playback from windows server to Shield TV keeps pausing/stopping

[spon 26]

Hello. I have an issue where playback will pause/freeze on my Android TV (windows server). Connection to the Shield and PC are both via Ethernet. Attached is the log file. 

I am on the latest versions of the Android app and windows server. 

Thank you!

 

embyserver.txt

Edited April 17, 2021 by spon

[Carlo 4561]

Before looking at the server log can you play this back again and take a snap shot of Stats for Nerds from the Shield (on the cog menu)?
If there is an ffmpeg log generated for that time please upload that as well.

Otherwise let us know the episode/movie being played so we know what is played in the server log.

Thanks

[Luke 42079]

@spon ?

[spon 26]

hey guys, sorry for the delay. Here is a screenshot from the Stats For Nerds and a fresh server log. There is no relevant ffmpeg log.

One thing that I noticed after playing around with it is that the Quality is showing at 110MB/s. If I manually change it to 5 or 10 MB/s, the files play fine. This behavior is reproducible for any file with a high-ish bitrate. I'm playing to a Shield TV Pro, which is connected via Ethernet to the same network as my PC running Emby Server (also on ethernet). 

File name is Snowfall - 4x09 - Sleeping Dogs (Snowfall.S04E09.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP5.1.H.264-NTb).mkv

Thanks again!

*edited* - after resuming playback, the video stopped playing again and this time, the server itself seemed to lose connection with the Shield. The shield showed no connection at all to the server, however I could access the server from another PC. I uploaded a 2nd server log in case it would help. 

 

embyserver.txt

embyserver 2.txt

Edited April 26, 2021 by spon
uploaded 2nd server log

[Carlo 4561]

Hi, from the server were you still able to ping he Shield?
Perhaps you have a network issue.
Just curious but are using a switch these are plugged into or are they plugged into the router directly?

[ebr 16184]

9 hours ago, spon said:

after resuming playback, the video stopped playing again and this time, the server itself seemed to lose connection with the Shield

That definitely sounds like a network issue.

[spon 26]

Thanks guys. @cayars I am using a switch. I'm going to switch to Wifi and see if that helps. 

[rbjtech 5284]

Ensure all your ethernet connections are actually running at the full capacity.  ie, if 1 gig, then it should say 1 gig.  Even 100Mbit should be perfectly fine for these files - so unless a NIC has negotiated down to only 10Mbit (possible...) then it's unlikely to be the ethernet itself.

 

[spon 26]

6 minutes ago, rbjtech said:

Ensure all your ethernet connections are actually running at the full capacity.  ie, if 1 gig, then it should say 1 gig.  Even 100Mbit should be perfectly fine for these files - so unless a NIC has negotiated down to only 10Mbit (possible...) then it's unlikely to be the ethernet itself.

 

It is a very old switch so it wouldn't surprise me if it's not functioning correctly. I'll look into it. 

[Luke 42079]

Let us know how you get on. Thanks.

[spon 26]

switching to Wifi actually made the issue worse - there were 3 times that playback was "stuck" on a 43 minute TV episode. The problem does seem to be limited to the Shield. I don't have the same issue on either of the FIre Sticks that I'm using in other rooms. 

Maybe I just need to limit the playback bandwidth in the server settings?

[Luke 42079]

4 hours ago, spon said:

switching to Wifi actually made the issue worse - there were 3 times that playback was "stuck" on a 43 minute TV episode. The problem does seem to be limited to the Shield. I don't have the same issue on either of the FIre Sticks that I'm using in other rooms. 

Maybe I just need to limit the playback bandwidth in the server settings?

Or just lower the quality settings in the fire tv app settings.

[spon 26]

19 hours ago, Luke said:

Or just lower the quality settings in the fire tv app settings.

That's what I ended up doing and it's working fine now. The downside is that everything is being transcoded, which I was trying to avoid, but probably no big deal. Interestingly, I have Kodi running on the Shield (using Emby-next-gen) and direct playback works ok there.

Anyway, no further investigation needed on this. Thanks for your help guys.

[Carlo 4561]

For Shield TV have you tried this?

https://support.emby.media/support/solutions/articles/44002058112-shield-tv-direct-file-access

[rbjtech 5284]

11 hours ago, cayars said:

For Shield TV have you tried this?

https://support.emby.media/support/solutions/articles/44002058112-shield-tv-direct-file-access

Kodi will be using this directplay method - so if this works for Kodi, it should work for Emby..

[spon 26]

@cayars @rbjtech thanks for your reply guys. I do have the network shares set up correctly, so I don’t think that is the issue. It’s very strange in that both Emby and Kodi (using emby-next-gen plugin) will Direct Play the files, it’s just that Emby Playback will always get “stuck” at some point during the playback unless I force transcoding, whereas Kodi can play without issues. Odd.

[ebr 16184]

18 hours ago, spon said:

@cayars @rbjtech thanks for your reply guys. I do have the network shares set up correctly, so I don’t think that is the issue. It’s very strange in that both Emby and Kodi (using emby-next-gen plugin) will Direct Play the files, it’s just that Emby Playback will always get “stuck” at some point during the playback unless I force transcoding, whereas Kodi can play without issues. Odd.

Hi.  Did you try with the direct play option in the app?

[spon 26]

On 5/3/2021 at 6:12 AM, ebr said:

Hi.  Did you try with the direct play option in the app?

Hi @ebr, yep, I do have the Direct option set in the app. I did some testing and found that bitrates as low as 4 Mpbs will cause playback on my Shield Pro (lastest Emby version, server on local computer). Less than 2-3 Mpbs and it seems ok. I played a file tonight with Direct Play and playback paused 4 times in the 1 hour episode, but in all 4 instances it resumed after 45 seconds or so. Other files with higher bitrates will pause and never start again - I was playing a 18 Mbps file earlier and it got stuck after just a few minutes and didn't resume. 

Attached is a log file and screen shot of the lower bit rate file from tonight. File name is Giri-Haji - 1x04 - Episode 4 (Giri.Haji.S01E04.iNTERNAL.1080p.WEB.x264-GHOSTS).mkv

embyserver.txt

Edited May 5, 2021 by spon

[ebr 16184]

Hi.  What is the hardware on the server?  What kind of hard drives and how are they setup?  Any USB drives?

This definitely sounds like an I/O bottleneck somewhere.

[spon 26]

15 hours ago, ebr said:

Hi.  What is the hardware on the server?  What kind of hard drives and how are they setup?  Any USB drives?

This definitely sounds like an I/O bottleneck somewhere.

Hi @ebr. The server is on an older windows 10 machine. i5-6500 cpu, 3.5ghz, GTX 960 card. I have 2 Mediasonic 8bay external boxes connected via usb3. I’m able to stream to other more remote rooms at pretty high bitrates but it’s always transcoded bc in the other rooms I’m using fire sticks direct into TVs, so the audio won’t support direct play. 

[ebr 16184]

Is your transcoding temp folder on an internal drive?  If you force a remux or transcode using playback correction in the app, does the problem go away?

[spon 26]

On 5/6/2021 at 5:02 AM, ebr said:

Is your transcoding temp folder on an internal drive?  If you force a remux or transcode using playback correction in the app, does the problem go away?

Hey @ebr sorry for the delayed response. I spent some time testing the wired connect and it appears that most of the problem was relayed to a bad Ethernet connection. I replaced it and the pausing has stopped and Direct Play now works well.

thank you all for the help. I appreciate your time, especially considering the issue was hardware related. 

[Carlo 4561]

Awesome,  thanks for the update!