NVENC is not detected

[MischievousMet 0]

After upgrading to v4. I have not been able to use hardware acceleration for encoding. Below are steps I have taken.

 

I've tried a fresh install of Emby with no data from previous versions/libraries.

I tried 3 of the latest Nvidia drivers (using DDU to uninstall).

I've used MediaCoder to ensure that NVENC can be used.

I also attached my server logs.

I am an Emby Premiere Subscriber.

 

Hardware:

i7 4770k

GTX 970

GTX 780

 

Thanks in advance for any help I can get.

 

I also attached my server logs.

embyserver.txt

hardware_detection-63683602043.txt

[Luke 42077]

@@softworkz

[softworkz 5066]

After upgrading to v4. I have not been able to use hardware acceleration for encoding. Below are steps I have taken.

 

I've tried a fresh install of Emby with no data from previous versions/libraries.

I tried 3 of the latest Nvidia drivers (using DDU to uninstall).

I've used MediaCoder to ensure that NVENC can be used.

I also attached my server logs.

I am an Emby Premiere Subscriber.

 

Hardware:

i7 4770k

GTX 970

GTX 780

 

Thanks in advance for any help I can get.

 

I also attached my server logs.

 

For the Intel Graphics, it seems that there is not monitor connected to it, right?

 

 

For Nvidia, there's an error occuring.

 

Could you please run the following command from the command line:

C:\ProgramData\Emby\system\ffdetect.exe -hide_banner -show_program_version -loglevel 99 -show_error -show_log 99 -print_format json nvencdec

Thanks

[MischievousMet 0]

For the Intel Graphics, it seems that there is not monitor connected to it, right?

 

 

For Nvidia, there's an error occuring.

 

Could you please run the following command from the command line:

C:\ProgramData\Emby\system\ffdetect.exe -hide_banner -show_program_version -loglevel 99 -show_error -show_log 99 -print_format json nvencdec

Thanks

 

You're correct, I do not have a monitor connected to my iGPU. Before the update to v4, I would use my 780 for hardware acceleration so when others watch movies, it wouldn't hinder my gaming. So I can verify that it did work prior to the update.

 

I attached the output of what you asked me to run.

new 1.txt

[softworkz 5066]

That output looks great.

 

The question is now: Why doesn't Emby server get this output...?

 

Is Emby server running under a different user account? Maybe with restricted privileges? Are you running Emby as a service?

[Luke 42077]

@@softworkz i can see from the command line in his server log that he is not running as a service.

[MischievousMet 0]

That output looks great.

 

The question is now: Why doesn't Emby server get this output...?

 

Is Emby server running under a different user account? Maybe with restricted privileges? Are you running Emby as a service?

 

I'm the only user with full admin privileges on this PC and it is not running as a service.

[softworkz 5066]

Could you please try to start the server again and post the hw detection log?

[MischievousMet 0]

Could you please try to start the server again and post the hw detection log?

Hopefully this helps.

hardware_detection-63683626256.txt

[softworkz 5066]

Thank you very much.

 

It is still failing when called from Emby. Let's check the exit code from the command line:

C:\ProgramData\Emby\system\ffdetect.exe -hide_banner -show_program_version -loglevel 99 -show_error -show_log 99 -print_format json nvencdec

echo %errorlevel%

That's the same command as above. Afterwards execute the second line to check the exit code.

Thanks again.

[MischievousMet 0]

 

Thank you very much.

 

It is still failing when called from Emby. Let's check the exit code from the command line:

C:\ProgramData\Emby\system\ffdetect.exe -hide_banner -show_program_version -loglevel 99 -show_error -show_log 99 -print_format json nvencdec

echo %errorlevel%

That's the same command as above. Afterwards execute the second line to check the exit code.

Thanks again.

 

Output attached.

new 2.txt

[softworkz 5066]

Thank you. We'll need to investigate this a bit. Everything appears to work fine actually, I need to see where the exit code might come from..

[Luke 42077]

When you restarted the server did you by any chance reboot the whole machine?

[MischievousMet 0]

When you restarted the server did you by any chance reboot the whole machine?

I did reboot the PC. I also just ran sfc /scannow in hopes that maybe that would do the trick, but no luck.

[Luke 42077]

@@softworkz is it possible the detection happened too early, before system resources had loaded?

[MischievousMet 0]

@@softworkz is it possible the detection happened too early, before system resources had loaded?

I have tested OBS and MediaCoder with NVENC and there isn't any issues with them. It seems to be localized with Emby for some reason.

 

I have 2 SSDs in RAID 0. It does boot and load my startup software pretty quick.

If detecting is happening before the resources load, wouldn't restarting Emby fix this? Or would I have to delay it on boot somehow?

[Luke 42077]

 

 

If detecting is happening before the resources load, wouldn't restarting Emby fix this?

Yes it would.

[MischievousMet 0]

Yes it would.

I think we can rule that out. The multiple times I've tried that, didn't seem to do anything.

[softworkz 5066]

@@softworkz is it possible the detection happened too early, before system resources had loaded?

 

No, because the last thing we tried was checking the exit code when running from the command line and it was the same negative value that we got when Emby runs it.

 

The weird thing is that it happens at the very end of detection when everything has been detected fine and even the closing JSON brackets have been written out correctly.

From that point on there's actually no more function call that could cause that exit code. (well at least I haven't found one yet...)

[MischievousMet 0]

I'm not home to be able to give it a try, but would disabling the iGPU in UEFI possibly help or attaching a monitor to it?

Maybe the iGPU being enabled but not active is causing an issue?

[Luke 42077]

Yes try attaching a monitor first, see if that changes anything. Then if not you can play with enabling/disabling it. Please let us know how you get on. Thanks! 

[MischievousMet 0]

I tried several different configurations.

Both GPUs with iGPU connected: Only QSV encoder available.

Both GPUS and iGPU disabled: No change from before.

Only iGPU plugged in: Only QSV for enc/dec

Only 970 plugged in: Only DXVA2 dec with no enc

Only 780 plugged in: Only DXVA2 dec with no enc

 

The logs were very much the same as was the error with detect.

I'll keep trying some things on my side, but come this weekend I'll do a fresh install of Windows as a last resort and see if that fixes it.

[MischievousMet 0]

Just went and did a fresh install of Windows.

the very first thing I did was install the latest Nvidia drivers and then I installed Emby and I'm getting the exact same issue.

I ran ffdetect and it's still giving me -1073741818

 

The last thing I could think to try is reinstall 3.5 and see if that works. Otherwise, I'm out of ideas.

[MischievousMet 0]

Final update until a fix can be found:

Went back to 3.5.3 and encoding works flawlessly on the Nvidia GPU.

I turned off automatic updates and yet it updates to v4 breaking hardware encoding for me.

I installed the latest beta and I have the same issue as the latest stable.

 

I just came to Emby last week and I prefer it to Plex handsdown as do my friends I have on my server. However without hardware encoding, I can't benefit from it.

 

Sorry to go, Emby, but I'll be checking in every now and then in hopes of a fix.

[Carlo 4560]

Same or different version of ffdetect.exe between 3.x and 4.x versions?

If different what happens if you use the version from 3.x while 4.x is installed?

(suggesting this only for diagnostic purposes)