Emby Server goes down after "some time"

[jbourne 0]

So this is an odd issue I don't exactly know how to describe. Basically, Emby will die on my Windows box after "some time" and become unresponsive. I can sort of access the welcome page, but cannot browse anywhere, cannot get details on any movies / TV shows / etc, literally the only thing that solves it is the Emby service restart (which takes 5 mins+, not sure why, so it's super inconvenient at all times because obviously I only access it when I need it, which means I have to wait, hah).

If I read through the logs, it looks like some threads take 3-10 seconds to reply, which is odd because other times the same tasks are run, they do not take nearly that much time.

The log ends at the point where I force-kill the service and restart it. I did wait for a couple of minutes for something to happen before I killed it, so it's not like a thread was just "working".

This is running on a Windows 2019 VM on VMWare ESXi. Lots of RAM, lots of CPU, so speed shouldn't be an issue.

Appreciate any guidance to help debug this. Thanks a lot!

embyserver-63745135474.txt

[Abobader 3471]

Hello jbourne,

Please wait for someone from staff support or our members to reply to you.

It's recommended to provide more info, as it explain in this thread:

Thank you.

Emby Team

[Luke 42087]

Hi there @jbourne can you please attach the complete emby server log from the beginning when the server was started? Thanks.

[jbourne 0]

Yes sorry. Last one was truncated because there was too much stuff (I was scanning libraries etc).

Here is a new log, this one is literally from post-hang restart until subsequent hang. Immediately after this, I killed the service and restarted it.

It happens quite consistently (3 hours in this case), so if I can turn on additional debugging to try to sort this out, please let me know what I should do. Thanks!

embyserver-63745222026.txt

Edited January 3, 2021 by jbourne

[Carlo 4561]

Hi, are you sure it's hanging?

If you open the server log after this happens do you see anything new being written to the log?  You could wait a few minutes after the "hang" and then check the last time stamp in the log to see if there is any other activity.

 

[jbourne 0]

On 1/3/2021 at 12:46 PM, cayars said:

Hi, are you sure it's hanging?

If you open the server log after this happens do you see anything new being written to the log?  You could wait a few minutes after the "hang" and then check the last time stamp in the log to see if there is any other activity.

 

Yep I'm quite confident it hangs. Look at the last lines in the log:

2021-01-11 17:43:27.813 Info Server: http/1.1 Response 200 to 192.168.5.81. Time: 266ms. http://192.168.5.22:8096/emby/Items/3933/Images/Thumb?maxWidth=874&tag=d94ea698fbcf72fbbd159c2713045efe&quality=50
2021-01-11 17:48:11.039 Info Server: http/1.1 Response 500 to 192.168.5.81. Time: 365017ms. http://192.168.5.22:8096/emby/Users/7b532daf096ead282a/Items/Latest?Limit=16&Fields=PrimaryImageAspectRatio%2CBasicSyncInfo%2CProductionYear%2CStatus%2CEndDate&ImageTypeLimit=1&EnableImageTypes=Primary%2CBackdrop%2CThumb&ParentId=52f1cc5cfe5ba8c9452cebe7bca9e026
2021-01-11 17:49:50.852 Info Server: http/1.1 Response 500 to 192.168.5.81. Time: 464851ms. http://192.168.5.22:8096/emby/Users/7b532daf096ead282a/Items/Resume?Limit=12&Recursive=true&Fields=PrimaryImageAspectRatio%2CBasicSyncInfo%2CProductionYear&ImageTypeLimit=1&EnableImageTypes=Primary%2CBackdrop%2CThumb&EnableTotalRecordCount=false&MediaTypes=Audio
2021-01-11 17:50:04.467 Info Server: http/1.1 Response 500 to 192.168.5.81. Time: 478462ms. http://192.168.5.22:8096/emby/LiveTv/Channels?userId=7b532daf096ead282a&IsAiring=true&limit=24&ImageTypeLimit=1&EnableImageTypes=Primary%2CThumb%2CBackdrop&EnableTotalRecordCount=false&Fields=ProgramPrimaryImageAspectRatio
2021-01-11 17:50:06.750 Info Server: http/1.1 Response 500 to 192.168.5.81. Time: 399202ms. http://192.168.5.22:8096/emby/Items/9600/Images/Primary?maxHeight=490&maxWidth=874&tag=5139e2884ff59fd4d3ead57b30599454&quality=40
2021-01-11 17:50:07.366 Info Server: http/1.1 Response 500 to 192.168.5.81. Time: 470986ms. http://192.168.5.22:8096/emby/Users/7b532daf096ead282a/Items/Latest?Limit=16&Fields=PrimaryImageAspectRatio%2CBasicSyncInfo%2CProductionYear%2CStatus%2CEndDate&ImageTypeLimit=1&EnableImageTypes=Primary%2CBackdrop%2CThumb&ParentId=6c2a057148b4d7c20a207c789aba6d07
2021-01-11 17:50:07.422 Info Server: http/1.1 Response 500 to 192.168.5.81. Time: 481403ms. http://192.168.5.22:8096/emby/Shows/NextUp?Limit=24&Fields=PrimaryImageAspectRatio%2CSeriesInfo%2CDateCreated%2CBasicSyncInfo&UserId=7b532daf096ead282a&ImageTypeLimit=1&EnableImageTypes=Primary%2CBackdrop%2CBanner%2CThumb&EnableTotalRecordCount=false
2021-01-11 17:50:08.404 Info Server: http/1.1 Response 500 to 192.168.5.81. Time: 472019ms. http://192.168.5.22:8096/emby/Users/7b532daf096ead282a/Items/Latest?Limit=30&Fields=PrimaryImageAspectRatio%2CBasicSyncInfo%2CProductionYear%2CStatus%2CEndDate&ImageTypeLimit=1&EnableImageTypes=Primary%2CBackdrop%2CThumb&ParentId=7e64e319657a9516ec78490da03edccb

 

It looks like it hangs on responses - for a LONG time. How can I debug this?

 

[Luke 42087]

Is the embyserver.exe process still running when this happens?

[jbourne 0]

4 minutes ago, Luke said:

Is the embyserver.exe process still running when this happens?

Yes it is. It's still, for example, listening on the Web port - just no response on it.

[jbourne 0]

How can I debug this? I'm ready to try anything, this is INCREDIBLY frustrating - I basically am guaranteed that if I come to Emby after a few hours, it will be hung and I have to restart (and the restart takes ~5 minutes, so it really kills the movie watching mood).

For example, it is hung right now. I get the welcome screen, and the spinning waiting circle.

Here's another log from yesterday. With this one, the server was hung, I restarted it, and about 20 minutes into playing a movie it hung again, so I had to restart it. This is probably the most "concise" log of all as it's relatively short.

I know I'm probably the only person experiencing this so even having a perpetual license doesn't give me any priority with my one-off weird issues, but I would really appreciate some help to try to lock this down... I am almost sure it's probably something on my end that causes Emby to lock up like this, but I would very much like to try to figure out WHAT it is so I can make it stop. I'm happy to run a debugger on the process, or make it dump core and see what it's doing at EXACTLY this moment, or anything really - I'm comfortable opening up the hood and taking it apart if needed, just let me know what to do.

[edit] it looks like I can go to the dashboard / server control page, so it's only the library view that is hanging.

embyserver-63746345680.txt

Edited January 17, 2021 by jbourne

[Carlo 4561]

Hi, By any chance do you have another computer to use for your Emby server?

Running in a VM such as ESX adds a level of hardware abstraction that becomes very hard to diagnose since it's not real hardware.

Alternately have you tried spinning up a new windows VM and installing Emby again in that?

I ask both of these questions because it's likely a "computer" issue when Emby gets hung.