Yet Another "Need Help With Direct File Play" Thread

[rcoodey 1]

I was pretty sure I had Direct Play with type FILE, not HTTP, working in the past. But after some upgrades to the NAS firmware, upgrading Emby server to 4.5.4.0, and changes to the library setup it just does not want to do anything but HTTP. The only reason I want FILE is because some UHD 4K movies stutter and I believe this is the means to work around that. Unless there are possibly ways to speed up the web server throughput.

Details of setup:

• Emby client on a Shield Pro 2019
• Emby server on a QNAP NAS (x86 2-core Celeron, 8GB)
• Media is spread across the above NAS and another second QNAP NAS
• All media in MKV format converted from M2TS. They have been striped of all audio but highest quality English audio. PGS subs still exist though rarely used.
• NAS's have SMB (version 1 minimum, 2.1 highest) enabled with the shares allowing read-only guest access
• Emby library folders connecting with SMB using IP (example: \\192.168.1.3\Multimedia)
• Optional shared network folder is set to server name (example: \\NAS\Multimedia)
• NAS and Shield are wired to the same gigabit switch.

Things I have tried:

• Changed optional shared network folder to lowercase server name (example: \\nas\Multimedia)
  • I have seen mixed posts on using uppercase vs. lowercase. Think upper is what is needed?
  • Also tried using the format smb://NAS/Multimedia, which didn't work and thinking the Shield does not want that
• Made sure in the client the "Pass Direct Path" option is checked
• On the Shield, made sure the NAS shares were connected and also tried reconnecting them
  • After clicking on the NAS connection, it is inconsistent for what shares it shows, but the Multimedia share was there
• Tried setting some of the subtitle options both on the client and server to "None" to make sure it was not trying to transcode those

Attached is the embyserver log. Yesterday I would get an ffmpeg log sometimes too but wasn't getting a new one of those today.

Any ideas are much appreciated. Thank you.

embyserver.txt

Edited March 10, 2021 by rcoodey

[ebr 16169]

7 minutes ago, rcoodey said:

because some UHD 4K movies stutter and I believe this is the means to work around that

I'm not convinced that will be the case... but for file access to work you are going to need to be sure everything is setup just right.

[rcoodey 1]

23 hours ago, ebr said:

I'm not convinced that will be the case...

Other thoughts on what it might be then? When I had file access working before it seemed to address this issue.

23 hours ago, ebr said:

but for file access to work you are going to need to be sure everything is setup just right.

I feel I am missing something small, especially since I had it working before. Just not sure what that is at this point. Such a finicky process. Any wild thoughts are appreciated :).

[ebr 16169]

You need to mount the shares to the Shield and then set your network path to access using those mount points IIRC.