Transcode Throttle appears to be broken

[xsnipuhx 4]

Reporting back.

 

New install of Windows 10 ltsc. Transcode throttle still broken. And it appears to be freezing and skipping now on direct play/streams.

[Happy2Play 9780]

1 minute ago, xsnipuhx said:

Reporting back.

 

New install of Windows 10 ltsc. Transcode throttle still broken. And it appears to be freezing and skipping now on direct play/streams.

Only on Chromecast correct?

[neik 873]

Happy, this is not a Chromecast specific issue. Also thought that but after testing I can reproduce it every time when I force transcoding (lowering quality) on Google Chrome.

[xsnipuhx 4]

Is there a installer for the version 4.5.1.0?

[Happy2Play 9780]

21 minutes ago, neik said:

Happy, this is not a Chromecast specific issue. Also thought that but after testing I can reproduce it every time when I force transcoding (lowering quality) on Google Chrome.

Devs will need supporting logs.  I can only get it to fail on Chromescast.  No issues on browsers or IOS app.

[Happy2Play 9780]

10 minutes ago, xsnipuhx said:

Is there a installer for the version 4.5.1.0?

https://github.com/MediaBrowser/Emby.Releases/releases/tag/4.5.1.0

[xsnipuhx 4]

6 minutes ago, Happy2Play said:

Devs will need supporting logs.  I can only get it to fail on Chromescast.  No issues on browsers or IOS app.

Here are two logs from this morning.

ffmpeg-transcode-43f5dbdd-c5fa-4aa5-b844-bbcab9fbe86b_1.txt ffmpeg-transcode-970d676a-23df-470c-9aba-6391caebc49d_1.txt

[Happy2Play 9780]

14 minutes ago, xsnipuhx said:

Here are two logs from this morning.

ffmpeg-transcode-43f5dbdd-c5fa-4aa5-b844-bbcab9fbe86b_1.txt 97.01 kB · 0 downloads ffmpeg-transcode-970d676a-23df-470c-9aba-6391caebc49d_1.txt 94.78 kB · 0 downloads

These are the Pixel XL casting to Chromecast, correct?

>> ThrottleBySegmentRequest: Latest request position unknown

 

Edited October 27, 2020 by Happy2Play

[xsnipuhx 4]

Correct. I was also experiencing it on a Galaxy tab A and a Pixel 3a before i reinstalled. Unfortunately I won't be able to recreate those logs until I get home.

Edit: Pixel 2 as well.

Edited October 27, 2020 by xsnipuhx

[neik 873]

Here is a log when the throttle wasn't kicking in.
What I did: Just started the movie, lowered the quality to force transcoding and let it run f or couple of minutes. At the end the buffer was at more than 4 min and kept going.

ffmpeg-transcode-54d4d97f-0c78-481c-b4b8-3ce6d58af9f2_1.txt

[Happy2Play 9780]

1 minute ago, neik said:

Here is a log when the throttle wasn't kicking in.
What I did: Just started the movie, lowered the quality to force transcoding and let it run f or couple of minutes. At the end the buffer was at more than 4 min and kept going.

ffmpeg-transcode-54d4d97f-0c78-481c-b4b8-3ce6d58af9f2_1.txt 150.05 kB · 0 downloads

But the log clearly shows throttling is happening.  I am guessing not enough throttling to appear on the dashboard yet.

snippet from log

	Line 101: >> ThrottleBySegmentRequest: Latest request position unknown
	Line 109: >> ThrottleBySegmentRequest: RequestPosition: 00:00:12 - TranscodingPosition: 00:00:14 - ThrottleBuffer: 3s (Treshold: 120s)
	Line 119: >> ThrottleBySegmentRequest: RequestPosition: 00:00:18 - TranscodingPosition: 00:00:19 - ThrottleBuffer: 1s (Treshold: 120s)
	Line 130: >> ThrottleBySegmentRequest: RequestPosition: 00:00:24 - TranscodingPosition: 00:00:26 - ThrottleBuffer: 2s (Treshold: 120s)
	

 

[neik 873]

Then either the logs aren't correct or the dashboard isn't showing it correctly.

According to the dashboard it was nearly 5min of buffer which is more than enough for it to stop continueing buffering.
Yesterday, I let it go for a little longer and ended up with more than 10min of buffer, so there definitely is something wrong.

Devs need to look at this.

[Carlo 4560]

Logs tell the story. Always trust the logs.

[neik 873]

7 minutes ago, cayars said:

Logs tell the story. Always trust the logs.

I am not sure if we are reading the log correctly.

If I have a look at my log above then I see it went till minute 8-ish and that corresponds to what the dashboard showed me.
Buffer was at about 5min and the playback at about minute 3. 

[xsnipuhx 4]

Tested out Firefox on my computer at home. Throttle activated just fine while transcoding to firefox. It appears to be a chromecast specific issue. Also, might be related that the chromecasts are randomly freezing for small to long moments at a time. Even happens on the new google chromecast for tv.

ffmpeg-transcode-c09101f9-88d0-4882-b556-a7180e4caff1_1.txt

[neik 873]

Can we please have some sort of feedback from the devs?
I can reproduce this anytime I try...

@Luke, @softworkz

[Luke 42077]

@VirtualLlama I've merged your topic into here. Thanks.

[softworkz 5066]

It's in the first log line: ThrottleBySegmentRequest is an alternate throttling algorithm to ThrottleByStreamBufferSize.

I think it had been activated for testing but left forgotten to revert or make it configurable.

 

[xsnipuhx 4]

Interesting. Is this something I can fix on my end or will it fix itself in the next patch?

[neik 873]

4 hours ago, softworkz said:

It's in the first log line: ThrottleBySegmentRequest is an alternate throttling algorithm to ThrottleByStreamBufferSize.

I think it had been activated for testing but left forgotten to revert or make it configurable.

 

So, will it be improved or just reverted?

[Luke 42077]

We're looking into it. Thanks for reporting.

[softworkz 5066]

Today's beta includes an option for switching, but it's not in the UI yet.

To change the option, you need to:

• Got to the server dashboard >> Transcoding
• Just click "Save" without changing anything
• In your local file system, navigate to Emby's 'config' folder
• Open the file 'encoding.xml'
• Find the 'ThrottlingMethod' element
• Replace 'BySegmentRequest' with 'ByStreamBufferSize'
• Restart Emby Server

 

[xsnipuhx 4]

Thank you!!

[neik 873]

14 hours ago, softworkz said:

Today's beta includes an option for switching, but it's not in the UI yet.

And what exactly can we now switch to?

What is better (or different) with the new implementation?

[ebr 16169]

1 hour ago, neik said:

And what exactly can we now switch to?

 

16 hours ago, softworkz said:

Replace 'BySegmentRequest' with 'ByStreamBufferSize'