Server uploading slow / HttpServer SocketException

[ralnor 1]

Hi

I'm looking for troubleshooting help regarding my server not uploading fast enough when watching remotely.

I have my emby-server set up on an old laptop running pop-os on a 50/50 Mb/s connection. The media files are on a NAS on the local network. When watching on my local network, be that using my LG Smart TV (wifi) or using firefox on my PC (cable) everything works smoothly and reliably. I also have my server set up for remote viewing with it's own domain name and a nginx server as a reverse proxy.

Whenever someone tries watching something remotely the upload will never go above ~5MB/s and often stays below that. (I get the speed from the stats for nerds, the linux system monitor of my server and from my home routers network monitoring webui)

I don't know what is limiting my server. I did this for troubleshooting:

 

 

• Do a speedtest on the client device to confirm sufficient download speed
• Do a speedtest on the server device to confirm sufficient upload speed.
• Access emby directly through ip:8096 instead of my domain to eliminate the reverse proxy as the issue.
• Create a new test Library with Media locally on the laptop to eliminate accessing the NAS being the issue.
• Connected to my local network through a VPN when remote resulted in good playback (just minor stuttering)

While creating this post I took a first look at the log and can constantly find HttpServer SocketException during the playback time.

 

The attached log is me trying to watch a video file from the local HDD not the NAS but through the reverse proxy (when remote)
Here are some timestamps at what time I tried doing what, to help navigate the log.

~14:51:00 playing locally without issues.
~14:52:10 playing same file remotely on same device. Failing with error message "Playback Error No compatible streams are currently available. Please try again later or contact your system administrator for details."
~14:53:40 playing on mobile phone remotely with strong stuttering

Any help with explaining the SocketException / slow speed is appreciated

Edited March 3, 2020 by ralnor

[Luke 42083]

Hi, did you try setting the quality manually in the app?

[ralnor 1]

You mean in profile settings -> Playback right?
I just now tried it. Set it to 1080p - 50Mbps.
The test file with only 720p ~10Mb (Original Quality) still has the same issues :/

btw, I always make sure the playback is DirectStream / DirectPlay since the laptop i'm using as a server isn't powerful enough to transcode most files in realtime.

Edited March 3, 2020 by ralnor

[Luke 42083]

What do you mean by same issues?

[ralnor 1]

Mostly the video playing with strong stuttering (plays 1 second, stops for 10 seconds (or longer), then plays 1 or 2 seconds again only to stop again and so on)

Sometimes failing with error message "Playback Error No compatible streams are currently available. Please try again later or contact your system administrator for details."

 

[Luke 42083]

I think you will need to lower the quality setting more so that it transcodes. Stuttering is almost always a sign that the bitrate is too high.

[ralnor 1]

My server and client both have the network bandwidth to stream it in original quality.
As I said: My network has a 50MBps Upload and I confirmed it multiple times with speedtests or just general usage tests.
Also before I started using emby, like many others I used Plex, but it had too many other issues for me, but remote watching wasn't one of them.

 

I don't want to come off wrong when mentioning plex, the only reason I mention it, is to prove that my server is capable of serving all my media in original quality.
I really want to use emby, and would like to find a solution to my problem.

Also: If I VPN into my own home network where the server is located I can watch without issue. (but that is not a viable solution I want to use, since I don't want to give friends and family member VPN access into my home network)

The issue here is that for some reason my emby server is not utitlizing it's upload bandwith, it's not even using 10% of it. And I don't know why.





 

Edited March 3, 2020 by ralnor

[Luke 42083]

There could be ISP throttling at play here, coming from either side of the connection. That's becoming increasingly common now.

[ralnor 1]

That's not the case since other services run fine (Plex, Jellyfin)

I feel like we're both at a loss here and my server might just have some weird misconfiguration.

I'll might reinstall the whole OS and emby when I find the time for that.

If you don't mind I'd like one question answered: what's the SocketException? When is it usually thrown? If you could elaborate on that, that might help me identify the issue.

[Luke 42083]

 

 

what's the SocketException?

That just means the client has suddenly disconnected.

[Luke 42083]

You could try using different public facing ports and see if that has an impact.

[pir8radio 1312]

you said you use nginx.   is it a reverse proxy for your emby too?   What is it running on a full PC or a pi or something like that?   do you have the same issues when you disable nginx and have the router pointed directly to emby?

[ralnor 1]

Thanks for the all the input

• I tried a different port, but that didn't help.
• Yes nginx is used as a reverse proxy for emby, but I already made sure it's not the cause of my issues. I deactivated nginx, changed the settings around and accessed the server directly. Made no difference
• It's running on a seven year old laptop with a i5-4200U btw. Not powerful but no pi either.

But that probably doesn't matter anymore since I fixed my problems by reinstalling the OS. I went with Xubuntu instead of pop!_os this time which seems to work a lot better out of the box for this machine.

 

Not saying pop!_os was the issue, but not using it may have helped in my specific case here, haha
 

[Luke 42083]

That's interesting, thanks for the feedback !