Emby Local Playback Micro Pause/Freezes

[Exodus743 0]

Hello! I just started using Emby and really enjoying it except for one issue. Watching on my local network on my Firestick 4k I will get these micro pauses/freezes in the video playback after about 5 to 10 minutes playing a 1080P movie. It does not show any indication that it is buffering and says it is direct playback. Once it starts to do this it will repeat it every 30 seconds to every few minutes. I have tried with Hardware Acceleration turned on and off as well just to see if it was perhaps and encoding issue.

I sent over my log from the Firestick at 10:27pm EST under user Exodus. The PC is running a Ryzen 7 3800X and a ASUS ROG STRIX 2070 Super. I tried setting the Max Streaming Bitrate on the Firestick app to 30mbps instead of auto and it still occurred I then dropped it down to 5mbps and it seemed to occur more frequently then. I have attached the Emby Server log file as well. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time!

embyserver.txt

[Happy2Play 9783]

What is your device playback quality set to?  Is there a ffmpeg log?

2020-11-24 16:54:18.750 Info App: Bitrate exceeds DirectPlay limit: media bitrate: 6521069, max bitrate: 1500000

 

[Exodus743 0]

Hello!  Playback on the server is set to Auto from the looks of it and I do not see any ffmpeg log as shown below. Just server and hardware detection! Thank you for your help.

 

[Carlo 4561]

Those are settings for the web player for THAT ACCOUNT ONLY and not server settings.

There are similar setting in EVERY client.  If these are devices on your home lan where the server is location you may want to try setting them at the max setting and not using auto.

[Exodus743 0]

Ok so I went into the Playback Settings for the Firestick 4k and set the Max Streaming Bitrate to 160 Mbits/Sec and the the pause/freeze still occurs. Is this what you meant by the playback settings for the client?

[Carlo 4561]

Yes that was exactly what I was referring to.

When you're playing these files are they direct playing now or transcoding?  Do you know how to tell?

[Exodus743 0]

It says they are Direct when I am playing the video .

[Carlo 4561]

Is the server and it's media on the same LAN as you're viewing them on?  Everything in house?

[rbjtech 5284]

I would suspect wireless as the emby server hardware looks strong.

Is the signal strong on the FireTV stick ?  Have you tried changing the channel and/or a different radio frequency (2.4/5Ghz) - to see if that makes any difference ?

[Exodus743 0]

Everything in house is on the same LAN. The firestick connected to 5GHz says signal strength is Very Good its also Very Good on the 2.4GHz. However, switching to the 2.4GHz seems to have drastically reduced the occurrence of this issue. Maybe once every 30-45 minutes now. Any ideas why if the signal is Very Good on both?

[Carlo 4561]

Could be latency caused by other devices on the network, interference, etc.

Pretty hard to guess why.

[pwhodges 2014]

Even if there is a good wi-fi signal, could there also be a device nearby that is producing interference, either specifically in the wi-fi bands, or just broadband, which might be strong enough to cause glitches?

Paul

[rbjtech 5284]

Yep - and this is exactly why I suggested to change wifi-channels.  Wifi 'signal' strength has very little to do do with Wifi 'quality' - and when you are streaming, keeping that buffer filled without a hitch is key.  If you change channel - all your devices (should..) automatically tune to the new channel.

 I had an issue on my Samsung Galaxy Tab where it simply would not stream (any bandwidth) without pausing every 2-3 seconds - I could be literally next to my Ubiquiti AP (ie a decent brand) and it would still do it - but by simply changing to a different channel, the issue was resolved 100%.    Other devices were fine - so a combination of factors I guess.