Emby Remote Access is Really Slow

[FishFish 0]

I did some research on Google before posting this, but the solutions didn't cover me...

I have recently created an Emby Server. As it is natural I also enabled the remote access functionality and set a password to access it. The server is running on a quite underpowered 4core windows mini PC (cpu:intel N3450). I didn't get my hopes up from the beginning of this, since I knew that the CPU might be insufficient for the encoding and stuff. However, I noticed that the server doesn't use any substantial amount of CPU when enough bandwidth is available. That bring me to the main issue here. When using the server locally, I can steam anything, even a 1080p movie. No decoding and stuff is necessary after all. My internet connection is decent-ish... 50mbps Down, 5 Mbps Up (it's fast enough by Greece's standards). With 5Mbps, I should be able to stream a 1,5GB 1,5Hours long movie without any problem whatsoever (and without any encoding/decoding stuff, but instead direct stream). So I tried to test it using the internet connection of a friend of mine, who's having the same speeds as I do (50/5). The movie file never started... I thought that the 1080p might be a little too much, I thought encoding and stuff got in the way for some reason. Then I tried with a 720p file. Same story... I decided I wouldn't use Emby for movies, since it won't work properly. I thought that it would be nice to use it for my music collection. And so I tried to stream a music file. This time the file started after quite some time. It plays for two-three seconds and pauses for one (as if it buffers), again plays for 2-3 seconds, pauses for 1 and that goes on and on. If I return to the start of the song it plays without any pauses untill it reaches a point where it starts to pause again. That behavior indicates buffering. But Hey! The song is just 320kbps. By checking my PC at the time of remotely streaming the music file, I saw there was no significant CPU usage from any Emby or ffpegthingy process. 5Mbps should be enough for a 320kbps track. What is happening here?

[arche 177]

Make sure to include a server log to help the devs investigate your issue.

 

Give a read here to help out the Emby team https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/739-how-to-report-a-problem/

[Luke 42080]

Hi, yes can we please look at an example? Thanks !

[FishFish 0]

And that's a quite active forum O_O Sorry for being late, I will now try to stream a song and then give you the server log text. (assuming I can find it :-D ). Although there is a major issue right now... I got no other internet connection to test the issue... I could try and do it using 3G/4G data connection, but I don't really have proper coverage in my house :-D Anyways, testing it now.

[FishFish 0]

I am using the emby server android app for this test by the way, on my smartphone. I says on my PC that my post is being saved, so I guess it will be uploaded sooner or later...

[Luke 42080]

Can you please attach the emby server and ffmpeg log from an example session? You can learn how to do that here:

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

 

Thanks !

[FishFish 0]

I hope this is what you need, cause I really didn't understand where and how can or should send you the file O_O

embyserver.txt

[FishFish 0]

Terribly sorry, wrong log file

[FishFish 0]

I was testing some stuff on my main desktop and got carried away... I now send you the right log file. Sorry about that...

embyserver.txt

Edited December 25, 2018 by FishFish

[FishFish 0]

The problem if any, should appear at the last minutes of the log file, since I was streaming a song then.

[Luke 42080]

Hi, so you're using our android mobile app with an external player? is that correct?

[FishFish 0]

When it comes to video files yes, since thw internal player lags a little more than I like. When it comes to musox though, I use the player of the Emby app.

[FishFish 0]

When it comes to video files yes, since the internal player lags a little more than I like. When it comes to music though, I use the player of the Emby app. I have also tried to stream video files using chrome on a windows computer with the default Emby media player, but the results were the same there too (the video wasn't starting).

Edited December 26, 2018 by FishFish

[Luke 42080]

Can you give an example of where you feel the internal video player lags? thanks.

[FishFish 0]

When using it both on my TV Box (x96 max (4GB RAM 64GB internal storage variant)) and/or my Android Smartphone (Xiaomi Redmi Note 4X (mediatek variant)) some stutters will appear every few seconds. The video pleyback when using the internal video player is not completely smooth. I have tested several external players. Most (if not all) of them didn't have any stutters. WIth that being said tho, some of them were really slow when trying to scroll to the timeline (or is it called timebar? I don't know, I am Greek xD) of the file, or some others would straight up crash. WIth my limited testing, I came to the conclusion that VLC player was the best and most snappy of them all (I like MX Player and I use it as my main Android media player, but it didn't work well with emby so... VLC it is)

[Luke 42080]

Can you retry with the latest update to the mobile android app? Thanks !

[FishFish 0]

Retry streaming a song via remote access? Or retry streaming a video file locally using the internal video player? I'll do both and let you know.

[FishFish 0]

The remote access music playback still has bufferstops every 1-2 seconds... The video playback using the internal player will be tested later today, vecause I have no access to my tv box right now.

[Luke 42080]

Have you tried lowering the music streaming quality setting?

[FishFish 0]

To be honest no... but why should I? :/ I mean, I'd like to listen to it at the maximum quality available. After all it's just a mere 320kbps mp3 format :/

I've just tested it however... I was able to get a consistent playback without buffer stops only when using 96kbps quality and below... Anything above that was having buffer issues (although my connection was at least 1Mbps (using 3G data in order to use the remote access feature)

 

When it comes to video playback using the internal player, it stutters on my smartphone and it majorly lags on my tv box... No lags or stutters when using external players (but my tv box is kind of not state of the art optimized for anything (software wise), so I don't really mind)