and finally it eventually catches. It's infuriating. I don't know what I could do to possibly eliminate that. (Sometimes the Kodi app will just crash out totally - and when it does that it doesn't matter if it's windows 17.3, 17.6 or Android TV 17.6 2 devices.) I KNOW the username and password. I don't change that around. I know the server name and network credentials. That isn't rocket science and I haven't changed them in a year other than the Emby Server today trying to get this back up and running.

Edited February 4, 2018 by Heinrich

[Heinrich 1]

So that did the trick. After struggling for only 10 minutes to reconnect once I renamed "Emby Server" back to WHS2011 and going in a few circles to reconnect from Kodi, the trick this time was 'disable / enable.' (Sometimes it's to hit defaults. Sometimes it's uninstall. Sometimes it's the "manual" button. Sometimes it's adding the actual IP address instead of letting it fill out on it's own. Sometimes it's adding HTTP to the server name. Sometimes it's farting 3 times and drinking a beer and then a sip of water and it will reconnect.)

 

Apparently if you have the network name set to WHS2011 (in my case) and input into Network Credentials and "Emby Server" as the Emby Server name (within 8096 / edit button) that just won't work. Perhaps I need to give "Emby Server" user permissions on the server console - that's one thing I didn't do.