Emby won't start after update and reboot

[uk_philip 0]

Hi. Emby has been working perfect for months, no issues at all. I updated today and rebooted my computer. Since then Emby won't start. I've tried reinstalling, rebooting again, changing ownership of some folders and reading though the forums to see if anyone else has had this same issue. I'm guessing the problem is because Emby can't access "lastversion.txt", I have changed ownership of that file to my user but it still can't access the file.

 

Any help will be greatly appreciated, I don't want to have to completely uninstall and reinstall Emby as my library is huge.

embyserver-63757762432.txt

[uk_philip 0]

I have now tried completely uninstalling emby and reinstalling it. Still getting the same error, gonna try rolling it back  to an older version if I can't get it to work soon

[Q-Droid 989]

Changing ownership can definitely muck things up. Let's see who's running things.

ls -l /var/lib/emby/logs

Should be the emby user but if not you'll have to figure out why. If it's emby then everything under /var/lib/emby should be owned by the same.

chown -R emby /var/lib/emby

[uk_philip 0]

1 hour ago, Q-Droid said:

Changing ownership can definitely muck things up. Let's see who's running things.

ls -l /var/lib/emby/logs

Should be the emby user but if not you'll have to figure out why. If it's emby then everything under /var/lib/emby should be owned by the same.

chown -R emby /var/lib/emby

Thanks for replying! Everything is owned by emby, but when I try to start Emby I still get that same access denied error.

[Luke 42077]

Hi, that's odd. Try deleting the file that it's complaining about and see if that helps.

[uk_philip 0]

16 minutes ago, Luke said:

Hi, that's odd. Try deleting the file that it's complaining about and see if that helps.

Still the same error even though the file it's trying to access no longer exists. Might try installing Beta version instead see if that helps?

embyserver-63757784753.txt

[Luke 42077]

No I think you need to look at the permissions of the /var/lib/emby folder recursively.

Have you taken a look at this?

 

[Q-Droid 989]

Let's do this again and please post the output.

ls -l /var/lib/emby/logs

ls -l /var/lib/emby

ls -l /var/lib/emby/data/lastversion.txt

 

 

 

Edited May 28, 2021 by Q-Droid

[uk_philip 0]

3 hours ago, Q-Droid said:

Let's do this again and please post the output.

ls -l /var/lib/emby/logs

ls -l /var/lib/emby

ls -l /var/lib/emby/data/lastversion.txt

 

 

 

phil@phil-HPE-470uk:~$  ls -l /var/lib/emby/logs
total 37860
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil   401078 May 24 18:23 embyserver-63757481164.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil   505875 May 24 22:57 embyserver-63757497599.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil   743451 May 25 15:11 embyserver-63757555893.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil   697970 May 25 22:48 embyserver-63757584000.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil  8156313 May 26 08:10 embyserver-63757617097.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil  6599627 May 26 22:59 embyserver-63757670400.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil 10433657 May 27 21:10 embyserver-63757750231.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil  1095760 May 27 22:59 embyserver-63757756800.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil    11730 May 28 00:09 embyserver-63757757373.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil    11871 May 28 00:27 embyserver-63757758425.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil    11730 May 28 00:28 embyserver-63757758533.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil    11730 May 28 00:29 embyserver-63757758568.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil    11730 May 28 00:32 embyserver-63757758721.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil    11730 May 28 00:32 embyserver-63757758737.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil    11730 May 28 00:34 embyserver-63757758842.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil    11730 May 28 00:40 embyserver-63757759221.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil    11730 May 28 00:50 embyserver-63757759830.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil    11730 May 28 00:50 embyserver-63757759848.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil    11730 May 28 00:55 embyserver-63757760113.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil   172586 May 27 23:53 embyserver-63757760297.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil    10113 May 27 23:58 embyserver-63757760326.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil    11871 May 28 01:04 embyserver-63757760663.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil    11730 May 28 01:13 embyserver-63757761191.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil    11730 May 28 01:18 embyserver-63757761525.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil    11730 May 28 01:30 embyserver-63757762240.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil    11871 May 28 01:33 embyserver-63757762432.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil    11730 May 28 02:17 embyserver-63757765047.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil    11541 May 28 02:30 embyserver-63757765846.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil    11730 May 28 02:40 embyserver-63757766406.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil    11802 May 28 02:40 embyserver-63757766442.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil    11730 May 28 02:49 embyserver-63757766995.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby emby    11871 May 28 05:06 embyserver-63757775169.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby emby    11730 May 28 05:31 embyserver-63757776702.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby emby    10936 May 28 07:45 embyserver-63757784753.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby emby    11268 May 28 08:17 embyserver-63757786648.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby emby    11268 May 28 08:17 embyserver-63757786673.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby emby    12320 May 28 15:28 embyserver-63757812534.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby emby    12203 May 28 15:37 embyserver-63757813033.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil    31407 May 26 21:28 ffmpeg-remux-22a5bd46-778b-485f-afaf-11caf834da7e_1.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil    26887 May 26 20:38 ffmpeg-remux-ba9ae463-8101-47b7-a1bd-5bb42c61bc0e_1.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil   187755 May 27 20:33 ffmpeg-transcode-0dae079c-6c89-43a4-b97c-077fc734478f_1.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil    19171 May 26 21:33 ffmpeg-transcode-1d811bb4-baa2-43ed-a706-95817abe463e_1.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil  1041338 May 26 05:55 ffmpeg-transcode-4602e901-c382-421f-b275-3d626e854c32_1.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil    20831 May 27 16:45 ffmpeg-transcode-58c38cc7-7342-4044-98b2-e206456b81b2_1.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil  2104125 May 27 17:08 ffmpeg-transcode-629b4ba4-daeb-454d-a307-48f3d6797375_1.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil  1123863 May 26 04:05 ffmpeg-transcode-62d3337d-5cad-411f-88c2-7a8313e14fea_1.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil   856482 May 26 21:42 ffmpeg-transcode-6b833751-8360-4cd3-9e5e-0fc27578d9ef_1.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil  1048399 May 26 22:38 ffmpeg-transcode-6f5559a2-c7ac-45e9-8a3f-349424301e03_1.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil   915352 May 26 05:06 ffmpeg-transcode-75766ebc-7db0-42fa-adf4-2a290b4a76c9_1.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil  1058756 May 26 21:24 ffmpeg-transcode-76de3faf-72ba-41d6-8566-487e02448259_1.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil   158212 May 27 20:31 ffmpeg-transcode-9e6b6071-62ee-41c3-9ea5-d1f5c311eb35_1.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil    27233 May 27 20:31 ffmpeg-transcode-c17a909b-cc79-44dc-90eb-c6cb64aeb065_1.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil   136009 May 27 21:22 ffmpeg-transcode-ecdfd0e3-fbae-4f69-8b48-ccc4435f76e8_1.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil   176229 May 24 18:26 hardware_detection-63757481185.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil   176229 May 25 15:11 hardware_detection-63757555908.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil   176228 May 26 08:11 hardware_detection-63757617105.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 emby phil   176228 May 27 21:11 hardware_detection-63757750272.txt

 

[uk_philip 0]

3 hours ago, Q-Droid said:

Let's do this again and please post the output.

ls -l /var/lib/emby/logs

ls -l /var/lib/emby

ls -l /var/lib/emby/data/lastversion.txt

 

 

 

phil@phil-HPE-470uk:~$  ls -l /var/lib/emby
total 1224
drwxr-xr-x 17 emby phil    4096 May 27 21:30 cache
drwxr-xr-x  5 emby phil    4096 Oct 29  2020 config
lrwxrwxrwx  1 emby phil      18 Jan 14 22:59 data -> /dev/shm/emby-data
drwxr-xr-x  7 emby phil    4096 May 28 01:36 data-static
drwxr-xr-x  2 emby phil   90112 May 28 15:37 logs
drwxr-xr-x  8 emby phil    4096 May 26 08:17 metadata
drwxr-xr-x  3 emby phil    4096 Jan 13 05:08 plugins
drwxr-xr-x  3 emby phil    4096 Jul 19  2020 root
drwxr-xr-x  4 emby phil    4096 Jan 15 17:52 sync
drwxr-xr-x  2 emby phil 1126400 Jan 16 08:14 transcoding-temp

 

[uk_philip 0]

3 hours ago, Q-Droid said:

Let's do this again and please post the output.

ls -l /var/lib/emby/logs

ls -l /var/lib/emby

ls -l /var/lib/emby/data/lastversion.txt

 

 

 

phil@phil-HPE-470uk:~$  ls -l /var/lib/emby/data/lastversion.txt
-rwxr-xr-x 1 emby phil 8 May 28 01:36 /var/lib/emby/data/lastversion.txt

 

[uk_philip 0]

4 hours ago, Luke said:

No I think you need to look at the permissions of the /var/lib/emby folder recursively.

Have you taken a look at this?

 

Why would there be a permissions issue all the sudden? I have been using this fine no problems for about a year now. Seems strange

[Q-Droid 989]

Under normal circumstances I would agree that it seems strange. But you didn't disclose that you appear to be copying the data directory to /dev/shm as part of your startup process. Not exactly a minor detail.

lrwxrwxrwx  1 emby phil      18 Jan 14 22:59 data -> /dev/shm/emby-data

So you have to make sure the emby user has access to that resource as well. Can't tell yet whether this is an Emby,  OS or data staging problem.

 

[uk_philip 0]

1 hour ago, Q-Droid said:

Under normal circumstances I would agree that it seems strange. But you didn't disclose that you appear to be copying the data directory to /dev/shm as part of your startup process. Not exactly a minor detail.

lrwxrwxrwx  1 emby phil      18 Jan 14 22:59 data -> /dev/shm/emby-data

So you have to make sure the emby user has access to that resource as well. Can't tell yet whether this is an Emby,  OS or data staging problem.

 

I didn't know I was copying the data to dev/shm. I followed this guide a few months ago to speed up Emby, could it be something to do with this?

That error is no longer showing but emby still won't start

 

Edit* After using "sudo chown -R emby /dev/shm/emby-data"  Emby started to work again. Thank you so much!!

 

embyserver.txt

Edited May 28, 2021 by uk_philip

[Q-Droid 989]

Good, this is a start and you're not quite done yet. The /dev/shm is a memory backed fs and volatile. So the changes you made to /dev/shm/emby-data will be lost when the host reboots. This is also a good way to lose your Emby databases and everything else in the data directory. A server crash or loss of power or any other unexpected shutdown will leave you without incremental changes made since the previous startup.

You might want to consider cleanly reverting data to the default location in emby home and test to see if performance is acceptable. If you want to stick with /dev/shm then keep the above in mind.

 

 

[uk_philip 0]

20 minutes ago, Q-Droid said:

Good, this is a start and you're not quite done yet. The /dev/shm is a memory backed fs and volatile. So the changes you made to /dev/shm/emby-data will be lost when the host reboots. This is also a good way to lose your Emby databases and everything else in the data directory. A server crash or loss of power or any other unexpected shutdown will leave you without incremental changes made since the previous startup.

You might want to consider cleanly reverting data to the default location in emby home and test to see if performance is acceptable. If you want to stick with /dev/shm then keep the above in mind.

 

 

Thanks. It's stopped working again.

 emby-server.service - Emby Server is a personal media server with apps on just about every device.
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/emby-server.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Fri 2021-05-28 19:28:28 BST; 30s ago
    Process: 5326 ExecStartPre=/opt/emby-server/bin/emby-data_sync.sh (code=exited, status=23)
    Process: 5331 ExecStopPost=/opt/emby-server/bin/emby-data_sync.sh (code=exited, status=23)

May 28 19:28:28 phil-HPE-470uk emby-data_sync.sh[5331]: --> Emby: Sync Disk
May 28 19:28:28 phil-HPE-470uk emby-data_sync.sh[5333]: sending incremental file list
May 28 19:28:28 phil-HPE-470uk emby-data_sync.sh[5333]: rsync: chgrp "/var/lib/emby/data-static/." failed: Operation not permitted (1)
May 28 19:28:28 phil-HPE-470uk emby-data_sync.sh[5333]: ./
May 28 19:28:28 phil-HPE-470uk emby-data_sync.sh[5333]: sent 119,434 bytes  received 1,072 bytes  241,012.00 bytes/sec
May 28 19:28:28 phil-HPE-470uk emby-data_sync.sh[5333]: total size is 1,593,637,353  speedup is 13,224.55
May 28 19:28:28 phil-HPE-470uk emby-data_sync.sh[5333]: rsync error: some files/attrs were not transferred (see previous errors) (code 23) at main.c(1207) [sender=3.1.3]
May 28 19:28:28 phil-HPE-470uk systemd[1]: emby-server.service: Control process exited, code=exited, status=23/n/a
May 28 19:28:28 phil-HPE-470uk systemd[1]: emby-server.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
May 28 19:28:28 phil-HPE-470uk systemd[1]: Failed to start Emby Server is a personal media server with apps on just about every device..

 

 

[Q-Droid 989]

Yup, sync is showing problems. The sync from RAM back to Disk is the one above. I wouldn't be surprised if Disk to RAM is also throwing errors.

[Luke 42077]

Perhaps try turning that off?

[Dan64 30]

The script is working on my system. looking to your logs it seems that your static directory is corrupted

There could be several resons for that, if your system is very slow probably the timer of 5m used in the systemctl service is too low, try to increase it to 10m. Practically you have to change the systemd service as follow:

[Unit]
Description=Emby Server is a personal media server with apps on just about every device.
After=network.target

[Service]
TimeoutSec=10min
EnvironmentFile=/etc/emby-server.conf
WorkingDirectory=/opt/emby-server
ExecStartPre=/opt/emby-server/bin/emby-data_sync.sh
ExecStart=/opt/emby-server/bin/emby-server
ExecStopPost=/opt/emby-server/bin/emby-data_sync.sh
RestartForceExitStatus=3
User=emby

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

But now you have to manually fix your folder. The simpler action could be to run just this command

sudo chown -R emby:emby /var/lib/emby

 

Edited May 29, 2021 by Dan64

[Q-Droid 989]

With the ongoing SQL changes and the recent introduction of DB cache tunables and DB optimization this approach is high risk for low returns. It's fine for users who understand what it does, accept the risk and can fix it when something breaks. And three years ago it could have given big libraries on slowish storage a major perf boost overall. Users on the current release of Emby should reconsider - go back to the default data location if using /dev/shm or at least test to see if the performance boost is noticeable enough to keep it.